Derby County: £1.4m outlay starting to be justified on Bristol City evidence – View

Two months ago, Derby County’s number one goalkeeper, Joe Wildsmith, left the club after two spectacular years.

There was a touch of nervousness surrounding Pride Park after the 28-year-old departed at the end of his contract. He kept 20 clean sheets to help the Rams to promotion, and left Paul Warne with a huge decision to make.

Jacob Widell Zetterström was identified early on as the ideal replacement for Wildsmith, with the Swede officially joining Derby in mid-August for £1.4 million.

The 26-year-old has experience playing in Europe with Djurgårdens in his home country, and helped the club on their way to qualification for the Europa Conference League group stage before he left for the East Midlands.

However, now playing his football in England, Zetterström has had to quickly adapt to living in a new country while being thrown in at the deep-end – starting in all three of the Rams’ previous games in all competitions.

Zetterström was unplayable against Bristol City

Following a desperate loss on penalties to Barrow in the Carabao Cup in midweek, Derby had to react against Bristol City in their next Championship game.

 

Zetterström had made his debut for the club just a week earlier, in a 2-1 loss away to Watford, but now he was looking to make an impact in his first appearance at Pride Park.

He was quickly called into action, and after what looked like a miscommunication with centre-back Curtis Nelson, the Swede came off his line to stop Sinclair Armstrong from putting the visitors 1-0 up inside the first ten minutes.