Derby County are perhaps the most under equipped side this season in comparison to what they were in the last following the departure of loan players Mason Mount Fikayo Tomori and Harry Wilson.

All three were up there with Derby’s best performing players last season and none of them – it would seem – will be there next season.

Perhaps the biggest loss to the team though will be Craig Bryson. The Scottish box-to-box midfielder made himself a hero at Derby, scoring a hat-trick in the East Midlands Derby against rivals Nottingham Forest. He was a fan favourite before and long after the infamous performance and has left the club at the age of 32.

Derby have seemed to take the literal approach of a like-for-like swap, signing another all-round Scottish central midfielder in Graeme Shinnie. The Aberdeen captain had pre-agreed a deal to join Derby ahead of the new season back in May.

The self-described heart on his sleeve kind of player is a seemingly fit replacement for Bryson who had fallen out of favour under Frank Lampard towards the end of last season.

Derby will have to wait to see what happens with Lampard before thinking about signing anyone else this season. It looks as though the Derby manager has earned his dream move to Chelsea a lot sooner than he and many others had predicted.

The saga still continues though and is doing Derby more harm than good. They undeniably need to make at least two crucial signings before the new season starts. The quicker Lampard goes, the quicker they can appoint a manager who can look to sign the players he wants.

Derby currently only own two real centre-backs in the form of club captain Richard Keogh and Curtis Davies. Likewise, they only have one natural winger in Florian Jozefzoon- two if you class Tom Lawrence who is preferred down the middle in the later stages of Derby’s campaign.

Perhaps the only plus to Lampard leaving Derby for Chelsea after just one year is that he may look rather favourably on the Rams and look to loan some of his most talented Chelsea youngsters to his former club should he leave this summer.

It is no secret that owner Mel Morris and Derby may struggle to match the same financial spending that they’ve committed to in seasons gone by, meaning any manager in charge of Derby ahead of the new season is in for a tough time.