After gifting Blackpool a point last Tuesday, a win against Derby County was vital in order to steer clear of the drop zone. And the biggest questions on Blues fans’ lips were answered.

After a dreadful first 45 minutes in which Blues were second best against a poor Rams side, it was as clear as daylight that something had to change. Connor Sammon, probably one of the worst forwards I have seen, was giving us the runaround. Yes, he’s big and burly, but he has limited ability and I’d expect a defender like Paul Caddis to deal with him a lot better than he did. In fairness to the man on loan from Swindon, he got to grips with him in the second half. He realised that if he puts a foot in against him, nine times out of ten, he would win. It took him an hour to realise it, but he got there.

I actually thought Blues came out well for the first ten minutes or so without actually creating a great deal. As soon as Nigel Clough’s men got a foot hold on proceedings, it was grim viewing for the St Andrews faithful. Truth be told, Derby were good value for their half time lead, but only because we were so poor.

At the half time interval, Lee Clark really earned his money as even Stevie Wonder could see that Blues needed a change in personnel. The ineffective Chris Burke was replaced by Nathan Redmond and Peter Lovenkrands made way for the black Van Persie, Wes Thomas. The changes hardly got the pulses racing… at least we thought not. What a completely different team Blues were in the second period. Add Ravel Morrison to the aforementioned changes and we actually looked decent.

From the moment Thomas put Blues back in it with a masterful strike, all his own doing, we could see the game was there to be won. And when Redmond put Blues ahead with a beauty, all that was left was the icing on the cake, which Thomas provided in stoppage time. The loudest I’ve heard the Tilton for a long while “How shit must you be, we’re winning at Home”, kind of summed up the feelings of the fans this season. Improvement has been here for a while now, and with the defence looking solid for large parts of this game, Blues are that little bit closer to survival.

Blues- Butland 7, Ferguson 7, Robinson 7, Davies 7, Caddis 6, Elliott 6, Reilly 6, Spector 6, Burke 5, Lovenkrands 5, Zigic 6. SUBS USED- Redmond 7, *THOMAS 8, Morrison 7.

By Rob Wildey

Prediction results…

Unfortunately none of you predicted the exact scoreline, but well done to @GreggCollett and @SmithyBCFC88 for predicting a Blues win. And shame on all of you who said 2-1 to Derby!