Lee Grant: "We Will React And Use Disappointing Draw As Fuel For Our Season"

Lee Grant has called on Derby County to use their stoppage time disappointment against Birmingham City as ‘fuel’ for the remainder of the season.

Lee Grant has called on Derby County to use their stoppage time disappointment against Birmingham City as ‘fuel’ for the remainder of the season.

The Rams, from two goals up, conceded two goals in injury time through Paul Caddis and Clayton Donaldson as they were forced to settle for a point at the iPro Stadium.

Caddis’ penalty two minutes into stoppage time was the visitors’ first shot on target before Gary Rowett’s side threw the kitchen sink at Derby as Donaldson’s bundled finish cancelled out Jamie Ward’s and Tom Ince’s strikes in a controlled performance from Steve McClaren’s side.

Grant admitted that the Derby’s dressing room was one full of hurt and anger at how the side dropped the two points, but insisted it was important for the squad to stick together.

Speaking to Rams Player, the 31-year-old said: “There is a lot of disappointment and anger in the dressing room with regards to how we managed the last couple of the minutes of the game.

“We give full credit to Birmingham for their positivity and how they kept going to the death, but we know, both collectively and individually, that we can manage the situation better.

“We take each game in isolation and you tend to look back on groups of games. We look back on them individually and today we are hugely disappointed.

“We’re played so well for such a long time, for 92 minutes, before we made a mistake and we have been punished.

“We was still calmness at that point, there was still enough confidence and belief in the group that we would see the game out.

“But that’s what happens when you concede set plays as we did so late in the game because it becomes a lottery situation with 11 against 11 players in the box.

“We have come out on the wrong side of that. You have to earn your luck in situations like that and we didn’t do enough.

“There is enough belief amongst us that we will react from this and use today’s performance as fuel going forward.

“We will pick the bones off what happened in the last couple of minutes because that is the only time that we can be disappointed with ourselves.

“We will stick together, we will plan and we will make sure that we are right for the coming weekend.”

The draw meant that Derby ended the week having only picked up one point from a disappointing seven days after losing back-to-back league games on the road.

The Rams now have a week to prepare for their trip to Norwich City, before they host Middlesbrough and travel to Wolves before the next international break.

Grant insisted that he and the rest of the squad will continue to trust in the way that they approach games, but insists that they deliver it for the entirety of their upcoming fixtures.

He added: “We have got a fantastic run of games to look forward, all of which we want to be involved in.

“We will plan how we want to play and we did that today. We trust in the game plan, we got it spot on today right from the staff down to the players, the only time it went wrong was in the last couple of minutes.

“We have to make sure that we follow that through for the entirety of the game. We have got to keep believing, keep our discipline and just move on as quickly as we can.”