Derby County Faces Injury Crisis as Jacob Widell Zetterstrom Ruled Out
Derby County’s season has taken another sharp turn for the worse, 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 moment it looked like his afternoon was over; he went down, received treatment, and seemed certain to come off. Instead, he gritted his teeth and stayed on, finishing the Championship match despite clear discomfort.
The damage, though, has now caught up with him.
Zetterstrom has been forced to withdraw from the Sweden squad for their upcoming Nations League group fixtures, a four-game block against Romania, Poland and Bosnia-Herzegovina across late September and early October. For a goalkeeper who enhanced his reputation with standout performances at the World Cup and attracted serious transfer interest in the summer, it is a bitter interruption to his momentum.
For Derby, it is something worse: a problem they could scarcely afford.
Early assessments suggest Zetterstrom will not return until around mid-November. That timeline would see him miss as many as eight league games for a Derby side already labouring near the wrong end of the table and weighed down by an escalating injury list.
The warning signs were there even before the Swede went down at St Andrew’s. Henrik Meister had already left the pitch on a stretcher after a head injury, another jarring moment in a season that has quickly become attritional. Meister and Zetterstrom now join a treatment room that is starting to look alarmingly crowded.
- Matt Clarke
- Derry Murkin
- Filip Bilbija
- Rhian Brewster
- Craig Forsyth
- Lewis Travis
are all already out, stripping depth from almost every area of the pitch. Now the one position that had felt secure – behind a patched-up defence – has been dragged into the storm.
Derby did well to keep hold of Zetterstrom in the summer, fending off admirers who had taken note of his World Cup form. He arrived as, and has remained, a cornerstone of their plans: a calm presence, a reliable shot-stopper, and one of the few clear success stories in a difficult spell.
His absence opens the door for Josh Vickers. The 28-year-old has been on the bench for every game this season, waiting, watching, knowing that at some point his chance would arrive. Now it has, under the harsh glare of necessity rather than design.
For a “lowly Rams” side already stretched to its limits, the coming weeks will test more than just squad depth. They will test resilience, nerve and the club’s ability to hold its shape while key figures heal.
Vickers steps in. Zetterstrom waits. Derby brace themselves.
