It's a marathon not a sprint

[Carl Sagan]

I'm expectig this forum to be in meltdown tonight so before leaving the wristslashers to it I thought I'd start a thread for the hopeful.

There are 46 league games. We've only played 2.

We have a manager who has recently won promotion from this division by dominating it. His team survived in the Prem and the team he built are now Premier League Champions.

We have good players. It may be some are sold and replaced to fit Pearson's thinking, but that's football. If it happens we'll get good prices for them having hung around the top of the Championship these past 3 seasons.

We're not going to win the next 44 games but we'll win more than we lose and will be up there in the battle at the end of the season.

Don't let this result ruin your weekend. There's more to life than football. We go again at Preston on Tuesday. Win well then and everyone will feel a lot better. And take slight consolation from the knowledge that the U18s beat Man Yoo 4-0 earlier today to start their league campaign in style. The future's bright for Derby County in more ways than one.

[Highgate]

That's true, long way to go and it's early days.  We could be celebrating in May yet.  On the other hand, you'll notice with most marathons that the genuine contenders seem to know what they are about right away and get near the front early.  Whereas we seem to be a little confused and off-form.  At the moment, rather than looking like an experienced Kenyan looking good to mount a serious challenge, we seem to be more in this guy's category.