The great irony is that Derby County supporters had real cause to be excited about this season. They had just finished in their highest league position for seven years, offering strong evidence that the financial apocalypse years had steadied into something progressive and hopeful.

Their owner (and saviour) David Clowes openly accepted that greater investment was needed to step up a level, but was funding the project anyway. Derby had their highest net spend on transfers since 2015 – they spent £12m and lost no first-team player other than by choice. Manager John Eustace, an expert in overseeing precarious financial situations, had proved his worth in taking Derby forward.

The recruitment appeared sensible, taking risks in positions where Derby had existing options and plugging gaps with experience. The club had used the European market to seemingly decent effect, signing players from Salzburg, Pisa, Union SG and Padeborn.

And, off the back of all that, Derby sit second bottom of the second tier having suffered their worst ever start to a Championship season. They have the worst home record in the division, which probably needs to improve sharpish given Derby’s next four away opponents are Millwall, Wolves, Southampton and Middlesbrough.

The generous view – and bear with me because this doesn’t generous – is that everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. It’s something that football supporters like to argue over in a fight for miserablism, but Derby might just have had the worst injury crisis of any league club this season. They have currently barely got a defence and their best striker, Patrick Agyemang, ruptured his Achilles in April.

The defensive absentees have, I think, persuaded Eustace to protect his goal. The problem: Derby have still conceded far too many chances and doing so has stymied the creative flair and any attacking quality, thus alienating plenty of supporters who believe performance is being unduly hampered by low-percentage fear football.

The unavoidable conclusion is that Derby have been bad at most things. They rank 22nd for xG for and 22nd for big chances created, but then also 22nd for xG against. They rank 22nd for points gained after conceding first but also 23rd for points dropped after scoring first. They rank 23rd for time spent trailing, almost 43 per cent of their league minutes. 

When (if?) the injuries settle down, Derby will surely improve. There is enough quality for them to avoid relegation, all things being equal. But that is becoming an assumption painted in naivety. Slow starts to football seasons, when the eyes and the numbers damn you, make recovery harder because belief is self-fulfilling for better and worse. 

There are harsh lessons here beyond injury management and bad luck. The chronic lack of goals is causing faith to diminish. The summer recruitment is not providing sufficient return and Derby invested heavily in 2025 too. The owner deserves no shade; he has been generous and honest. Those below him – particularly longtime CEO Stephen Pearce – deserve greater scrutiny.

This summer was a potential turning point for Derby County; this is the elephant in the room of their slow start. All summer, a potential takeover by Turki Al-Sheikh, a Saudi government official and general sports interferer, was on the cards. The deal was ratified by the Independent Football Regulator and got within several days of being completed. At which point, virtually on the eve of the season, Al-Sheikh pulled out and blamed delays and a lack of sufficient time for summer transfer business.

I do not know if Al-Sheikh is a tyre kicker who ever intended to complete that takeover (it would have been weird to go that far in the first place without any determination). I do think that having him as an owner would have been a step in the wrong direction for Derby County’s identity and their long-term future, because of who Al-Sheikh is and the reputation that precedes him. Some supporters will disagree with that; fine. 

But the sheer stress of the experience itself must have changed Derby in some way. It opened Pandora’s Box and shards of bright light shone into their world. It purported to be a game changer. So when that game remains not only unchanged but on-pitch performance immediately makes everybody feel glum, it’s not hard to conclude that frustration will abound and warp into misery in the minds of the pessimists.

That is Derby County’s greatest problem now. It’s not the injuries, for they will clear eventually. It’s not the recruitment worries, although Championship clubs cannot afford many expensive mistakes. It’s not Eustace; I don’t know who would come next and offer realistic hope of lots better. It’s not even all of those in combination, which has created the storm.

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It’s that Derby County exists in a fragile state in the seasons following their financial apocalypse, what I’d label as the fallout years. They are not alone: I’ve seen it or similar at Reading, Sheffield Wednesday, Wigan, Bolton, Scunthorpe United and others. Crisis creates a psychological imbalance: you know you should be grateful but it’s as if only by getting back to where you were can erase the negative thoughts.

Everybody became hardwired towards mistrust and angst in the dark times because that was their emotional self-preservation. So when something systemic goes wrong outside their control, such as a takeover falling through, the auto response is to panic and fret. 

At Derby, that has been followed by a rotten start that provokes concern of what happens next and makes pushing the black thoughts out of your head that bit harder. They need a shift in mood. A few players back from injury might be a start.