“We Have To Keep Believing”

Gary Rowett has backed Derby County to fight their way out of the current run of form after Fulham took the points from Pride Park Stadium with a 2-1 win in the Sky Bet Championship.

Goals in the first half from Aleksandar Mitrovic and Ryan Sessegnon gave the Cottagers a comfortable lead at the break, before Tom Huddlestone pulled a goal back with just over 20 minutes to go.

Despite late pressure, the Rams couldn’t find an equaliser and the result means that Rowett’s side are now without a win since the 3-0 victory against Brentford at the start of February.

The boss outlined the key aspects that he believes will help Derby to get back on track in the coming weeks.

He told RamsTV: “We’re in a poor situation at the moment, but there have been lots of teams – Huddersfield last season – that have had a similar dip and everybody rules them out.

“We have to stick together, keep believing and keep working hard. I do believe that things are not going for us, everything seems to fall for the opposition.

“If we keep working hard, if we keep believing in ourselves, then it will turn, but we have got to make it turn.”

The Rams have made an unfortunate habit of conceding sloppy goals in recent weeks, and both Mitrovic and Sessegnon benefited from deflections before the ball came into their feet.

Rowett was disappointed with the way that the goals were conceded, especially after a strong opening period of the game for his side.

He said: “It was two defensive errors again. That’s the frustrating thing at the moment because we started as well as we have for a long time.

“We started on the front foot, we were aggressive and we moved the ball to get into some brilliant positions.

“We had a goal disallowed for offside but we just made a stupid mistake, you don’t expect Fulham to score from a corner against us; we have much more size and height.

“It just dropped to Mitrovic, which just seems to be the way that things are going at the moment.

“We’re not getting the breaks but it is a disappointing goal to concede, particularly when we’re on top.”

On the second goal, he added: “We had opportunities to clear the ball but it comes to Sessegnon and as we know, he’s been very clinical this season.

“We had a very good opening 20 minutes of the game, but we found ourselves 2-0 down, which swings the game massively.”

Derby will dust themselves down and go again at Loftus Road against Queens Park Rangers on Tuesday night, and Rowett believes that it is time for Derby to get back to the watertight defensive form that they were showing earlier in the campaign.

“Until we do the basics better, defend better and stop conceding silly goals that the opposition haven’t had to work incredibly hard for,” he said.

“They haven’t cut us open, if they had cut us open with great play then I can hold my hands up but they’re not doing that.

“We took the plaudits for our defensive form earlier in the season, and now we have to take the flack because we aren’t defending well enough.”