FA Premier Reserve League - South
            Pride Park, Derby
       Wednesday 29th August 2007, 7pm

      DERBY COUNTY   V    SPURS
     (White/Black)      (All Yellow)
         4-4-2             4-4-2

          2(2)              2(1)
        Lewis Price  1 Ben Alnwick
    Mitchell Hanson  2 Chris Riley
      Marc Edworthy  3 Cian Hughton
      Mills Addison  4 Jake Livermore
   Michael Johnson(C)5 Phil Ifil (C)
      Matt Richards  6 Leigh Mills
      Paris Simmons  7 Andy Barcham
    Benny Feilhaber  8 Kieran McKenna
  Anthony Robertson  9 Tomas Pekhart
         Jon Macken 10 Kevin-Prince Boateng
         Lee Holmes 11 Jacques Maghoma

        Marc Dudley 12 Tommy Forecast
        (11)46Mins.
    Ben Hinchliffe. 13 Chris Casey
       Mario Loesch 14 Yasser Kasim 
         (8)57Mins.    (2)87Mins
       Robert Ujcik 15 Jonathan Obika 
       (5)74Mins.       (11)29Mins.
      Henrik Ojamaa 16 Terry Dixon

Scorers:-
       Johnson  6       Pekhart  45+1
    Robertson  19       Boateng 62

Booked:-
Johnson 52(Late)        Pekhart 67(Late)
Hanson 58 (Kicked 15)

Attendence:- 700

Referee:- S.Rushton
Assistants:- C.Husband, D.Gratton

Spurs lined up with Ifil and Mills at the back, and with Riley at right back and Hughton at left. In the absence of O’Hara, Livermore joined McKenna in the centre of midfield with Barcham on the right and Maghoma on the left. Boateng started up front with Pekhart, but dropped into the hole during the game.

Spurs kicked off attacking the North Stand, but were soon put under pressure as the home side started brightly. Pekhart and Boateng found themselves on the deck quite a few times as they came up against a physical pair in Johnson and Addison. In truth Spurs were poor in the first half as if they were still on the bus and it was not until the second half that they stood up to the challenges and showed their skill.

Holmes (attacking Riley down the left) won a corner when his centre was put behind. Holmes played a one-two with Hanson before swinging the ball in for Johnson to head back into the corner.

The tight marking kept Spurs away from Price in the Derby goal for over ten minutes before Maghoma had a shot saved. Holmes again got down the left crossing to Robertson to head against the crossbar. Boateng had a weak shot go wide before he hit a free kick from 25 yards over the bar. Another free kick found Pekhart in the area but his weak effort was easily saved by Price.

Maghoma had to leave the game with an injury which had him walking very gingerly. Just after this Riley had to change his shirt and then go off to change his shorts. I thought it was because of blood, but it turned out that he had the wrong logos on his kit and the ref asked for him to change (for television I understand).

The home side were on top for most of the half and Robertson headed over and Feilhaber had a 30 yard effort saved before they increased their lead. Following a Spurs free kick the ball was cleared for Simmons to get past Barcham and he played in Robertson who shot under Alnwick.

With a minute of the half left Macken hit a cross shot that grazed the far post. Spurs then conjured up a goal in time added on when Derby failed to clear the ball and Livermore won it and slipped it through to Boateng. He laid the ball inside to Pekhart in space on the 18 yard line. Tomas had time to control the ball before shooting under Price.

Derby started the second half without the dangerous Holmes, but his replacement Dudley forced Alnwick into a save early on. Clive Allen had the team in a more determined mood after the interval and pulled Boateng a little deeper and spread the balls to Barcham and Obika.

Boateng began to have more time and despite the little tricks began to play the ball around allowing more pressure on their defence. Pekhart stood up more and forced Price into a save and Johnson was booked when he brought him down. Macken had another effort saved, but Spurs were getting on top with Barcham and Obika making headway down the flanks. Hanson was booked when he kicked out at Obika on the ground. Barcham was sent away with a pass from Boateng and won a corner. When the corner was not cleared and when the ball came back in Boateng applied an overhead kick to put it into the net via a post. Boateng was now pulling the strings setting up attacks and causing Derby to defend deeper.

Edworthy cleared off the line and Boateng stooped low to head a free kick into the ground and onto the crossbar. The Rams put on an extra attacker and pushed forward in the final fifteen minutes with Alnwick saving from Ujcik. Macken hit a fierce shot that he could not hold, but luckily Mills blocked the follow up by Simmons. Kasim replaced Riley and his first touch was to play in Barcham, but his shot was blocked. Barcham had another effort go wide. Derby were reduced to ten men when Robertson limped off, but they had the final chance when good work by Macken sent Hanson to the line. His cross was hit over by Loesch in stoppage time.

It looked like the game was over at half time as we were playing so badly, but turned it around in the second half and could have won it. The draw was a fair result with the performance of both sides. I thought that we missed O’Hara in the first half as Boateng was not a patch on him and spent most of the half complaining about his treatment, as did a lot of Spurs players. Boateng was a lot better in the second half and could be better than O’Hara if he continues to improve. We started slowly and our passing was poor and defending bad.

Spurs will take a while to adjust to the loss of O’Hara, Daniels and Barnard. Our first home game will be on Monday when we entertain Birmingham at Brisbane Road. Before that the U-18’s are at home to Southampton at Spurs Lodge on Saturday.

Ray

Follow @spursodyssey