"He's Getting Better And Better"

Tom Huddlestone bagged his first Derby County goal against Brentford on Saturday and Gary Rowett believes that the influence of his midfielder has grown as the season has progressed.

The 31-year-old, who made his debut for the club back in August 2003, was quickest to react when Cameron Jerome’s header was saved, and he slammed home to notch on his 125th Derby appearance.

He controlled proceedings against the Bees and Rowett believes that we are beginning to see the best of the experienced midfielder, who was brought back to Derby in the summer.

He told RamsTV: “It was a big performance, in patches we can be better but we had enough at the right times to get the win.

“He’s been getting a bit of stick! He gets into some great positions but he sometimes seems reluctant to pull the trigger.

“It was a scruffy one but it was nice for him to get it, and the way that the whole team celebrated shows that he’s such a popular player.

“He’s getting better and better as the season goes on, he’s controlling games for us, and his goal added to what was a fantastic performance.”

Two players that haven’t had a lot of game-time this season – Marcus Olsson and Ikechi Anya – came into the side and Rowett was full of praise for what the pair gave to the team on the day, whilst he also praised Cameron Jerome after his first goal for the club.

On Anya, he said: “He did really well, we know how good he is, one thing you’re certainly going to get from him is energy.

“He made things happen, it was why I brought Olsson in as well, they play quite well together and they link up.

“I just felt that we needed to take a little bit of a gamble today, we had a couple of draws and I thought that we needed to go a little more attacking.

On Jerome, he added: “At 60 minutes he was starting to feel the pace of the game, but he worked incredibly hard and you can see that he unsettled the defenders.

“His build-up play was good, he’s really clever and he took his goal really well. He’ll only get better as the games go on.”

Rowett was concerned that his side took the foot off the gas after putting themselves in control at half-time, but overall, he was satisfied with the display.

“We were a little bit edgy to start with, but at this stage of the season, it’s just about getting results,” he said.

“When you go 2-0 up, the players think the game is won and start being sloppy.

“The second goal had 17 passes in the build-up, and we’re scoring goals in different ways, including from set-pieces as we did today.

“I want us to move the ball quickly and play with a little more freedom, and it’s another strong performance and another clean sheet, as well as another three goals.”