McClaren Receives LMA Award

Head Coach hails 'team effort' as Derby land the LMA Performance of the Week Award.

Derby County Head Coach Steve McClaren this afternoon received the LMA Performance of the Week Award following the Rams’ 3-2 win at Watford last Saturday.

The League Managers Association five-man Performance of the Week panel, comprising LMA Chairman Howard Wilkinson, Sir Alex Ferguson, Joe Royle, Dave Bassett and Barry Fry, were in agreement that this week’s award should go to Derby.

It was confirmed on Tuesday that the Rams had won the eleventh LMA Performance of the Week Award of the season.

McClaren was presented the specially engraved crystal football in a presentation to commemorate the award at the Derby County Training Centre in partnership with the University of Derby.

Ahead of his third game in charge of the Rams on Saturday afternoon against Birmingham City, McClaren told Rams Player: “It was surprised when we got the phone call the other day to say we’d won the Award.

“I thought the LMA meant it was just for the Championship, but when they said it was for the entire Premier League and Football League I was a bit shocked.

“It’s for the players really and what they did at Vicarage Road; the performance was very good although we did have to ride our luck a bit at times.

“It’s a great achievement and a real team effort.”

As part of the presentation McClaren conducted an interview for Sky Sports’ Gillette Soccer Saturday, which will be aired on tomorrow’s show on Sky Sports News.