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Mick McCarthy will not be happy this morning. First of all Shane Duffy who is Ireland's best player over the last 2 years injured his calf last night playing for Brighton. But then news broke that his partner in the centre of defence Richard Keogh injured his knee and fractured his wrist in an 'alcohol related incident' and is out for the rest of the season.
Tom Lawrence and Mason Bennett were also involved on Tuesday night and they have been charged with alleged drink-driving following the accident in the city's Allestree area where a vehicle crashed into a lamppost. The crash involved a Range Rover Sport and a Mercedes GLC, police said.
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The accident happened after a team building dinner. After the dinner a small group decided to carry on drinking into the night. The rest as they say is history.
In a Derby county statement the club said they have taken the matter extremely serious and there will be disciplinary action.
"They should have known when to stop and also ignored the opportunity to be driven home using cars laid on by the club, and chose to stay out."
" they know they will pay a heavy price for their actions" but also said they would be supported with their "rehabilitation back into the squad and team"
By the looks of the Range Rover above it is lucky that there was nobody was killed. Keogh is now going to miss the Ireland qualifiers against Georgia and Switzerland. and by the time he is back from injury there will be a new Ireland manager. At 34 years of age he will find it hard to fight his way back into the Irish squad who are building for the future under the confirmed manager Stephen Kenny. It is a disaster for the player really. Having to think every day about what happened. Luckily he is contracted to Derby until 2021 so he still has a job to go back to. He has made 316 appearances for Derby so the club will stand by their man even though they are far from happy. Tom Huddlestone will now step in as captain until the end of the season. Tom Lawrence signed from Leicester City for £5m in August 2017, while Mason Bennett came through Derby's youth system. The club may not be as lenient with these two that have been charged.
What is done is done now. Luckily nobody was hurt. I know myself what is like when the drink is flowing and wanting to stay out . It doesn't take that much to twist your arm. So I get what happened here. For the players to be then involved in a collision is another story. These guys are millionaires. It doesn't matter how much a taxi is to them. Why didn't they just take one? It boggles the mind. I know the championship is not as high profile as the premier league but these guys are still elite athletes and are paid big money. A championship player is probably on around 20k-30k per week. So we are not talking amateurs here. Hopefully Richard will make it back sooner than we think.