Just over two months ago, Derby County were top of the league and favourites to be in the Premier League next season.

Now disappointment fills the city as they lay an agonising one point outside the play-offs, with no games left and no hope of playing in the promised land next season.

Since the 24th of February when Derby lay top of the league and had just beaten Charlton with relative ease, they have slipped down the table and watched with horror as the teams around them seized on their poor results. Poor results including losses to Fulham and Brighton, as well as draws with Huddersfield and Millwall. So, why this sudden demise?

Why have they picked up only twelve points from a possible thirty-nine and why has their season ultimately ended in disappointment?

One possible explanation for the sudden change in form is injury. Derby lost a number of very important players after the turn of the year; including defenders Jake Buxton and Zak Whitbread, midfielders John Eustace and George Thorne, and most devastatingly, the spearhead of their attack, Chris Martin. Martin has still managed eighteen goals this season, despite only playing thirty-five games.

This gives him the third best games-to-goal  ratio in the league and means he was a major loss to Derby. His team only managed two wins in their final thirteen games and undoubtedly missed Martin's ruthlessness as they failed to find the lacking edge to get over the line and finish off matches.

Derby fans might feel it was a mental issue in the team that caused their drastic change in fortunes. Did they simply crumble under the pressure? Or did a few bad results create low morale that they couldn't possibly pick themselves up from?

Nobody can answer this apart from the players, managers and staff involved. Even so, fans of Derby will most likely feel aggrieved at Steve McClaren as he failed to lift the players to standards high enough to even reach the play-offs. Surely, even with injuries, they had enough quality in the side to get them over the line?

So, there's no simple explanation to Derby's late falter in the season. Was it the injuries to attacking players that caused their toothlessness going forward, and the defensive casualties that caused a startling twenty-three goals to be conceded in their final 13 games? Or was it all due to Steve McClaren failing to pick his boys up after a few bad results; could it really all be down to lack of confidence?

Me? Well, I believe that it was a variety of things. The injuries caused a run of bad games and McClaren's shortcomings in instilling new confidence meant that Derby and their fans have ended the season on an extremely bitter low.