Luke Thomas and Jayden Bogle impress as Derby County start pre-season with a win

Derby County started their 2018/19 pre-season fixtures with a trip along Brain Clough Way to Meadow Lane facing Notts County on Saturday and enjoyed a 4-1 victory.

Obviously this was a run out to blow away post season cobwebs and gave manager Frank Lampard a chance to start making assessments of his squad.

Chris Martin, Matej Vydra and Scott Carson didn’t participate as they recover from minor injuries and 22 players took part in the game itself.

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It’s no great secret that Lampard will start his first job in management with a budget somewhat smaller than previous bosses at Pride Park, but hopefully his contacts with previous clubs will be able to arrange some good quality loans.

Of the young players that were given a chance to shine on Saturday, both Luke Thomas and Jayden Bogle looked the part.

Thomas who has been the subject of interest from West Ham recently, certainly didn’t look out of place and many believe that the may have a big part to play this season.

Despite scoring a couple of very well taken goals, he also looks very composed on the ball and the highlights show a player that looks like he’s been playing first team football for months rather than minutes.

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Jacob Butterfield made an appearance for The rams after a loan spell with Sheffield Wednesday and Nick Blackman (Remember him) was also given a run out. It’ll be intereresting to see if they figure in Lampards plans.

Obviously as we edge towards opening day, fans will be glued to social media in the hope of seeing 2/3 signings before the big kick off. We have been linked with several players in the last week or so.

Lampard has stated that he has a list of targets. Us fans must wait patiently for targets to materialise into signings and for now we move on to the next game in our pre-season plans.