Post-Match Verdict: James Chester vs Wycombe Wanderers (H)

Derby County defender James Chester made his long-awaited debut for the club in the 2-1 victory over Wycombe Wanderers on Saturday.

The former Wales international has had to bide his time following his summer move from Stoke City after picking up an injury just prior to the season getting underway.

Chester caught up with RamsTV after the final whistle to express his delight in finally making the debut for the Rams and picking up an all-important three points.

On his debut….

It’s been something I’ve been looking forward to for the last five or six weeks now. It was quite frustrating to pick up an injury the week leading into the season and if I’m honest up until a couple of weeks ago this day seemed like quite far away still because the injury was really frustrating and didn’t seem to be getting an awful lot better. It was lovely to be out there and contribute to what we’ve been doing so far this season.

On the game…

We’d spoken in the week, after a couple of bad results people would be looking at us to see how we’d respond and we made it tough for ourselves going a goal down but we spoke at half-time to keep patient because we knew if we’d score one we’d get another and thankfully we did that.

On the team’s character…

It is human nature, with a couple of bad results and the way the game started you, that you can start to doubt yourself but I don’t think we ever looked like we did that. We had a couple of sloppy moments in the first-half but I think we’d shown enough in the game to feel confident that we could get something out of it and we continued in the second-half and perhaps stepped up the quality a bit more and it seemed to take something special at the minute for the ball to go in the back of the net for us but thankfully Conor Hourihane produced a little bit of magic and we turned the screw from there to get the second.

On Conor Hourihane…

Whenever the ball drops to Conor around the edge of the box you feel really confident that he’s certainly going to make the keeper work and I think I probably had the best view in the ground for the first one, I was right behind it and I knew as soon as it left his foot that it was going in and it was a relief because it was looking like it could have been a little bit frustrating for us with the blocks and the saves that their keeper made but thankfully we feel like we got what we deserved.

On the Pride Park atmosphere...

It was something I’ve been really looking forward to. Having to watch the lads up until this point it was something I’ve felt really envious about having them play in front of the atmosphere we have at home. It was a big pull for myself to come and play for Derby so to experience it today was really good and to get the result was extra special.

On the season so far…

On the whole it’s been positive if you look at where the club was just a couple of months ago. We’ve managed to put a really good squad together that are enjoying each other’s company away from the pitch as well as on it. I think we’ve shown already this season what we’re capable of and when you’ve had such a large turnaround like this club has we’re always going to get a couple of difficult performances like we’ve seen so far but like I said earlier, the character that we’ve shown today is something people may have been questioning and I’m glad we’ve responded in the right way.

On relationships building in the squad…

Personally, it’s just been good to get back out there. As I say there’s been some envy from myself to watch the lads play here and not quite feeling fully involved and it’s been nice to get back involved and I’ve enjoyed working with them again.

Everything always takes a little bit of a time and as I say, the huge turnover this club has had, that’s always going to be the case. I think it’s been quite impressive what the manager has been able to achieve in such a short space of time to get us competing so quickly and as I say, we don’t feel like we’re too far away from going on a really good run.

On the two week break…

I think it’s a bonus that we’ve not got a game for myself next week. It’s been a while so I think I’ll be stiff for a couple of days but I thoroughly enjoyed playing and hope there’s many more to come.