The Rams grab a last-gasp winner to start the 2018-19 season top of the league, for at least a few hours anyway.
The Opening game of the 2018-19 season and the Rams made a faltering start to the opening half. Reading were on the front foot from the off and were unlucky with several chances in the opening minutes.
The Rams fought hard to hold Reading and two hard challenges by Lawrence and Lowe went unpunished by the referee. Richard Keogh was lucky to get away with passing directly to an advancing Reading attacker, with Scott Carson saving him further embarrassment.
After 25 minutes the Reding fans were Chanting “boring, boring Derby” and to be honest Derby’s slowness, passing along the back-line at the back was not pretty to watch, after the promise of attacking football from Lampard prior to the game. The game, however, was far from over at this point but ended 0-0 at half-time.
Second half and both teams retained their starting line-ups but Derby retained more possession and looked to play more attacking football. It was Reading who made the breakthrough after 52 minutes. With the Rams defence standing off a ball floated into the box found a leaping Bodvarrson. His leap wasn’t challenged by Max Lowe and the ball flew past Scott Carson, giving him little chance.
The Rams had to show a lot of character at this point and it was one of the new young loanees who found that something extra. A shot from outside the box by Mason Mount swung in the air, hitting the ground just in front of the Reading Keeper and finding the bottom corner of the net in the 60th minute.
The goal seemed to rejuvenate the Rams and they looked the team who could win the game but couldn’t find the finishing touch when near goal. With the game now looking as though it would end in a draw, no one thought it could end so dramatically.
Four minutes of injury time went up on the fourth official’s board and we had nearly had the full allocation when a ball went out of play, it was fielded by Frank Lampard thrown to Andrea Wisdom who threw it into Masson Bennett. The striker beat the defender on the outside and placed a pinpoint ball onto the head of Tom Lawrence, his glancing header finding the top corner of the net.
Frank Lampard has started his league management with a win and Derby County are top of the league!
Madejski Stadium
Championship
3/08/2018 7:45 pm
Referee: Robert Jones
Reading | Derby County | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bodvarsson (53) | Mount (60), Lawrence (94) | ||||||
Mannone | Carson | ||||||
Richards | Lowe | ||||||
Ilor | Davies | ||||||
McShane | Keogh | ||||||
Yiadom | Wisdom | ||||||
Kelly | Mount | ||||||
Meyler | Ledley | ||||||
Barrow | Bryson | ||||||
Swift | Lawrence | ||||||
Aluko | Nugent | ||||||
Bodvarsson | Wilson | ||||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
Walker | Roos | ||||||
Bacuna | Bogle | ||||||
Clement | Johnson | ||||||
McNulty | Jozefzoon | ||||||
Meite | Pearce | ||||||
O'Shea | Thomas |
Game Statistics |
||
7 | Goal attempts | 11 |
5 | On Target | 3 |
2 | Corners | 4 |
14 | Fouls | 16 |
3 | Yellow Cards | 4 |
0 | Red Cards | 0 |
36 | % | 64 |