Rooney: “The Players Can See I Am Not Panicking”

Wayne Rooney has made it clear he is not overreacting to Derby County’s recent results.

Derby will head to Barnsley on Wednesday evening (7pm kick-off) looking to bounce back from successive defeats on the road last week.

Rooney’s side were beaten 4-0 at Cardiff City last Tuesday before they tasted a narrow 1-0 loss at Coventry City on Saturday.

The 35-year-old felt there was room for improvement in both performances, as well as the 1-1 draw against local rivals Nottingham Forest prior to the matches, and he is fully focussed on improving the side’s fortunes.

Under Rooney, Derby have edged their way up the Sky Bet Championship table after a poor start to the campaign and sit six points clear of the bottom three.

They have shown they can pick up positive results and produce good performances and the Rams’ boss knows it’s important to keep a level head to ensure he gets the best out of his players.

“I think the players can see that, through myself, that I am not panicking,” Rooney told RamsTV.

“This happens in football; you have good moments, you have bad moments, good games and bad games.

“We have to just get through this period, we have a very tough and difficult game coming up on Wednesday against Barnsley and we have to be ready for that."

On Barnsley, who have won seven games in a row, Rooney added: “They are on a great run; they have won their last seven matches and it is going to be a very scrappy game.

“We know what is coming and we have to be able to handle balls coming into the box, but also on the flip side we have to be aggressive with and without the ball and when we go forward we do it quickly and try to cause them problems.”

Rooney has stressed the importance of the Rams getting back to being more solid from a defensive point of view after conceding goals too easily of late.

“In the last two games especially, we have conceded goals too easily,” Rooney explained.

“The goal at Coventry was a mistake from Nathan Byrne, but mistakes happen, and the goals at Cardiff were very sloppy for us to concede.

“We need to get back to being solid, being hard to beat, but I think we have to have players running off the ball and willing to play the ball forwards. If we do that then we will start winning games again.”