HIGHLIGHTS
- Loan out Tyrese Fornah for more consistent game time after a disrupted debut season with Derby County.
- Darren Robinson, a highly-rated prospect, should seek a loan move to gain valuable experience in the Championship.
- Dajaune Brown, on explosive form at Gateshead, should continue his development with a loan move for 2024/25 season.
Derby County face a big summer transfer window as they prepare for life back in the Championship under Paul Warne.
The Rams secured promotion by finishing second in League One with 92 points, and are back in the second-tier for 2024/25 after two years away.
Warne’s primary focus in the transfer window is likely to be on incomings, whether that be on loan or permanently, with 17 first-team players currently under contract heading into the summer and some squad depth certainly needed to provide competition for places.
The Rams do have some fringe players that could struggle for minutes in the Championship though, as well as some youngsters breaking through that need time to develop in the lower leagues.
With that said, here are three players that we think Derby should loan out for next season…
Tyrese Fornah
Central midfielder Tyrese Fornah joined Derby on a two-year deal from rivals Nottingham Forest last summer, but has failed to reach the heights of his 2022/23 loan with Reading so far at Pride Park.
The 24-year-old was loaned out four times in his three years with Forest, making just one senior appearance for the club, so would have been hoping to properly kick on when he joined Warne’s men in August – but his debut Rams season was disrupted by injuries, which then lost him his place in the starting eleven.
He started seven of his first eight games at the club, but lost his starting berth in October as Conor Hourihane, Max Bird and Korey Smith began to be preferred from the off.
The Sierra Leone international made just four substitute appearances following the turn of the year, and suffered illness and back problems that meant he only made the bench a further six times at the back end of their promotion-winning campaign.
| Tyrese Fornah’s 2023/24 Derby County statistics | |
|---|---|
| Appearances | 19 |
| Starts | 9 |
| Goals | 0 |
| Assists | 1 |
| Stats according to transfermarkt | |
He has previously displayed his Championship credentials with Reading, but it would be no surprise to see him allowed to leave on loan in search of consistent game-time for the upcoming season.
Darren Robinson
19-year-old Darren Robinson is a highly-rated defensive midfield prospect from the Rams’ academy, but was limited to just one EFL Trophy appearance and a place on the bench ten times in League One in 2023/24.
A Northern Ireland youth international, he joined Derby from Dungannon Swifts just days after making his professional debut in May 2021, and has impressed at U18 and U21 level in his three years in the East Midlands, even being named captain of the latter last season.
He has made four first-team appearances for the club so far since his debut as a 17-year-old in April 2022, so is unlikely to be given a chance to play regularly in the Championship with such little first-team experience.
Derby will surely look for a loan move for him this summer, as it seems like the most natural progression for his career going forward.
Dajaune Brown
Dajaune Brown is another of Derby’s academy graduates, and has announced himself in senior football in explosive fashion on loan at National League side Gateshead in recent months.
He turned professional with the Rams last summer after being prolific at U18 level in 2022/23, and netted six in nine PL2 games for the U21’s earlier this season, in turn prompting Paul Warne to hand him a professional debut off the bench against Northampton Town last October.
The 18-year-old then joined Gateshead on loan in January, and bagged 10 goals in 21 appearances in all competitions for the Heed as well as the winning penalty in their FA Trophy triumph over Solihull Moors at Wembley on May 11.
He picked up the National League Player of the Month after his excellent March exploits saw him score six times in seven games, and will certainly have alerted lower league EFL clubs to the possibility of taking him on a temporary basis for 2024/25.
Similarly to Robinson, it seems a no-brainer to allow Brown to find his feet elsewhere next season, and show Paul Warne that he has the ability to fight for a first-team place going forward.
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