Knight: "It Is A Special Night For Myself"

A special night is how Derby County midfielder Jason Knight described his evening as he netted his first professional goals in a vital 2-1 home win over Charlton Athletic.

He probably didn’t know much about his first goal, but he showed huge effort and desire to put his head in where it hurts and give the Rams a dream start on 10 minutes from close range.

Despite the Rams playing with more than three quarters of the game with 10-men, Knight continued to shine and got his second goal of the game in the second half.

An inch-perfect ball into the box by fellow Academy graduate Max Bird set him up for what turned out to be a lovely finish as he extended the Rams’ lead.

Charlton did pull one back from the penalty spot through Lyle Taylor late on, but the Rams defended heroically to secure all three points and end the decade with a win.

And for Knight personally, it was a great way to cap off an incredible year for himself.

“It is a special night for myself, scoring my first two goals for the club but it was a very important win and a very good performance,” he told RamsTV.

“It’s another milestone in my career so far. I need to push on, keep working hard and keep doing what I’m doing.

“Everyone in the team and the staff knew that this was going to be a massive game for us.

“Charlton are around our position in the table and we needed to win the game so luckily we did that, and we can now push on to Thursday against Barnsley.”

He headed home his first goal of the night on 10 minutes and despite sporting a black eye, he was delighted to put the Rams ahead.

“I’ll take what I can get really,” he said. “If it goes in off my head then I will take it. I saw the ball drop and I just thought I would throw myself at it and see what happens. I got a nice boot out of it in the face but that happens sometimes.”

However, seven minutes later, the Rams were reduced to 10-men following the dismissal of Krystian Bielik, a decision which frustrated Knight.

“I was frustrated in myself because it would be a lazy pass and I went in and said sorry to Krystian and apologised to him,” he admitted. “We reacted well to it and we got on with the game very well.”

Derby continued to rally and force chances on goal and they were rewarded in the second half as Bird found Knight alone in the penalty box and he fired in a second of the evening.

“I gave Max Bird a lot of praise to pick me out in that situation,” Knight commented. “There was a lot of bodies running at him in that situation and then it was a nice little finish from myself and it was nice to get a second goal to secure the win at the end.”