'Michael O'Neill doesn't possess a magic wand'
· Yahoo Sports
If the last two matches are anything to go by, it just shows that Michael O'Neill does not possess a magic wand to, in the blink of an eye, solve Blackburn Rovers' serious issues this season.
He will have learned an awful lot so far in his four games. The euphoria of back-to-back wins followed by back-to-back defeats. Granted, six points out of 12 is clearly better than if he had managed four draws so far and remained unbeaten.
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At this point of the season, with 11 games to go, you are where you are based on a sizeable body of work. If you have lost pretty much half of your matches to this point, then trouble cannot be far away.
One of O'Neill's biggest headaches is a mounting list of injuries. In his four games so far, he's lost Lewis Miller for the best part of a year with a ruptured Achilles, Sondre Tronstad with a knee problem serious enough to see a surgeon and, in the second half at Derby, Hayden Carter signalled to the bench that his hamstring was tight.
An assessment will be required on Carter, particularly with his history of missing matches. These are three players in the squad you would want available when the battle lines are drawn.
The turning point at Pride Park was very clear. One up at half-time through Carter's header, Andri Gudjohnsen, with time and space in the Derby penalty area, a couple of minutes into the second half, had to do better than fire wide of the keeper's near post.
It was costly in that it should have given Rovers breathing space at 2-0 and, apart from a tame effort from Moussa Baradji, it was the final time Blackburn laid a glove on Derby.
They were no longer at the races and were undone with the help of two ex-players.
Ben Brereton-Diaz was afforded far too much time and space to make it 1-1 and Sam Szmodics struck the post, capitalising on a Eiran Cashin error, with the ball falling for Matt Clarke to make it 2-1 from close range.
Derby's third was horrible to watch as two subs were culpable. A blind pass from Taylor Gardner-Hickman lost possession, Kristi Montgomery lost two individual battles in midfield and, three passes later, Rhian Brewster had settled it with a header.
I asked O'Neill after the match if this sort of performance was a stark reminder of why Rovers find themselves where they are.
His straight-talking response was clear: "Oh, 100%."
I've said a number of times on BBC Radio Lancashire and in this column that I think Rovers will survive the drop if key players stay fit.
I consider those key players to be Balasz Toth, Ryan Alebiosu, Carter, Cashin, Tronstad, Ryoya Morishita and Gudjohnsen. Two of those could be out of the equation for a period of time now.
Adam Forshaw stepped up to play the Tronstad role at Derby and was excellent but was removed on 56 minutes with the score at 1-1. The midfield was never the same without him, but whether he can play the remainder of the games from start to finish is possibly asking too much.
O'Neill was clear in his thoughts on the strength of the squad as it stands.
"Second half, the squad isn't strong; we don't have depth in our squad," he said. "And the team that finishes the game is not as strong as the team that starts the game. That's with the injuries we have and the players that we have missing.
"We have players coming in who haven't played for a while, and we have to manage them through the game, so that's a challenge.
"But we need to develop durability, both individually and collectively. I think as a team, we need to be more durable, and we weren't able to do that in the second half."
The next two games could be season-defining. Portsmouth at home, followed by Oxford away. Losing both right now feels unthinkable.