Derby County Faces Crisis as Widell Zetterstrom Injured for Two Months

Derby County’s season has taken another painful twist, with first-choice goalkeeper Jacob Widell Zetterstrom facing up to two months on the sidelines after suffering a knee injury.

The 28-year-old was hurt in the second half of Saturday’s 2-1 defeat at Birmingham City. For a few worrying moments it looked as if he would have to come off immediately, but he chose to play through the pain and finished the match.

The cost of that afternoon is only now fully clear.

Sweden blow and Derby crisis deepens

Scans have forced Widell Zetterstrom to withdraw from the Sweden squad for their four upcoming Nations League group games against Romania, Poland and Bosnia-Herzegovina in late September and early October.

He is not expected back until around mid-November. For a Derby side already labouring near the wrong end of the Championship table, that is a brutal timeline.

The numbers are stark: he could miss as many as eight league fixtures. Eight games without a keeper who was one of their standout performers at the World Cup and who attracted serious transfer interest over the summer, interest Derby successfully resisted.

Now they have to live without him.

Stretcher, bandages, and a packed treatment room

His injury came on a day that already felt cursed. Before Widell Zetterstrom took his knock against Blues, Henrik Meister had been carried off on a stretcher after a head injury, adding to the sense of a squad unravelling physically.

Both now join a growing queue for the treatment room. Matt Clarke, Derry Murkin, Filip Bilbija, Rhian Brewster, Craig Forsyth and Lewis Travis are all already out, leaving the manager to piece together line-ups from what remains.

Derby’s depth is being tested, and then tested again.

Vickers’ moment arrives

With Widell Zetterstrom sidelined, Josh Vickers is set to step out of the shadows. The goalkeeper has been named on the bench for every game this season, waiting, watching, knowing an opportunity might come.

Now it has.

Derby did well to keep hold of their World Cup keeper in the summer. For the next two months, they must find a way to cope without him – and discover whether Vickers can turn a crisis into his breakthrough.