Burnley
Blackburn Rovers
Coventry City
Derby County
Leeds United
Luton Town
Middlesbrough
Millwall
Norwich City
Portsmouth
Sheffield Wednesday
Sheffield United
QPR
Derby County were incredibly successful in March 2025, as the threat of relegation started to take over in the East Midlands.
When John Eustace left Blackburn Rovers for the Rams a month prior, eyebrows were raised and a tough start to life at Pride Park did not help him in his attempts to prove the doubters wrong.
However, after three straight defeats, Derby went on to win their next four matches, starting with victory over Blackburn in DE24 before they welcomed Coventry City onto their own patch.
Many expected the Sky Blues to pick up a relatively comfortable win against a side who looked destined for League One, but the Rams had other plans, much to the disappointment of Frank Lampard.
- READ MORE – Liam Manning teases full debut for £6.9m Norwich City ace vs Watford, he’s ‘pushing for a start’
Frank Lampard took issue with the state of the Pride Park pitch after the defeat to Derby County in March
Having left Derby for Chelsea in the summer of 2019, the clash back in March marked Lampard’s first game back at Pride Park since he guided them to the Championship play-off final in the 2018/19 campaign.
However, it was not the welcome that he would have wanted as the Rams made it two wins from two in the league thanks to goals from Matt Clarke and Marcus Harness. Yet, the Coventry boss was left frustrated with the pitch that his team had to play on.
He said (via: ccfc.co.uk): “We were going to lose at some point and these are a team who are fighting, they’re direct, they have the ball in the air a lot and they put a lot of focus on set pieces. They made that count today and we gave them the lead after starting in control.
“They didn’t give us any space behind, which is normal when you’re facing a team like this, and the goals were always going to be critical in a game like this.
“We didn’t want to concede the types of goals that we did, and we’ve been pretty good at not doing that in the time that I have been here, so it affects the game – obviously.
“Derby are in a moment after their two early goals at the weekend, so there is a lot of fight and we gave them something to hang on to. That makes it hard because they’re very happy to drop deep which, on this pitch, makes it hard to play through them.
“Having been on the run that we’re on, I am not too down or despondent. It was not an application problem, it’s just a game that has gone against us. How we react will be as important as anything.”
- READ MORE – Rav van den Berg transfer saga comes to an end as Middlesbrough agree £11.2m deal for star man
Frank Lampard will not have the same complaints on Saturday at Pride Park
Derby ripped up the pitch at Pride Park over the summer with a new surface now awaiting the Rams and Coventry ahead of this weekend’s fixture.
This should make it easier for the Sky Blues to play the free-flowing football that they have been known for under Lampard, while it also allows Eustace to operate slightly differently compared to last season.
Both sides are looking for a response to last weekend, with Coventry being held to a point by Hull City at home.
Derby are likely to start slowly this season as players return from injury, but with Corey Blackett-Taylor now out for six weeks, Eustace’s list of problems is starting to growing once again.