Rowett Hails Attacking Display

Gary Rowett hailed Derby County’s attacking quality after his side cruised to a 3-0 victory against Barnsley, a result that extended the Rams’ unbeaten run away from home in the Sky Bet Championship.

Goals from Tom Lawrence, Matej Vydra and Andreas Weimann secured a comfortable win at Oakwell to make it seven without defeat on the road.

Derby scored with each of their three shots on target on Saturday afternoon and Rowett was delighted with the freedom that he side displayed in the final third.

He told RamsTV: “The second goal was really good, the quality of the movement and the attacking incisiveness was fantastic.

“Everyone wanted to get involved and everybody feels confident, and it just took the third goal to go in for everybody to showcase that a little bit more.

“The more that teams come on to us sometimes, the more we look like we’re going to open them up because the space opens up naturally.”

The Derby boss also highlighted a key trait that his side have been displaying in recent weeks as they continue to pick up positive results.

He said: “There are still periods of the game where we don’t need to be at our best, which I think is the sign of a good side.

“We were in control without playing as well as we would have liked to, we were still a little bit wasteful on the ball at times, but we controlled the game when we needed to.”

With Sheffield United and Aston Villa both slipping up this weekend, the three points has moved Derby into fourth in the Championship table.

Rowett was pleased with the attitude that his players showed in difficult conditions, but he believes that there is still room for improvement.

He added: “We’re really pleased with where we are, we’ve shown that we’ve got a resilient group that can come to Barnsley on a bitterly cold afternoon and we’ve ended up winning with another clean sheet.

“We’re pleased with the way that we’re going about our work, and also with where we are in the table.

“I still think we can improve, we can still get better, it was a good afternoon but we’ve got to keep working.”

Rowett also provided an update on Lawrence’s condition, after the forward was replaced at the break with an ankle problem.

He said: “It didn’t look horrendous but it’s one of those where you don’t know. We think he’s damaged ankle ligaments, but it depends on the scan.”