Derby Deaf Football Club

Faced with a familiar scenario with players missing due to the England call up for the World Deaf Futsal Championship which saw the Derby four being involved with the squad and along with Ian Penman who decided to head over to Sofia to cheer the England team on.

Richard Jeffers missed out on being part of the squad due to an injury that he aggravated during the game against Wolverhampton and would require a bit of rest from football in order to recover fully.

Sean Richards recently had an operation on his wrist to solve his ongoing wrist problem that also ruled him out of the game.

With a couple of players struggling with injuries so the main aim of the team before the game that it would be a case of all hands to the decks once again.

Derby started brightly in the game denying Santos Khalsa time on the ball and also spaces with the ball.

The referee awarded a penalty for a blatant dive which was a blow to the team's spirit after working hard against the wind to keep the game even.

Derby DFC quickly started to create chances but Derby DFC couldn't capitalise on any of the chances.

Bhavan Mundair who stepped into the gloves deputising for Sam Kitchin and pulled off a few decent saves from the Santos Khalsa but they went onto to deliver a second blow to Derby DFC by nicking a second goal.

The players become frustrated at the referee's poor performance as the referee seems to bow under pressure from Santos's appeal for decisions in their favours.

After an incident which saw a Santos player hitting one of our players, Darrell Sykes was wrongly given out a second yellow card for trying to settle down the players and was ordered off the park which angered Derby DFC's furious players who demonstrated that it was a Santos player who clearly hit one of our players and Darrell Sykes was simply trying to keep the peace.

Although the guilty Santos player was sent off, Derby DFC's players started to lose control of the game losing their shape and tired legs started to creep in.

A very late challenge on Muneeb Ahmed should have resulted in  a red card for their skilful Santos player but he managed to stay on the pitch and added onto Derby's misery by dominating the rest of the game creating goals for his team.

Toby Dawson, the manager said " I have no complaint with the lads as I could see that most of us tried our best in the game but to no avail, it was a very disappointing performance from the referee who clearly struggled to make the correct decision throughout the game and bowed under pressure from Santos.

Even we tried to warn the players to focus on the game and to ignore the referee, I can understand on how hard it was to do that as we rarely got any decision on our side and also with the history of the referee's past performances with us, the lads knew that they wouldn't get any decisions from the referee and showed their frustration with the referee throughout the game.

It's something that we will have to deal with and to take the appropriate step if we will have that referee officiating for us in future.

Looking on the positive side, since this game gave other players an opportunity to stake their claim for a regular spot in the team when we have a full squad, a few players did so during the game which pleased me.

Ant Reeves passed the ball very well during the game that was very important to see for the team.

Muneeb Ahmed was a credit filling in at right back and we could see his determination throughout the game so Muneeb has a few things to learn but he showed that he is capable of playing at right back in the future.

We will be of course appealing on any suspension placed on Darrell Sykes should he receives a fine and a suspension from Derbyshire FA for the wrongly issued second yellow card which resulted in his sending off.

I look forward seeing our regular players coming back to give teams from the Premier Division a better run for their money but credit to the players who have kept things going by clinching 9 points so far but the main thing is that no one will take their place for granted at the end of the day.”