Post-Match Verdict: James Collins Vs Fleetwood Town (H)

Derby County striker James Collins says the team were punished by a Fleetwood Town side that were 'better' than them on the day on a frustrating afternoon at Pride Park Stadium.

The 2-0 defeat to Fleetwood was the first at home in Sky Bet League One since October 2022 for the Rams and Collins says it's one that hurts.

Speaking to RamsTV after the match, the frontman gave his verdict on the performance.

On the performance...

We're very disappointed. It's a quiet dressing room. The dressing room knows that we weren't at it today and we got punished by a Fleetwood team that on the day were better than us.

We've got to pick ourselves up now because we've got a massive game at Peterborough United next weekend, so we need to make sure we have a good week on the training ground and are back at it.

On what went wrong...

I think we have to give credit to Fleetwood, they came with a game plan and sort of beat us up all over the park.

We had an off day today and they capitalised on it and I think they were better than us all over the park.

On getting back to work on the training ground this week...

It's needed. Once you have a bad result it can go one of two ways, you can have a game on the Tuesday and put it right straight away or have a week on the training pitch and I think having a week at the training ground will be good. There will be a lot of hard work and tactical bits so I think it's needed and we need to be bang at it again next week.

On how much responsibility the senior professionals take...

You have to look after the young lads on the pitch more so. It's gone quite well for a lot of them this year and I think when the chips are down and they are making the odd mistake with the crowd on them - maybe they haven't experienced that before. It's important you keep encouraging them to do the right things and it happens to us all, the crowd weren't just moaning at them, they were moaning at us all - and rightly so.

On home form...

Our form has been great and that's why we can't really put a finger on why we weren't at it today. We were confident going into the game but it wasn't to be.

We've got a tough one coming up against Peterborough next week and then we're back here against Ipswich and we need to put some results together because we're getting to the key part of the season and we've worked too hard to throw it all away now.