This article is part of Football League World’s ‘Rewind’ series, this content strand is where we rewind back to a particular moment at a club, assess the initial reaction from the fans, and then proceed to evaluate and reflect on whether fans were right to react in that way…

When Derby County announced the arrival of well-traveled forward Colin Kazim-Richards in October 2020 there were few fans who could have foreseen how important he would become to the side. 

The Rams made the decision to bring Kazim-Richards into the club on a free transfer to try and bolster their attacking options after a difficult start to last season under Phillip Cocu.

It was a bold transfer move that saw the experienced striker return to British football for the first time since he left Celtic in 2016. 

The forward up until his arrival at Derby had taken in spells at the likes of Brighton, Sheffield United, Fenerbahce, Toulouse, Galatasaray, Olympiacos, Blackburn Rovers, Feyenoord, Celtic and Corinthians and he had varying degrees of success with all of those clubs.

Therefore, it was not known exactly what kind of player that Derby would be getting when they announced his arrival. As a result, when Kazim-Richards was announced on the club’s official Twitter account received a mixed reaction from supporters to say the least. 

It is fair to say that the Derby fans who were concerned about this signing when it was announced were proven to be wrong in the end with how well the move has worked out for the Rams.

Kazim-Richards managed to immediately ease some of the issues that were there in the final third for them last season in the Championship.

 

 

Kazim-Richards managed to score his first goal for the Rams during a 1-1 draw against Coventry City in December 2020. The forward went on to fire home eight goals and provide two assists for Derby during his 38 appearances in the Championship last term. That output made him the club’s top scorer in the league for the whole of last term.

It was not just his goals that really benefitted the Rams and helped them to just about survive the drop on the final day of the campaign with a 3-3 draw against Sheffield Wednesday, but also his all-round performances as well with him averaging 1.4 shots and 0.6 key passes per game. 

Despite all of Derby’s off-field issues, they were at least able to extend Kazim-Richards’ deal at the end of February. That has proven to be a vital move considering that they were limited in terms of the amount of recruitment they could do in the summer window. 

The 35-year-old’s impact this season for Derby has been impacted by him picking up a bad injury during their 2-1 defeat at Peterborough United back in August. As a result, he has only been able to make eight Championship appearances and three starts so far this term. 

He has returned from injury in the last few weeks and been making an impact from the bench. The Rams need him back to his best if they are to have any chance of surviving the drop this term.