The Blues carried on their pre-season with a home fixture against Derby County U21.

The two sides met last season in the Derbyshire County Cup semi-final.

It was an exact repeat with the young Rams progressing to the final after winning 2-1.

However, this game was all about getting more minutes in the tank as we got closer to the beginning of the new season.

Brad Munn made a couple of changes to his side that lost to Rushall Olympic on Saturday 26.

Lewis King remained in goal and wore his new all black kit for the first time.

Gianluca Bucci partnered Jayden Cotterill as centre backs.

With Ryan Campbell-Gordon out injured, Player A stepped up and took the left back spot with Owen Betts filling his usual space at right back.

The midfield began with Jamie Hanson, Connor Pace and Tristan Thompson-Matthews.

Jahvan Davidson-Miller took the central attacking role with James Taylor and James Shaw on either side of him.

Corey Gregory, Sam Calpin, Evan Garnett, Caleb Horsley, Oscar Hugenholtz, Munn and Aaron Cole all occupied the bench.

It was a slow start from us as we found ourselves behind within two minutes. Derby’s no.11 picked up the ball and ran toward the box, he got his shot away with it deflecting off the back of Cotterill and catching King off guard as he had begun diving.

We begun to find our rhythm after this as we started playing to our strengths and we begun playing quick one-two football around their box.

Hanson left the pitch in the 19th minute after a challenge and was replaced by Garnett minutes later.

We had our first chance in the 25th minute as Betts had a shot cleared off the line.

This chance gave us momentum as two minutes later, Garnett found the back of the net. He received the ball from a throw in, turned and let loose from outside the box. It flew into the bottom left corner.

The young Rams restored their lead in the 36th minute after their no.9 waited at the back post unmarked for the cross to come in.

Betts had another good chance just before halftime. Bucci found him at the back post with a stunning cross-pitch pass, Betts brought it down and struck it fast. Unfortunately, their was too much power as it was off target.

We had some good chances early in the second half. Davidson-Miller had a shot fly just over the bar, and Bucci had a header at the back post, which narrowly missed the target.

In the 52nd minute, King pulled off a great save. The young Rams were 3v2 on goal with two players approaching at the back post. The ball was played across the box with one of the players at the back post having an almost guaranteed goalscoring opportunity, but King read the pass well and got to the ball before the ball had left the strikers foot.

We had our best chance of the half in the 65th minute as Thompson-Matthews forced their goalkeeper to pull off a good one-handed save.

Shaw was replaced by Gregory in the 68th minute.

In the 83rd minute, Taylor was on the receiving end of a badly timed tackle. This led to a scuffle between all the players on and off the pitch. This went on for two or three minutes and resulted in their no.7 being red carded, Bucci being yellow carded and a couple of Derby youngsters also being carded.

In the 86th and 88th minute, Thompson-Matthews and Player A were replaced by Horsley and Hugenholtz.

And then the referee blew the whistle seconds after the 90th minute.

Our next match is against Sporting Khalsa on Saturday 2 August at the Family Only Stadium.