Davies Pulls No Punches After Sunderland Loss

Curtis Davies pulled no punches in his honest assessment of Derby County’s loss to Sunderland.

The Rams fell to a 4-1 defeat against Chris Coleman’s side on what proved to be a disappointing Good Friday evening at Pride Park Stadium.

George Honeyman and Ashley Fletcher’s first-half strikes had the visitors in front and, despite Matej Vydra reducing the arrears before the break with a sublime volley, Derby were unable to mount a second half fightback.

Aiden McGeady’s penalty straight after half-time put the Black Cats back in control before Sunderland’s captain John O’Shea rounded off the scoring late on from close range.

Davies, the experienced centre-back, admitted the Rams’ performance against a side fighting to stay in the Sky Bet Championship was simply not good enough.

Despite the defeat, results earlier in the day mean the Rams remain in fifth place in the table with eight fixtures left to play.

Derby have drawn five and lost three of their last eight matches and the 33-year-old has demanded the side quickly address their form as they seek to achieve a top six finish come early May.

Davies told RamsTV: “It was our worst of the season (performance) and to be totally honest one of the worst of my career.

“Sunderland were struggling for confidence and form coming in to tonight’s game but scored four goals.

“The goals that we gave away were terrible and there are no excuses. We were booed off the pitch and it was fully deserved.

“We have a game on Monday now at Preston and we have to go and put it right; it’s as simple as that. We are now eight without a win and it is about time we got one on the board because we shouldn’t be stood here having the same conversations like we have been recently.”

He added: “We were lucky today that a few results earlier in the day went our way but we shouldn’t be relying on others.

“We need to fight to stay in the play-offs because, as I have said before, it’s not a given that we will finish in the top six. We got to the top end of the table as a result of our form and we need to get back to that quickly.”

Derby’s players, as planned will be in for training on Saturday and Sunday to prepare for the Easter Monday clash at Preston North End.

Davies says the Rams will assess what went wrong against Sunderland as part of the build-up to the game at Deepdale.

He said: “We will be in for training, as planned, on Saturday morning and I am sure we will go over things.

“That will be for the good of the team and to make us all improve. Things haven’t been good enough lately and tonight was a culmination of it.

“We will address it, we know we have to, and instead of twiddling our thumbs and going over the ifs and buts we have no time to mess around with a game at Preston on Monday.”

He added: “I would imagine there will be changes and it’ll be down to those selected to retain our places.”