Derby can use play-off pain to come again in Championship

An often-quoted football cliché says you can’t win anything with kids, but Steve McClaren came so close to confounding critics at Derby County last season. His Rams, beaten in the Championship play-off final thanks to one punished mistake by QPR, are 11/4 with Coral to go one better and be promoted this season.

Both Derby and their bitter rivals Nottingham Forest will each look on enviously at East Midlands neighbours Leicester City playing in the Premier League. McClaren, who managed the Reds with disastrous results, is looking to take the Rams to the Promised Land by playing attractive, expansive and, above all, enthusiastically youthful football.

With the Football League season still a fortnight away at the time of writing, County have happily managed to hang on to their star turns from the ‘oh so nearly’ campaign of 2013/14. Top scorer Chris Martin (10/1 to be leading Championship marksman) and box-to-box midfielder Craig Bryson, who both play international football for Scotland, are set to stay at Pride Park.

Other Scots, Craig Forsyth and Johnny Russell, also formed a successful left-sided partnership at Derby, which must deliver more of the same, namely goals and guile, in support of the exploits of Bryson and Martin. Continuity must come in the take on all-comers mentality instilled by McClaren into these more seasoned pros and the younger Rams.

This tone was set early on in the ex-England coach’s Pride Park reign when County came from a goal down at half time against Blackpool at home to win 5-1. Two red cards for the visitors that day notwithstanding, this swashbuckling ‘great entertainers’ style was repeated in the 4-1 demolition of Brighton in the play-off semi-final second leg.

George Thorne perhaps scored the pick of the goals that day in May, but the deep-lying playmaker will have little influence on proceedings for Derby this season. Shortly after signing permanently from West Bromwich Albion, the 21-year-old sustained cruciate ligament damage in a pre-season friendly against Zenit St Petersburg and will miss nine months.

It would be a major blow, but McClaren has still kept hold of prized asset Will Hughes. The highly-rated England youth international, 19, continues to develop apace and, if remains at the Rams, will soon rack up 100 senior club appearances. There are, however, two players from last term that need replacing.