It has become the race nobody wants to win. After two defeats against relegation-threatened teams in the past eight days, Swansea City are likely to have been removed from second spot in the Championship by tomorrow night, if not before.
They contrived yesterday to hand Derby County their first league victory over the Swans for 25 years, offering the East Midlanders a rare glimpse of success in an otherwise barren season.
Not only did the Wales international Ashley Williams gift Derby the opening goal through his poor backpass, the Welsh side’s continued wastefulness in front of goal, which twice led to them testing the strength of the crossbar, means that they again failed to consolidate the advantage their attractive football has gained them in recent months. As a consequence, if Cardiff City take three points today or Norwich City at least a point tomorrow, then Brendan Rodgers’ troops will find themselves outside the automatic promotion places.
Apart from QPR, nobody, it seems, wants to secure their Premier League status for next season. Rodgers was not too concerned afterwards, saying: “We were a wee bit off our game, off our brightness and sharpness — it’s been a long week but we will recover well and it’s the mark of our group that we do.”
Derby could not believe their fortune on seven minutes when in a moment of great hilarity, Williams, admittedly under pressure from Paul Green, misjudged the direction of a backpass intended for Dorus de Vries. Even though the goalkeeper scrambled back to slice the ball clear, the assistant referee ruled that it had crossed the line.
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Barracked mercilessly thereafter, Williams could have silenced the laughter midway through the first half but his menacing header slammed against the woodwork. The defender came a lot closer than Scott Sinclair, who, before an open goal, cursed his touch, which skewed the ball wide.
It was a costly miss as nine minutes into the second half Steven Davies scored his third goal of an injury-disrupted season, his back-post header bouncing off Darren Pratley past De Vries.
Pratley managed to make slight amends with his own back-post header, from Angel Rangel’s marvellous cross, but while Stephen Dobbie hit the crossbar, Derby held out for only their third win in 19 matches.
Derby: Fielding 7, Brayford 7, Ayala 8, Barker 8, Roberts 7, Green 7 (Doyle 50min, 7), Savage 8, Pearson 7, S Davies 8 (Robinson 71min), Bueno 8, Ward 7 (Addison 62min)
Swansea: De Vries 6, Rangel 6, Tate 7, Williams 4, Taylor 6, Allen 6, Gower 7 (Britton h-t, 6), Dyer 6 (Beattie 66min), Dobbie 6, Sinclair 6, Moore 5 (Pratley h-t, 7)