Is £3m striker transfer one of Derby County's worst ever pieces of business? | OneFootball

Nick Blackman scored just one goal during his time at Derby County, despite the high fee that was paid for him.

Derby County's transfer dealings throughout the mid 2010s were very hit-and-miss.

For every Tom Ince, there was also a Jacob Butterfield, but one signing made in January 2016 is probably remembered as the worst in the club's history.

After an excellent start to the 2015/16 season, the Rams were flying, and spent the festive period in the top two. However, the turn of the year brought about a terrible run of form that new signing Nick Blackman could not help fix.

Derby bought the then 26-year-old for a fee that was reported to be around the £2.5m-£3m range, after he impressed for Reading in the first half of the campaign.

The forward had scored 11 goals in his first 25 appearances of the season, but it was not a signing that the Rams had to make, at a time when consistency in the squad was perhaps the thing needed most.

Blackman was not a signing that Derby had to make

Despite being prolific for the Royals in the first half of the 2015/16 campaign, nine of his eleven strikes came in the first 12 games, scoring just two more in the next 13.

HIs early run of form perhaps skewed expectations when he arrived at Pride Park, as he had struggled for goals in the past, reaching the double-figure mark for goals in just two previous campaigns.

Blackman was also out of contract at the end of 2015/16, and it seemed incredibly unlikely that he was going to sign a new deal at the Madejski Stadium after joining in January 2013.

Therefore, to Reading, bringing in a fee of any kind was extremely important as it seemed as though the goals were starting to dry up at a rapid rate, and the 26-year-old was going to leave in the summer for free.

Derby allowed the Royals an easy decision, and taking such a huge amount of money for a player who did not see his future at the club was one that they had to allow. But, for the Rams, they did not need to make it.

They already had Andreas Weimann, Chris Martin, Darren Bent, Johnny Russell and Tom Ince in the attacking positions, and bringing Blackman to the club confused things as he was a completely different style of player to the other five.

Paul Clement was sacked just a month after the forward was brought to the club, leaving him in the hands of interim manager, Darren Wassall, who maybe would not have signed him.

Blackman's goal record makes him one of Derby's worst ever signings

Although his price was high, scoring goals would have off-set that fee, and supporters might have been able to get behind him quickly. However, Blackman struggled from the off in black-and-white, and never truly looked comfortable operating under Wassall.

The Rams played a similar 4-3-3 system to Reading at the time, but after such a hit-and-miss end to his time in Berkshire, he struggled to regain the form that he had shown in the early part of the season.

Blackman went through the rest of the 2015/16 campaign without finding the back of the net, and even failed to provide an assist.

Many had hoped, that under a new manager in Nigel Pearson, and with a full pre-season under his belt, the six-time capped Barbadian international could get himself firing. However, Derby struggled under Pearson, scoring just twice as a team in the Championship before he was sacked in October 2016 after a fall-out with owner Mel Morris.

In their first match without the former Leicester City manager, the Rams started to right some wrongs, and with Chris Powell taking charge for the two games following the prior manager's dismissal, Blackman finally got off the mark in black-and-white.

His penalty against Cardiff City ultimately proved to be his only goal as a Derby player. He played just three more times in the Championship for the club that had bought him for £3 million just the season before, with a knee injury keeping him away from the first-team until the final game of the campaign.

Blackman was sent out on loan to Maccabi Tel Aviv and Sporting Gijon in the following years, eventually running out his contract at Pride Park in 2019 and joining Tel Aviv on a permanent deal, seeing out his career in Israel before retiring in 2021.

Now 34, he is still remembered at Derby as one of the biggest ever transfer failures, and the multi-million pound fee that it cost to bring him in perhaps epitomises the Morris era.