Good old Gael. I knew if he prayed hard enough, he'd eventually get through.

Now I'm not sure how much day-to-day control God has on dodgy penalty decisions or deciding how football luck is distributed (I imagine he delegates that part of the job to FIFA or something), but however it came about – fanks God. It's been a while.

That stroke of penalty luck gave us a nice helping hand, but I do think we looked capable of winning the game regardless. There were a few moments when Derby found the gap between midfield and defence and caused us some problems, but I still always felt we were likely to grab a goal ourselves at some point anyway.

Few were surprised when new signing Cody McDonald made the team sheet. It's been a month since I spoke last of the need for a spark in attacking areas – and a new face was enough to make you feel as though we weren't quite so tame up front. Whether he was fit or not, I saw no scenario where Thorn was going to leave him out.

It wasn't a wonder debut by any means. McDonald isn't close to being match-sharp just yet, and this was demonstrated by plenty of iffy touches and slow reactions. But what you could see was that a) he's clearly got the knack of finding dangerous positions in the box, and b) his ability to create space for others was genuinely impressive. It was a selfless debut in many respects, as he wasn't having the greatest of games with the ball, but was still able to have an influence with what he did off it. He showed good movement and constantly occupied their defenders' minds. C'est promising.

Our central defensive partnership is another area Saturday showed us we should be pleased with. Those of you who've read this blog for a while will know that I had the occasional strong word about Richard Keogh last year, as I felt he was prone to lapses of concentration at right back and cost us goals, all whilst losing complete control of what his body was doing. This season (and since his move to centre back) I see a different Richard Keogh. He no longer has to concern himself with any of that running-down-the-wing nonsense - he's passed the attacking burden on to someone younger and faster - so he can simpy focus his efforts on doing a single job; defending. This is good for him, as he's now playing like the soppy lad in the playground who you tell to do a job, and who sticks to those instructions rigidly - refusing to do anything but mark the good kid all the way through lunch.

Cranie on the other hand, is the same old Cranie. Mr Dependable, and has been a star over these opening games. He's so quietly efficient in everything he does, you barely notice him compared to the bull in a china shop approach employed by Keogh. But don't underestimate the job these two have done together. Early doors, but we've the best defensive record in the bottom half of the Championship (having only conceded 5 in 6 games), and only Brighton can better that in the entire league. For a central defence comprising two players who spent most of their time last season at full back, that's a mighty fine way to go.

You'll have to calm me down, that first win has rendered me ultra keen. But for the first time this season some of our promise was actually rewarded, so it is pleasing. And the fact that Clarke Carlisle had some complimentary things to say about us on Sky shows that we might be okay to feel a little bit better about our team (even if he is the world's most eloquent plonker). It's still going to be a mighty tough season, but there were positives on the pitch against Derby, so I'd like to get them down in writing before we lose again and I forget what any of them were.

Is your banner fire retardant?

I'm trying to employ an "only talk about football" rule as much as I can, but the level of crossness at the Derby game means it's very difficult to omit all mention of what went on in the stands.

What a nonsense the response to the protest banners has been. They really must think we're stupid?

I'm not one for giving grief to stewards – they're just doing their job, most of the time. The instruction they've been given to run around pinching everyone's banners is ridiculous though. It causes nothing but tension between supporters and the people supposedly keeping them safe, whilst further antagonising those fans who are wound-up most of the time anyway, so require little prodding to encourage them to get involved in a bit of argy-bargy.

Look, whether SISU like it or not, fans are going to continue to protest. They've made a pigs ear of things, and people are going to let them know. Attempts to silence supporters will only further alienate the owners, cause even more unrest, and we’ll wind up with yet more scenes like Saturday.

While the brawling with the police didn’t appear to be something that was directly related to the banner-thievin’ that was going on, the response by those fans who stormed in was no doubt provoked by the feeling of injustice that was sweeping the stadium.

I was nowhere near the incident, so don’t really feel I should comment too much. Here's the thing though. The mass reaction to that chap falling down some steps - whether he fell or was forced - was dangerous, irresponsible, and clearly exasperated by a large group whose eyes lit up at the prospect of a good scrap. There were families and kids down that way – scenes like that are just not on. Everyone needs to get a bloody grip. Starting with SISU and their heavy-handed tactics.

Oh and another thing – that oversized shirt is going straight in my bag next time they send it round.

Fire retardant, my foot.

A pun? In my blog? No way, man. It weren't me.

Anyway, I noted in my last post about how poor Ben Turner was against Watford. He had a git of a game. He was that poor, I felt he might be dropped.

So in typical Ben Turner fashion, he got the nod against Derby on Saturday and played an absolute blinder. Ben, you brilliant bastard.

Looking back at it, he was about the only player to have a decent game throughout. I've no immediate problem with that because as a team we showed discipline and organisation, and we bloody well won. I think Aidy knows that there was also a lot we did poorly though. He's no fool.

As stupid an excuse as it sounds, it didn't seem like our players coped all that well with the combination of an early start and slick pitch. Throughout the game they seemed slow to react to situations and to make decisions, while even the easiest of balls they managed to make a pig's ear of controlling. All, I must add, except Doyle, who was uncharacteristically solid in doing the basics.

I know, I was shocked too.

I have to say, even though Derby were passing the arse out of the ball, I was never too worried about them breaking us down. They had a few moments in the game, but there was never really anyone in the box to finish things off for them. Kris Commons still impresses me every time I see him, mind.

Our first goal came out of nowhere as everyone was still waffling on about how unlucky Carsley was to have his effort cleared off the line. In the resulting attack, McSheffrey showed us a glimpse of what he used to do back in 2005. Bloody gorgeous quick feet to draw in Leacock's tackle, leaving a penalty decision even Jorge Larrionda couldn't miss. Lukeyjukey walloped it away once again. Unfortunately that was to be Jutkiewicz's final contribution of note, as he pulled something and had to be replaced by big Clive Platini.

Clive was top again, and the good thing about having him in the team is you know that if you're not playing well and you're lacking the confidence and the touch to play flowing football, you can just tonk it up to him - he'll do something with it.

We were out very early for the second half and this achieved bugger all as we duly conceded an early equaliser. I can't really attribute blame to any single person, it was just slack defending all round.

It was the second half where Ben Turner came into his own. Marshalling the defence in a way that someone his size should. I watched the game back on Sky+ and it seemed it wasn't just home bias that noticed his performance - Ian Darke was particularly keen on him. And rightly so.

One thing that he didn't get much credit for was the quality of the winning header. It looked far from a simple finish from where I was. Either way, it was great to see him cap a great game with his first goal.

Not quite as great finding myself on tele when I watched it back later on that day. It wasn't quite a close-up of Fred Collins proportions, but after 15 years of going to watch them, it was nice to finally get my blurry mug on screen in some form.

Late winners are always the best.

Coleman said: "I thought it was a marked improvement from last week although we were found wanting in defence yet again.

I thought in the main it was a much gutsier performance because we bossed it in the second half and could have scored more".

What game was that then Chris? I'm sorry, but that post-match analysis isn't going to fly with me, sonny jim.

Contrary to any of the nonsense you may have heard from Coleman over the last couple of days, we were yet again, completely and totally outplayed. Let's get that absolutely clear.

What makes this all the worse is that we were outplayed by a Derby team that was utter bullshine themselves, by anyone's recognition. That's embarrassing. At least it is for me. If Ward and Morrison's appearance on Soccer AM is anything to go by, the players couldn't give a monkeys.

But compound this with the fact that it was on Sky, and according to Twitter, the match was even being watched by a selection of celebs. Cricket's David "Bumble" Lloyd being one of them, no less.

The very shame of it.

Actually coming out and saying that we "bossed it in the second half" leads me to one conclusion; Coleman has gone quite, quite mad. Over the course of the 90 minutes we managed to string 2 passes together about 3 times. The only time we looked like we might come close to even scoring again after the early goal was in the final 5 minutes when Derby for some reason felt they needed to drop deep. This of course, giving us a bit more time to boot the ball into their keeper's hands.

Frantic, possibly. Bossing it? Never. Absolutely no chance.

Run through the team, and there were a mixture of mediocre performances scattered among a wide selection of utter tosh. I personally thought that the 2 centre-backs Barnett and Ward were the only 2 who had reasonable games. Granted, both had moments of utter lunacy (Ward's tackles in the first half for example), but at least I also saw moments of passion, strength and rather crazily for our players, quality.

Gunnarsson, Clarke, Eastwood gave fully useless performances however. Never coming close to the level of performance they should be giving.

But if they were bad, don't even get me started on Cork and Morrison. I've never seen such ineffective performances. Cork, once more playing like a frightened school kid, while Morrison did absolute bugger all throughout. I found myself wishing he'd actually given Savage a slap after Clarke was red carded, if only to get himself sent off too, and as far from the pitch as possible.

So quite where Coleman thought the "marked improvement" was, I'm struggling to see. I can only assume he forgot that the game was on TV and thought he could get away with pretending it was better than it was.

Don't worry, I'm not really cynical enough to actually believe he'd do something like that (I am).

What I really can't get my head around is what Coleman's intentions for our club actually are. I'd like to know what the plan is, because 18 months he has been here, and the only impact I see on the footballing side of things is how we're now playing very, very poorly, with players who have no desire to move the club on from the shocking level we're currently at...

and what's the most worrying is that he appears to be accepting (and encouraging) it.

It's not worth my time to whine about how poorly our players keep playing any longer. But Christ almighty, it's so difficult to find positives or even excuses for some of the performances just lately. The bar is so low and I'm very worried.

If you praise mediocrity Coleman, there's only one thing you're ever going to get.