Paul Jewell picked out the positives of his Derby County side's performance as he reflected on an underserved 2-0 defeat away to Barnsley.

The home team were on the rack for long periods at Oakwell and had their goalkeeper Luke Steele to thank for several fine saves that kept them in the game.

Only in the last 18 minutes did they break through themselves, first through a superb Iain Hume effort and then a Stephen Foster header from a corner.

It all left Jewell disappointed not to be taking three points back to Pride Park Stadium but he was pleased with the way his players applied themselves in South Yorkshire.

"I have stood here plenty of times talking to the press after games and been embarrassed but today is as well as we have played this season," he said.

"People will look at the result and say we have lost but we should have been out of sight and we created chances without getting the goal, which is the way it is going for us this season.

"They get the first goal, a world-class goal, and from there we have got to keep fighting.

"I can understand people's frustrations but those here, in the cold light of day, I'm sure they will realise we were worthy of the three points.

"When you are on top and dominating a game, and the opposition's keeper is making saves, going behind knocks the stuffing out of you.

"All of a sudden their confidence is up and that was from their first shot on target in the game.

"We are really gutted today as we deserved far better than to lose 2-0.

"Last week I was devastated with the performance and the result but this week I'm devastated with the result, as the performance was as good as we have given all season.

"But performances don't get you results if you don't take your chances.

"It would be easy for us to say that it wasn't our day, and start feeling sorry for ourselves, but you get nothing in football for that.

"We played miles better than we did on Tuesday night at Preston but that is football for you.

"It is all about results but if we play as we did today for the rest of the season we will win far more games than we lose."