Cocu Pleased With Derby’s Goalscoring Exploits

Phillip Cocu says he’s pleased with the attacking threat on display from his ever-improving Derby County side.

Last Saturday’s 3-2 victory at Millwall was the fourteenth successive league game in which the Rams have found the back of the net, a run stretching back to late December 2019.

Youngster Louie Sibley stole the show at The Den with a hat-trick as Derby returned to action following a three-month suspension of the season due to the COVID-19 outbreak, albeit behind-closed-doors, with a win.

The victory over the Lions was the third league game in succession in which the Rams scored three times, following the victories over Sheffield Wednesday and Blackburn Rovers prior to the break in the campaign.

The upturn in goalscoring form since the halfway stage of the season, after finding goals hard to come by earlier in the campaign, has helped move Derby up the table and to within three points of a play-off berth with eight games left to play.

Cocu was pleased to see his side continue their goalscoring form after over 12 weeks without a competitive fixture against Millwall.

The Derby boss is encouraged by the fact his side are getting themselves into better goalscoring positions to go alongside their impressive performances.

Speaking to RamsTV after the win at Millwall, Cocu said: “We put ourselves, much more often now, in better positions to score.

“As we saw at Millwall, we can miss some chances but still create more and still manage to score.

“If we can keep the average up, it means we put less pressure on our defence and even if we do concede a goal we keep calm and keep playing.

“It is an important aspect for us as well.”

Martyn Waghorn is Derby’s leading goalscorer with 12 goals so far this season, but Cocu believes the Rams have shown they do not rely on one single individual for goals.

Chris Martin and Tom Lawrence have chipped in with 19 goals between them - while Sibley, Jason Knight and Wayne Rooney have also weighed in with 12 goals combined in the second half of the season.

Having goals spread across the side is a quality Cocu values highly.

“We don’t rely on one player for the goals; we have seen that in our games,” he said.

“With Martyn Waghorn he didn’t score on Saturday, but he played an important part and set up Louie Sibley for our second goal.”