Derby County's Hope: Mohammed Fuseini Sparks Late Equalizer
Sometimes a draw lands like a roar of victory.
Derby County reached the first international break with just one win from eight, two draws, five defeats and a goal difference of minus seven. The table does not flatter them. It simply mirrors the story of a side that has struggled in both boxes and found itself dragged towards the bottom three.
When you are living down there, the final game before a two-week pause carries extra weight. It shapes mood. It colours training. It decides whether the break feels like a reset or a reckoning.
On Saturday, for long spells, it looked like the latter.
Derby actually carried more threat than Burnley. They had more shots, more efforts on target, and carved out the clearer chances against fellow strugglers. Yet the scoreboard told a harsher truth. The Rams were staring at a fourth straight defeat and the grim prospect of going into the break rock bottom of the Championship.
Then Mohammed Fuseini stepped into the frame.
Derby have been searching for pure, blistering pace out wide for what feels like an age. Patrick Agyemang injected something different last season – direct running, power, physicality – but he was never just about raw speed.
Fuseini is.
Signed on loan from Union Saint-Gilloise on deadline day, he has quickly become one of the few bright sparks in a grey opening to the campaign. His final ball has not always matched his ambition, but everything else has lit up Derby’s attacking play: the fearless dribbling, the constant urge to take on his man, the hunger to shoot, the repeated sprints in behind that stretch defences and unsettle full-backs.
Teams in a rut need someone who can rip up the script in a single moment. Someone who forces supporters out of their seats, even when the mood has turned flat. Fuseini offers exactly that.
Saturday felt like a glimpse of just how decisive he can be, especially as an impact substitute. Throwing on a winger with that kind of explosiveness late on is a nightmare scenario for tiring full-backs, legs heavy, minds slowing just as he is accelerating.
And this is only the beginning. As Fuseini settles into a new country, a new dressing room and John Eustace’s demands, there is every reason to think his influence will grow. Confidence tends to follow players who play on the front foot. So does responsibility.
There is a bigger picture too. Once Derby’s injury list eases, Eustace will have the option to unleash both Fuseini and Agyemang on opposite flanks. With Carlton Morris leading the line as the number nine and that kind of pace and power either side of him, Derby suddenly start to look far more dangerous in an attacking sense later in the season.
For now, though, it was about one strike.
Fuseini’s stunning late goal, snatching a point at the death, changed the entire feel of the afternoon. Despair gave way to something else. Not celebration, exactly, but a surge of relief and a flicker of belief.
It hands Eustace and his players something to cling to over the break. A reminder that, even from a difficult position, there is enough talent in this squad to hurt teams, to turn games, to avoid being defined by the opening eight fixtures.
When the Championship resumes on 10 October, Derby will not just be resuming a season. They will be trying to prove that Fuseini’s moment was not an isolated spark, but the start of a genuine revival.
