Burnley
Blackburn Rovers
Coventry City
Derby County
Leeds United
Luton Town
Middlesbrough
Millwall
Norwich City
Portsmouth
Sheffield Wednesday
Sheffield United
QPR
After just two games, this season has already thrown up a couple of surprises for Derby County.
They’ve been involved in two high-scoring clashes already, and unfortunately for John Eustace, they have been on the wrong side of those results.
A 5-3 defeat to Coventry City last weekend was both surprising and alarming for the Rams with the team struggling greatly at the back, as the Sky Blues tasted victory at Pride Park for the first time since 2003.
Frank Lampard was in charge of Coventry at Derby on Saturday, but he will still have fond memories of his former club and in particular one afternoon at Carrow Road. It’s also one that will be very familiar to the referee of the Rams’ clash against Bristol City on Friday.
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Frank Lampard could not believe Derby County’s 4-3 win over Norwich City in 2018
David Webb will take charge of Derby vs the Robins at Pride Park this weekend, and while he has officiated the East Midlands outfit more recently than 2018, he will never forget that day in Norfolk between Norwich City and the Rams.
What had been a busy, yet relatively normal festive match between the two Championship sides was sent into chaos after a floodlight failure in one corner of Carrow Road in the 83rd minute. The Canaries were 3-2 up at the time, but play was suspended for 20 minutes as work was done to bring it back on.
When it did, Derby took full advantage with Florian Jozefzoon equalising before an injury time winner from Jack Marriott. After the game, Lampard was astounded and said (via: Sky Sports): “It was a game which had everything and I don’t think I have been involved with one like that before.
“I have certainly never gone back to the dressing room and then come back like that before and as a manager I have never been involved in a game with two late goals like that.
“I think the delay worked in our favour because Norwich had just scored their goal and the momentum was with them. It was bad timing for them and good timing for us because it gave us the chance to reorganise things and I thought David Nugent did a superb job when he came on, playing a part in both our goals.
“Norwich will be saying they deserved something from the game, and they would have [deserved] a point to be fair, but I think we deserved this for the way we came out after the delay. The players deserve so much credit for coming away from a tough place like this with three points.”
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David Webb’s last game in charge of the Rams did not go well for John Eustace
This is the 25th game involving Derby that Webb will have officiated, with the most recent coming against QPR back in February.
It was Eustace’s first match in charge of the Rams after leaving Blackburn Rovers, and his side were put to the sword by the R’s at Loftus Road in a 4-0 drubbing.
Meanwhile, Bristol City have won just one of their last nine games while Webb has been in charge and Gerhard Struber will be hoping to put an end to that awful run on Friday.
With the Sky Sports cameras at Pride Park, there could be fireworks as Derby look to put an end to their dreadful start to the season as the Robins look to make it two wins from three.