The term ‘holiday’ applies mainly to football fans during the summertime - but hardly to football managers and club directors. Our club has been busier than many during the close-season transfer market - but will it bring success in 2011-12?

The ‘close season’ is a misnomer for any club, because activity off the field is intense - and Pride Park Stadium has been buzzing with action to re-shape the club and pull it out of its torpor.

The bosses have to snatch a deserved break to recharge their batteries once the season finishes  - and necessarily spend most of their time re-assessing and altering their playing squads and planning for the new season.

Alongside our reports of the pre-season friendly games, I guess you could say that the new season on RamZone starts here! I’m taking a look at our (many) shortcomings during 2010-11 and the remedies that the Rams have elected to put in place for 2011-12.

I’ll follow up with separate articles that will take a look at the rest of the Championship clubs, complete with some foolhardy verdicts on how they all might fare in the new season!

There was a whole darn lot to put right this summer at Derby County where it matters most - on the field of play. Season 2010-11 was characterised by disappointments, decline and a frustrating inconsistency.

After a flurry of home wins in an exciting autumn spell which lifted the team into the top 4, the belief fell away as the paucity of the squad was exposed. By Christmas, fans suspected that another season of struggle was all that would follow. Their suspicions were confirmed - and they let the club know how they felt about it.

Derby County had to respond. A brave face from Mr Glick, some February loan signings that proved critical to Championship survival, a promise of investment, the deferment of the season ticket renewal deadline by a month on the suggestion of the supporters’ trust all followed. Derby survived - again by a small margin - and the club set about upgrading the playing staff.

The penny has dropped that you have to attract good players to the club and entertain and excite supporters - English fans are not seduced or distracted by offers for mobile phones or access to tax & wealth consultants. English football fans want football, plain and simple, and not relentless corporate networking that is conveyed as progress.

Derby’s lowly league position and perceived lack of ambition also depleted the attractiveness of the Rams to better players in the 2010-11transfer windows - not to mention making top scorer Kris Commons’ decision to join Glasgow Celtic a no-brainer for him. The Rams’ owners GSE had to vamp up the club’s profile and re-assert their intentions to invest and fulfil the club’s potential.

Now, they have begun to re-invent the football side of Derby County as an ‘aspirational brand’. Their declared intentions were to obtain quality players with experience and they promised a top-six place next season.

A football club like Derby County simply cannot peddle an ambiguous, slow philosophy of treading water with marginal progress - because all the other clubs started swimming past us!

We want to be an established force, more like Stoke City, Fulham or Bolton, and not like Watford or Millwall, or Blackpool - clubs that the Derby regime has variously (and to my mind, wrongly) held up as paradigms of success.

Face it, Derby - only Premier League consolidation and respect can restore badly damaged pride for Derby County fans after the last four seasons.

Derby went from the extremes of the ill-fated Paul Jewell being allowed to give out contracts like confetti to all kinds of average players to current boss Nigel Clough paring down the squad and slashing the wage bill.

There was an incipient depletion of the squad, both in numbers and in quality. GSE clearly hoped that Clough could work miracles - without having two buttons to rub together for most of his tenure. He’s had to shove full-backs into central defence, put half-fit centre-halves at full back, and anyone half-fit at centre-forward. No blend, no consistency, and precious little quality.

The weaknesses were exposed - and fans endured a torrid second half of the 2010-11 season. Every department of the team looked weak. The goalkeeping post saw Bywater in dubious form and motivation, youngsters exposed, then Brad Jones and Frank Fielding stabilising the position.

Remedy: Frank Fielding can become a solid No. 1 for Derby and Adam Legzdins looks like a rising star, a much stronger deputy than the previous nervous and inexperienced bench-warmers.

We weren’t competitive in the air in defence. We were constantly out-jumped - especially at set pieces. We were beaten too regularly in aerial challenges and not always by big, bustling players - and concede orthodox (soft) goals. The coaching wasn’t working, and/or more players than Tomasz Cywka have proved ‘not very bright’.

Sean Barker’s lack of fitness may have contributed to this weakness, as his jumping was sometimes slow or inadequate - and the other centre-halves used (perhaps excepting Ayala) were just soft touches.

We couldn’t defend from throw-ins. We were regularly caught out by teams simply taking throws short and playing the ball into the danger area - goals conceded at Norwich and vs. Bristol City typified this trend. We were not vigilant or attentive enough, we were often slow to react and it was all further aggravated by weak goalkeeping. Some players simply didn’t do their jobs.

Remedy: new recruit Jason Shackell is a formidable presence and given the fitness of both himself and Shaun Barker together, the defence should be much tighter. John Brayford is top-class and Gareth Roberts (if fit) can be steady - though cover is still needed in that position.

We didn’t score goals from midfield. The goalscoring records of Bailey, Pearson, Savage, Green, and the others give any confirmation needed. They’re usually hard-pushed to contribute 10 goals between them in a campaign! A successful side needs a couple of midfielders that get 10 goals apiece in a season, to supplement the top goalscorers.

Remedy: Nathan Tyson and Craig Bryson can beef up the delivery to strikers and weigh in with goals themselves. A lot is riding on those players adapting well and having a good season - but an experienced ‘sitting’ midfield player to do a better job that Robbie Savage could at his age is still a requirement, as is some genuine creativity.

Ben Davies, James Bailey and Jeff Hendrick all have an opportunity to make a name for themselves at Derby as well, and as there is also Cywka, Pearson and Croft in the mix for midfield attacking options, it is looking a fair bit healthier. Fight for those places, all you boys!

Recognised goalscorers were conspicuous by their absence once Commons departed in January. None of the strikers left on the books were remotely close to 10 goals a season themselves!

The attack badly lacked a focal point; this was the blindingly obvious shortcoming since the departure of Hulse, and then after the all-to-brief ‘golden spell’ with Shefki Kuqi.

The inability of Messrs Glick & Clough to replace those players was one of the biggest failures of the season and January 2011 was one of the worst months on and off the field in the club’s history. Chickens came home to roost with gaps all over the team and a powder-puff attack.

Remedy: Permanent deals for Jamie Ward and Theo Robinson and the addition of Scottish forward Chris Maguire have reinforced the ranks and I especially expect Ward to thrive and become a successful player at Derby County. Clough will have more options at hand, with Steve Davies hopefully fit for a change, and Callum Ball maturing further.

Derby still however needs to recruit a centre-forward who can receive and hold the ball to bring other players into the game, and absorb the punishment from defenders.

The importance of a Steve Howard, Rob Hulse, or Shefki Kuqi ‘battering ram’ to make the ball ‘stick’ upfield cannot be overstated, as the absence of one was a major reason why Derby spent so much time defending (not very successfully) for the most part of 2010-11.

The squad remains a ‘work in progress’ and fans aren’t yet convinced that enough has been spent on experienced Championship players. There has also been a disappointing lack of a ‘marquee’ striker signing - and the present failure to add in a sprinkling of Premier League or Continental class, leaves the club short on true quality.

Welcome though the significant investment in Jason Shackell is, he’s a defender.  Previous Rams’ promotion teams have all possessed an extra spark further up the field, though there is still plenty of time for Derby to recruit until the end of August and the closure of the transfer window.

The sale of Luke Varney bought in a welcome £750k - which effectively paid for Maguire and Bryson, so fans still await signs of a ‘marquee’ signing. Many think that a proven striker or accomplished midfield schemer is needed to raise Derby’s game beyond the merely adequate. Now it’s over to you, Mr Glick.

It’s all gone quiet regarding the intended recruitment of a ‘football technical director’, too - but perhaps that individual will roam the transfer and loan markets with a wider scope and more enterprise? 

Do I feel that Derby County can achieve their re-stated ambition of arriving in the promotion pack in May 2012? I’m not truly convinced - a Championship centre-half as the major signing doesn’t set the pulse racing.

However, I think we have as good a chance as most clubs in the league. I cannot see us ‘doing a QPR’ but my heart (more than my head) says we will manage to claim a top six place.

The Rams are halfway through their programme of pre-season friendlies, having won comfortably at Burton Albion and drawn with Macclesfield and Morecambe. Derby have looked attractive and maintained a passing game, and they do still have key players battling back to fitness.

Derby will need a little more steel and a little more class to turn the promise into a cold hard Championship points total of 70+ come next May; that’s what’s needed for a top six spot - and if some further high-calibre recruitment takes place, there could be a vast contrast to the previous three very weak seasons, in terms of both achievement and entertainment.

So, season 2011-12 draws ever closer. We need a good start, a lack of injuries, new players to blend and acclimatise rapidly - and by the time the clocks go back, we’ll know if what Messrs Clough and Glick got up to ‘on their holidays’ was the right recipe for Derby or not!

Tell us what YOU think of these comments and add your own discussion on Derby’s prospects to the RamZone 2011-12 previews!

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