Sam Szmodics Returns to Derby County for Promotion Push
Sam Szmodics is back at Pride Park – and this time Derby County are betting big that his return will end with promotion.
The 30-year-old forward has rejoined the Rams from Ipswich Town on a season-long loan, but this is no short-term fling. The deal carries an obligation to buy at the end of the 2026-27 campaign, with the fee understood to be appearance-related and in the region of £2.7m.
It is a commitment that underlines how central John Eustace believes Szmodics can be to Derby’s push for the Premier League.
Eustace’s talisman returns
Szmodics already knows the Derby dressing room and Derby already know what they are getting. He spent part of last season on loan at Pride Park, making 13 appearances and scoring three times as the Rams fell just four points shy of the Championship play-offs.
The numbers were modest by his own standards, but the partnership with Eustace is tried and tested. Under the same head coach at Blackburn Rovers in 2023-24, Szmodics caught fire, finishing as the Championship’s leading scorer with 27 goals. That surge turned him into one of the most feared forwards in the division and convinced Ipswich to spend £9m to take him to Portman Road ahead of their first Premier League campaign in more than 20 years.
That top-flight step never quite took off. Szmodics scored four league goals as Ipswich went straight back down after just a season among the elite. The hangover lingered. He struck only once in 18 appearances for the Tractor Boys last term before Derby brought him back on loan.
What he did find in that short spell, though, was a sense of belonging.
“After being here for a couple of months, I knew what the squad and the club were all about - if I had anywhere to come back to, it was always going to be here,” he told the club’s website. His target is clear enough: “Hopefully, we will go one step further than we did last year and get promoted to the Premier League.”
The obligation-to-buy clause, tied to appearances, now gives Derby and Szmodics a shared incentive. If he plays, and if he performs, this reunion becomes permanent and the club secure a proven Championship scorer entering the final stretch of his peak years.
Derby raise the stakes
For Derby, this move is a statement. They missed the play-offs by a narrow margin last season. Rather than reshaping the attack entirely, they have doubled down on a forward who has already delivered spectacularly for their manager elsewhere.
Eustace knows exactly how to use him: high energy, constant movement between the lines, late runs into the box. When that version of Szmodics turns up, defences struggle to live with him. Derby are gambling that the Blackburn version, not the Ipswich one, will define the next two seasons.
The fee, at around £2.7m if triggered, looks measured in a market where proven Championship goals are usually priced far higher. It also reflects the reality of his last two years – blistering form followed by a difficult Premier League season and a subdued return to the second tier.
Now he walks back into a club that believes it can climb again. Szmodics has already pinned his colours to that mast. The pressure will follow quickly.
Thompson set for Mansfield move
While one familiar face returns, another is close to the exit.
Midfielder Liam Thompson is on the verge of leaving Derby for Mansfield Town. The 24-year-old, who first broke into the Rams’ senior side in 2021 after six years in the academy, has just one year left on his contract and now appears set for a fresh start.
For a player who came through the ranks and lived the turbulence of recent seasons, it would mark the end of a long internal journey at Pride Park. For Derby, it is another small reshaping of the squad around Eustace’s core.
A prolific former Golden Boot winner back under the manager who unlocked him. A homegrown midfielder ready to write his next chapter elsewhere. Derby’s summer is starting to take shape – and so is the pressure on Szmodics to turn a calculated gamble into a promotion story.
