Derby County's Season Revived by Mohammed Fuseini's Impact

Sometimes a draw doesn’t just stop the bleeding. It jolts a season back to life.

Derby County staggered into the weekend with one win from eight, two draws, five defeats and a goal difference of minus seven telling its own brutal story. Bottom end of the Championship, confidence fragile, an international break looming like a long, uncomfortable mirror.

They needed something. Anything.

For long spells against fellow strugglers Burnley, they looked like they might finally get it. Derby created more, shot more, tested the goalkeeper more. The numbers were there. The goals were not. And as the clock ticked towards another defeat – a fourth in a row, and the prospect of sitting rock bottom over the break – Pride Park felt ready for another gut punch.

Then Mohammed Fuseini stepped into the frame.

A different kind of threat

Derby have been short of one thing for what feels like an age: pure, blistering pace out wide. Patrick Agyemang brought power last season, a directness and physical edge that unsettled defenders, but he was never just about speed.

Fuseini is.

Signed on loan from Union Saint-Gilloise on deadline day, he has quickly become one of the brightest sparks in John Eustace’s side. His final ball hasn’t always matched the excitement, but that almost misses the point. He runs at defenders. He backs himself to beat his man. He shoots. He stretches backlines with runs in behind that force teams to turn and face their own goal.

When a team is stuck in a rut, that kind of fearlessness matters. You need someone who can rip up the script with one moment and drag everyone – players, supporters, the whole stadium – back into the contest.

Fuseini does exactly that.

Impact from the bench

Saturday felt like the clearest glimpse yet of how important he will be over the course of the season, especially from the bench. Throwing on that kind of pace against tiring full-backs is a manager’s dream and a defender’s nightmare.

As he settles into his new surroundings, builds relationships with new team-mates and grows more comfortable in Eustace’s system, the expectation is simple: he’ll only get sharper, braver, more decisive.

And then the wider picture becomes intriguing. Once Derby get bodies back to full fitness, the idea of Fuseini on one flank and Agyemang on the other, with Carlton Morris through the middle, suddenly looks like a front line that can hurt teams. Not on paper. On the pitch.

That’s for later in the season, when the squad is healthier and the rhythm is better.

From despair to a spark of belief

Right now, it’s about one strike. One last-gasp, sensational hit that turned a grim afternoon into something else entirely.

Fuseini’s late goal didn’t just rescue a point. It flipped the mood. Instead of trudging into the international break anchored to the bottom and consumed by negativity, Derby head into the pause with something tangible to cling to: evidence that they can create, that they can respond, that they have players who can change games.

The table still makes for uncomfortable reading. The start to the campaign remains poor. No one at the club will pretend otherwise.

But thanks to Fuseini, the break arrives with a little oxygen in the room and a sense that, when the Championship resumes on 10 October, this season doesn’t have to be defined by its opening eight games.