Curtis Davies called on Derby County to recapture their defensive form after Scott Carson’s goal was breached three times during a pulsating encounter with struggling Reading.
It was a six-goal thriller at the Madejski Stadium, with Kasey Palmer putting Gary Rowett’s side in front early on before Liam Kelly and Mo Barrow turned the game around, only for Richard Keogh to level before the break.
Tom Lawrence restored the Rams’ lead just moments into the second half, but Jon Dadi Bodvarsson made it 3-3, and Davies believes that the good offensive work of the team is being undermined.
He told RamsTV: “I can pretty much copy and paste my comments from last week, it’s not good enough to score three goals and not win a game of football.
“We’re a team that pride ourselves on clean sheets, we had an unbelievable run but now we’ve conceded seven in the last three, so we need to get it right.
“Ultimately, the forward play has been really good, we’ve been scoring and creating chances.”
Davies added: “With all due respect, Reading haven’t been in good form, they’re a good team but after the first goal you could see that there was a little bit of a turn from the crowd.
“It was a great finish, you can’t take away from that, but we capitulated.”
The draw means that it’s now four games without a win for Derby in the Sky Bet Championship, and Davies stressed the important of getting back on track as the games tick down.
He said: “It’s not good enough, we’ve got aspirations of automatic promotion and we need to get it right, and get it right now.
“There are 12 games left but the games do run out, so we need to get the points on the board as quickly as possible.
“It’s important that we get a win just to stop the rot, because it becomes a habit. We’re not losing, we’ve drawn the last couple, but we want three points.”
In-form Fulham are next up at Pride Park Stadium next weekend, and the centre-back is expecting a real test against the Rams’ top-six rivals.
He said: “It’s going to be a tough game, they’re one of the best footballing sides in the league, they play some nice intricate football and they’re the form team.”
