Derby County endured a disappointing result on Tuesday night, falling at home to relegation threatened Charlton Athletic to waste their only game in hand on League One leaders Portsmouth.
The visitors came to Pride Park in midweek, having failed to win a single game in 16 matches but had picked up form since Nathan Jones replaced Michael Appleton in the dugout, earning two hard-fought points against third-place Bolton Wanderers and top-of-the-table Pompey.
However, the Addicks managed to ease some much-needed pressure off their shoulders by winning an impressive three points at the home of the Rams. Despite trailing in the first half through an Eiran Cashin goal, Charlton turned the game around in the final twenty minutes or so with an equaliser from Alfie May and a winner from 19-year-old Karoy Anderson.
After the match, the stats made for difficult reading for Derby County. The hosts registered 12 shots throughout the proceedings which was more than Jones’ side but recorded an xG of merely 0.66 to their opponent’s 1.67. 0.79 of Charlton’s xG was from the penalty spot, but their non-penalty xG total was 0.88, which was still higher than Derby’s.
Head coach Paul Warne deployed new signing Dwight Gayle up top but the former Stoke City man failed to have a single shot during his time on the pitch before being hooked after the hour mark, having had very little impact on the match.
Speaking on the What The EFL? Podcast after the defeat, former Arsenal man Adrian Clarke criticised the decision to start Gayle up top on his own and believes the 34-year-old may not be able to do so in the future [quotes via Derbyshire Live]:
“I did look at the team [against Charlton]. They had Dwight Gayle up top on his own and they had [Martyn] Waghorn, [Tom] Barkhuizen and [Louie] Sibley all on the bench,” he continued.
“I just don’t know about Dwight Gayle after he’s been out, he’s had such little football, I don’t know if he’s the man to be leading the line on his own.”
Writer’s View
It’s really difficult to say whether or not Gayle will be a success story with Derby County or not given he has played just a handful of matches for the Rams thus far and there is still plenty of football remaining in the season.
However, across the last four campaigns with three different clubs, the experienced frontman has found the net merely four times in all competitions which isn’t great reading for a club that are trying to claw back a seven-point gap on Portsmouth.
Be the first to comment