Sheffield United transfer helped Derby County recover from disastrous Premier League stint | OneFootball

Rob Hulse joined the Rams in the summer of 2008, just after the club had been relegated to the Championship with 11 points.

The 2007/08 campaign is still one that is bitterly remembered by Derby County supporters, and fallout from the disastrous season took years to clean up.

The Rams were relegated from the Premier League with just 11 points, a record that still stands to this day, and the summer transfer window following was perhaps the most important in the club's history.

Paul Jewell was in charge of the East Midlands outfit at the time, and he was a figure that had lost plenty of respect from supporters during his time at Pride Park already, and it was vital that he made the right choices when signing players.

There were plenty of misses over the course of the summer for Derby, with the likes of Andrejs Pereplotkins, Ruben Zadkovich and Liam Dickinson failing to live up to any expectations. However, the addition of a striker from Sheffield United proved to be a very good one.

Rob Hulse was an instant hit at Pride Park

The Rams spent £1.75m on their 10th signing of the season, bringing Rob Hulse in from the Blades on a three-year contract.

The then 28-year-old had struggled during his second campaign at Bramall Lane, failing to find the back of the net at all. But, he was excellent while the club were in the Premier League, scoring eight goals in 29 appearances, although his goals could not stop relegation to the Championship.

Nevertheless, a fresh start was what was needed, and he quickly proved to his former side why they should not have let him go, scoring the winner at Pride Park against Sheffield United in a 2-1 victory for Derby.

It was the first time that the Rams had tasted victory in almost a year, and gave supporters something to celebrate for the first time in what had felt like an eternity.

Hulse continued to score throughout the season, and his next four goals came in the space of five games. His team picked up 10 points from those matches, points that proved to be the difference between survival and relegation by the time the campaign came to an end.

In total, the Crewe-born forward scored 15 times in the Championship, while also scoring three more goals in the FA Cup as his side made it through to the fifth round under the guidance of Nigel Clough.

Hulse did not disappoint in his second season

After finishing 18th in their first season back in the second tier, there was a real desire to start looking back up the division, and Hulse was going to have to play a key part in that.

Injuries scuppered him on multiple occasions throughout the 2009/10 campaign, and he missed out on nine occasions, featuring 37 times as Derby climbed four places to 14th.

Despite these issues, he still continued to score at a steady rate, smashing in 12 goals in the Championship, including the winner at home to bitter rivals Nottingham Forest, as the Rams reclaimed the bragging rights after losing 3-2 at the City Ground earlier in the year.

Hulse left Derby at the start of the 2010/11 season, signing off for the club that had revitalised his career with the first goal of the campaign as Clough's team beat Leeds United 2-1.

He joined Queens Park Rangers in August 2010, leaving the Rams in a much stronger position than when he joined them two years prior.