3/1 To Win
Gary Rowett says Derby County need to rediscover their solid defensive form of recent months.
However, Jon Dadi Bodvarson levelled for the home side with ten minutes to go before Baird saw red late on.
Derby have conceded eight goals in their last four matches, which is a statistic that is uncharacteristic given their sound defensive form for the majority of the campaign.
Rowett was keen to avoid being too critical of his players, who have tasted defeat once in their last 15 league matches, but he has made it clear they need to get back to the sort of defensive showings which played an instrumental role in the Rams becoming a promotion contender.
He told RamsTV: “It was a strange game. To go a goal up was a very good start but we lacked a little bit of aggression in the first half and it was too easy for Reading to get into reasonable positions.
“We needed to have a little more aggression to our defending and more intensity. We asked the players to recreate the intensity of the first half against Leeds but we didn’t do that.
“I was very critical at half-time and it seemed to spark them into action. We put Reading under a lot of pressure and the fans didn’t like it - and we scored a very good goal after coming out of the blocks very well.
“At that point, it looked like the game was over but we made another very poor mistake. Even at 3-3, I felt that we could go on and win the game.
“At the moment, though, we are making very poor mistakes. It’s the momentary lapses of concentration that are going against us. We have to defend much better.
“We’ve gone from being very defensively solid to making silly mistakes and not defending well enough as a team. If you do that you make every game very difficult.”
He added: “I’m not going to start berating the players, but at the moment it is costing us the chance to win games. Things aren’t quite going for us, Cameron Jerome hit an unbelievable shot and the goalkeeper did well to get anywhere near it and, seconds later, he also hit the bar.
“Just one of those moments, if they had have fallen for us, I am sure we would have got what we deserved for our second half performance.”
Derby created a number of opportunities throughout and could have gone further ahead after Lawrence’s early second-half strike.
“Our front four were excellent today.
“Kasey Palmer was bright and he’s shown what a talented player he is.
“He did well to get so far through the game because we thought he might struggle a little earlier.”
Rowett was also frustrated with some of the decisions from the match officials.
“With the throw-in for their first goal, Joe Ledley let it go because he knew it was our ball and I’ve watched it again; it clearly comes off their player and the linesman was just three yards away.
“For Chris Baird’s sending off, the fourth official decided to make a comment on something. He said that it was reckless, two-footed and off the ground, and it was none of those.
“For him to get involved from five yards away, make completely the wrong decision and for the Reading bench to jump up as if somebody had just been critically injured, I think all of those factors led to the referee showing the red card.
“When the game of football is so important to everybody, those decisions have to start being right and there’s not much else I can say other than that.”
