Colin Kazim-Richards on target but Derby denied by late Coventry equaliser

[ASFN Admin]

Derby County 1 Coventry City 1 Colin Kazim-Richards scored his first goal in English football for seven years but a late equaliser denied Wayne Rooney a first win as Derby County’s interim manager for the second time in four days. The London-born Turkish international, playing for his 17th club in a career that began at Bury in 2004, headed home from Nathan Byrne’s cross with seven minutes left. His last goal for an English club came for Blackburn Rovers during a loan spell from Galatasaray in 2013. But just as against Wycombe Wanderers on Saturday in Rooney’s debut outing in sole charge, Derby had their noses in front only to concede late. This time it came two minutes into added time, when a ball into their box was only half-cleared and Gustavo Hamer drove it past David Marshall to stretch Derby’s winless run to 11 matches, although Rooney can at least claim to be unbeaten thus far. Rooney is waiting to learn if he will be appointed as permanent successor to Phillip Cocu, who was sacked just over two weeks ago on the back of Derby’s poor start to the season. The former England captain’s future is likely to be decided once the takeover of the club by Sheikh Khaled bin Zayed Al Nehayan, a cousin of Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour, is completed, possibly by the end of this week. The arrival of Steve McClaren as technical director at Pride Park has been interpreted by some as increasing the likelihood that Rooney will be confirmed in the post, although other sources suggest John Terry is being lined up for a first crack at management. On the field Rooney saw reasons to feel encouraged as well as concerned and might have gone in at half-time a goal up had Max Bird done better with the best chance to that point in stoppage time. Coventry goalkeeper Ben Wilson made a decent block but Bird had plenty of goal to aim at. There were scares at the other end. Tyler Walker had the ball in the Derby net before half-time but his header was ruled offside. Both sides had worthwhile penalty claims turned down by referee Dean Whitestone before Kazim-Richards at last produced a moment of quality. It looked to have been enough to strengthen Rooney’s job application but Coventry always had plenty of fight in them and Hamer’s goal means they are unbeaten in four matches, two places outside the bottom three, where Derby remain propping up the rest. Derby County (4-2-3-1): Marshall; Byrne (Davies 90), Wisdom, Clarke, Buchanan; Bielik, Bird; Holmes (Stretton 80), Knight, Lawrence (Jozwiak 80); Kazim-Richards. Substitutes not used: Roos (gk), Forsyth, Shinnie, Sibley, Whittaker, Davies, Hector-Ingram. Coventry City (4-1-4-1): Wilson; Dabo, McFadzean, Hyam, McCallum (Ostigard 85); Kelly; O’Hare (Bakayoko 89), Hamer, Shipley (Jobello 77), Giles; Walker (Biamou 77). Substitutes not used: Camp (gk), Rose, Allen, Sheaf, Bapaga. Referee: Dean Whitestone (Northamptonshire) Booking: Derby: Kazim-Richards, Holmes, Bielik, Clarke. Coventry: O’Hare.

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