Derby County fans hail ‘miracle’ turnaround under John Eustace after ‘huge’ win vs Preston North End

Add as preferred source on Google

Derby County’s incredible revival continues as the Rams claim a fourth successive win, and fans agree it’s all down to John Eustace.

Just two months ago, Derby looked down and out for the count, with relegation back to League One almost certain.

But, the Rams parted ways with Paul Warne and managed to persuade John Eustace to abandon his post at Blackburn Rovers to join them in their dogfight against the drop.

The Championship relegation battle has been a thrilling one to this point, but Derby’s turnaround in fortune has been the best story of recent weeks, and they just wrote a new, very exciting chapter thanks to a 2-0 win over Preston North End.

• READ MORE: John Eustace expected ‘blood and thunder’ from Preston North End earlier this season but Derby County may get off lightly

Derby County’s fate is in their hands now

After a drab, goalless first half, Derby fans were delighted by a quickfire couple of goals from Craig Forsyth and Jerry Yates to put their side in control at Pride Park tonight.

The win and the three points lifts Derby up out of the Championship drop zone, leapfrogging Cardiff City into 20th place. Now, with 39 games played, Derby know that their fate is in their hands.

Taking to social media to celebrate the win — Derby’s fourth in a row — fans heralded their manager as the man responsible for this turning of the tide, and claimed the club can now push on and secure safety this season.

One supporter wrote: “Massive win. We were nearly doomed, now not nearly doomed! Massive four wins.”

Another added, “Well deserved in the end. Certainly upped it second half. Nice to see Yates scoring. Keep it going now,” and a third said, “Out of the relegation zone and all in our hands now. Massive result, Eustace’s barmy army.”

Eustace will be the toast of the town in Derby tonight, that’s for sure. One supporter replied, “Not a chance we would have done that under Paul Warne. I said, when he left, that we would need a miracle to stay up. Eustace is working on that miracle. He’s got these players playing the way we knew they could.”

Another looked at the bigger picture of this current run of form and wrote: “Exactly a month ago we were four points from safety at the bottom. At this rate we’ll finish mid table.”

Finally, one Derby fan simply added, “That is huge, especially mentally. We keep pushing up the league.”

• READ MORE: Derby County fans all ask the same question as new signing suggests John Eustace problem

Derby County couldn’t have done this without John Eustace

It’s easy to say this in retrospect, but Derby certainly did look doomed under Paul Warne, and John Eustace has come in and lit the fire under the players to get them pulling in the right direction and heading for safety.

Without him, Derby would not be on this run and would probably be staring down the barrel of the gun with Plymouth Argyle.

Eustace has quickly put his ‘fingerprints’ on the Derby team, and has clearly motivated them very effectively as well as making slight tweaks here and there to the way the team sets up for games, both in defence and attack.

That’s now two clean sheets in the last four, plus another couple of goals to add to the tally. From back to front, Derby are simply a lot better right now, without even changing personnel in the lineup.

A supercomputer predicted Derby would be relegated still, despite this resurgence. But there’s a certain magic to football that you honestly cannot pin down through data or algorithms or clever computers, and Eustace has captured that at Derby right now.

The next seven games will be massive, but given the confidence flowing through that team at the moment, you’d be a fool to bet against Derby staying up.