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Derby in top flight
Derby County beat West Bromwich Albion 1-nil at Wembley in the Championships play-off final to book their place in the Barclays English Premiership next season.
I thought the Baggies played well in the first half dominating possession and creating a few chances. I think the idea was to score an early goal but that didn't happen and the Rams had a breakthrough early in the second half through Stephen Pearson. Once the Rams scored I just thought that was it because I know they can defend very well and it proved to be so.
I think Derby deserve their place in the Premiership even though its at the expense of my team. They were consistent throughout the season and it was some poor results towards the end that cost them automatic qualification.
The Rams had a clear game plan for the final and that was to stop the Baggies from playing their attacking football and in particular to stop Jason Koumas from dominating midfield play. That worked and also they had their own good chances.
For the Baggies its back to the drawing board and try and prepare for next season. The manager Tony Mowbray will now have a full season to plan for which is good because he came in the middle of last season.
My only fear is that we may lose key players like Jason Koumas and Diomansy Kamara. They have been key this season and may not fancy another season in the Championship especially if the premiership clubs coming knocking.
West Brom's loss means that it becomes the only one of the relegated sides from last season to miss out on promotion after the elevation of both Birmingham and Sunderland.
Congratulations to Derby but I think they are just going up to go down. Unless they spend massively and I mean massively, they are just going to be like Watford - one season wonders. To start with they need a new strike force because their current strikers will not trouble any premiership defence. Only their defence can stand up to some scrutiny the rest is just average.
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Thanks for the comment Larrian. I actually think that every promoted team will need to strengthen their squads in a number of areas and the same goes for Sunderland and Birmingham. If Billy Davies can bring in the right type of players, then they can be competitive in the premiership but as you may know the biggest problem is getting those right kind of players. I say right kind of players because if you look at Reading, they didn't go and get some star players but got players that could easily fit into their setup and they ended up challenging for Europe instead of skirting with relegation.
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