Craig Forsyth felt Derby County needed to be better in possession after a late Brentford goal denied the Rams all three points at Griffin Park.
Ollie Watkins struck five minutes from time to cancel out Joe Ledley’s debut goal after just 16 minutes – denying Derby not only a return to winning ways, but a first clean sheet away from home in the Sky Bet Championship since the end of January.
Up to that point, it looked as though Gary Rowett’s side had delivered a near perfect away performance, limiting a Bees side, that dominated the possession statistics, to just two shots on target.
Defensively solid, the Rams delivered on the manager’s message to show more resilience away from home, but Forsyth, one of five changes to the starting XI in West London, felt Derby were wasteful when they did win the ball back.
He told RamsTV: “It’s massively disappointing. We’ve nicked a goal, sat in and let them play in front of us. They didn’t create too many chances but we weren’t able to hang on for the full 90 minutes.
“There was a lot of moving side-to-side but they didn’t get through us that often or get many clear-cut chances so that’s a positive.
“We need to better on the ball and we know that. That’s something we spoke about afterwards.
“They are a very good team in possession and they make the pitch very big with lots of movement.
“We knew that we would have to let them have it at some points and stay in our shape and I think we did that well but when we did get it, we didn’t do enough with it and it just came straight back at us.
“We needed a second goal but if we get the ball up the pitch with better quality then it gives us a break and can get the rest of us a chance to get up the pitch.
“It’s massively disappointing to concede a goal so late on.”
The result means Derby have only recorded one win on the road in the Championship so far this term – a 2-1 success at Bolton Wanderers last month.
Forsyth says a lot of work has been taken place to rectify that record and felt elements of that were on show at Griffin Park.
Rowett’s men hit the road again this Saturday – this time to face the current pace-setters Cardiff City.
Forsyth added: “We are working very hard to do everything we can to put things right and we’ve got another tough one on Saturday to look forward to.
“I think we were tougher to play against. We sat in and knew that we’d have to stay in shape.
“I thought that we did that well but we switched off for a moment and you saw what happened.”
