Rooney’s Rams are slipping after months of back-breaking work, can they still get the job done?

Football is a strange business but you probably already know that by now if you’re an avid follower of a certain team. Indeed, the easiest opportunities to win against teams down on their luck are normally passed up, which is infuriatingly always followed by beating sides that should, in theory, pose a much bigger threat. It’s a bizarre phenomenon that makes you pull your hair out but it is also one that warns about complacency in football for nothing is ever guaranteed. 

In Derby County’s case, the club have been on a journey that will surely one day end up on a Hollywood screen if they are successful in avoiding relegation from the Championship after being docked 21 points. However, now that the club have put themselves within touching distance of the teams around them after months of truly astounding results, they have begun playing like a team that looks like relegation fodder. Tellingly, anyone betting on football will now notice that the odds on a Derby miracle have slipped with the Rams expected to go down.

The latest football predictions are also considerably less confident about Wayne Rooney’s men avoiding the drop to League One after a run that has seen the Rams win just once in their last five games. So why is the Pride Park side stuttering after the herculean effort they put in to drag themselves out of the mire?

It’s hard to say for certain but you can’t help but feel that the club probably didn’t ever think they would be in a position where survival was a genuine possibility. In this sense, the pressure has been off for many months as Rooney and his men operated without expectation after being condemned to League One by virtually everybody following the severe points sanctions the club was hit with. 

Over this time, the Rams put their heads down and racked up the points by beating some of the league’s best sides in Sheffield United and West Brom, as well as earning a draw with runaway league leaders Fulham. Indeed, Rooney’s charges slowly chipped away at the deficit by defying the odds against the most dominant teams in the division. 

And then, just like that, after months of back-breaking work, Derby arrived in Barnsley’s rearview mirror and even passed them to move into 23rd place in the league; football’s greatest escape was well and truly on. 

From here, it seemed a mere formality that they would now pull away from these teams and put some daylight in between them and those destined for League One. However, the Rams have stalled since putting themselves among the chasing pack and you feel that the club is feeling the pressure now that they could quite conceivably avoid relegation. This certainly hasn’t been the mindset for the majority of the season given that over the last few months, the shackles have been broken which has enabled Wayne Rooney’s side to play with a sense of freedom that has helped them move up the table. The club’s task now is to somehow get used to their new reality and deal with the demands it brings.

Indeed, it may sound like a strange thing to hear given all the trauma the Rams have gone through, but the most challenging part of Derby County’s season may still be ahead of them as they try to manage the pressure of an accomplishment that would arguably be the greatest in the club’s history.

Rooney’s Rams are slipping after months of back-breaking work, can they still get the job done?