Rams boss Paul Jewell may see Stoke's success as a blueprint for his own cub's revival, but that compliment provides little comfort for dashed cup hopes, says Michael Baggaley

SO how much better should Stoke feel knowing that the team which knocked them out of the Carling Cup last night wants to be just like them?

Not at all? You are probably right, but these quarter-finals only come along every 30 years, so let's not ignore that single crumb of comfort.

After masterminding a successful Rams-raid of fortress Britannia, Derby boss Paul Jewell was magnanimous enough to suggest Stoke are the model his team aspire to as County gradually recover their pride after their dismal season in the Premier League.

He said: "It is going to a be a long process because we were a Premier League team last year that got absolutely mullered every week and embarrassed.

"It was always going to be a bit of a rebuilding job, but victories like this are a step forward.

"We have to use this as a benchmark to show we can compete. There's no more difficult team in the country to play against, physically, than Stoke.

"We have matched them, so if we can match Stoke we can match Crystal Palace and Wolves physically.

"We may not be the best team in the world, but if you can be hard to beat, you can't half move forward.

"When I first went to Wigan, people thought we were a great team. We weren't, but no-one liked playing against us, just like no-one likes playing against Stoke.

"We have to get to that level and then improve gradually as we go along, that's the plan."

Encouragingly for Jewell, and perhaps worryingly for Stoke, there wasn't any gap between the teams on show last night.

However, the fact the teams lie one division – and 21 places – apart suggests we shouldn't read too much into a one-off encounter, particularly as Stoke are already seven clear of the 11-point total the Rams managed during last season's Premier League campaign.

So, what went wrong? Rob Styles is the obvious target after awarding that last-minute penalty, but if Stoke were robbed, it's partly because they'd left the keys in the door after failing to put Derby away in the previous 93 minutes.

A fair proportion of that wasn't seen by a couple of thousand supporters, who were still backed up in heavy traffic, double deckers nose to tail with Datsuns, as the game kicked off.

The start wasn't delayed, but the teams did the decent thing by not doing anything remotely interesting for the first 20 minutes or so until everyone had settled into their seats.

Up to that point, the main talking point were Derby's high-visibility shirts, which made Jewell's players look like a line-up of policemen. An anti-terror unit perhaps, to stop Stoke's first-choice strike force of Ricardo Fuller and Mama Sidibe frightening the Championship side out of their wits?

Sadly, that wasn't needed because, although both strikers impressed outside the area, neither had any luck inside it.

Fuller, in particular, seemed to be suffering a centre-forward's strain of Dartitis, the condition which makes the most dead-eyed thrower spray his arrows at the potted plant and next door's cat.

An early sliced miss was typical of the opening half-hour in which neither team found more precision than the thunderous Derby fans, who were batting a giant inflatable ball randomly across the packed away end.

Stoke would have still gone in 1-0 up had Styles not controversially ruled out Richard Cresswell's "goal" for handball.

But a far more entertaining second half could have gone either way before Styles's penalty decision restored his status as Stoke's least-favourite referee.

He was in some danger of becoming popular with the Boothen End after his performance against Arsenal. That was a situation as unnatural as Stoke appearing in the quarter-finals of the League Cup any time since the Winter of Discontent.

No need to worry about that now as City can concentrate on the league. Actually, that old cliche offers more comfort now the next opponents are Newcastle United, not Northampton Town.