Head Coach Paul Warne was delighted to see his Derby County side take a big step towards gaining automatic promotion from Sky Bet League One with an away victory at Cambridge United on Saturday afternoon - but stressed there’s still work to do.
Derby were 1-0 winners on the day, thanks to a first half strike from Nathaniel Mendez-Laing, to put them within one point of securing automatic promotion back to the Championship.
That means the race for promotion will go down to the final day of the campaign when Warne’s side host Carlisle United at Pride Park Stadium next Saturday (12:30pm kick-off).
In picking up all three points on the road, the Rams set a new club record of 13 away wins in a league season.
Warne spoke to RamsTV after the final whistle at the Cledara Abbey Stadium to review his side’s performance and reflect on the outcome against Garry Monk’s U’s.
On the win and needing one win to be promoted…
We have given ourselves a chance going into the last game. We’ve still got to get a positive result next weekend. We trained all week preparing for this one and we didn’t have the sprinklers on the pitch, we tried to make it as ugly as we could in terms of preparing. We knew, after seeing Charlton playing here last week, how difficult it was going to be. If anything, today sums up League One as it was completely different to the game we had last week at Pride Park against Leyton Orient. I thought all the players for this game were on the pitch and the changes we made worked for this one. We could have put some electric pace on late on, where you might lose a bit of physicality, and you need to think about those things.
On how the side dug in to win…
I’ve just said to the lads in the dressing room, there’s different ways to win. I’m not disputing the fact that there were times that we could have bought the ball down and played, but I feel we deserved to win for the way we defended. We hit the woodwork twice in the first half and just needed that second goal to make it a more comfortable game, but that’s how it is at the end of the season. Everything gets cranked up, every tackle, every header and everyone can see and feel that Cambridge are fighting for their lives, just like we are at the other end of the table. Overall, I am pleased with the win and the performance doesn’t matter - luckily!
On Nathaniel Mendez-Laing’s pass and Louie Sibley’s assist…
It was a brilliant ball from Louie. To be fair, he took his time playing the pass. We were all screaming at him to play it, as we know we’ve got pace at the top end of the pitch. It was great ball and he’s done as much for the goal as Nat did. When Nat went around the goalkeeper I was just thinking it’s one of those days that he might slip or something as we had a few good chances early on. I am really pleased for Louie to play a big part in the goal. He has done really well playing at left wing back this year. The goal was probably the only bit of true quality in the game, along with the singing from the fans.
On finding different ways to win this season….
It is difficult to win football games. I said to the lads before the game, not everyone’s a winner. Not everyone can do what it takes to win games, not everyone’s prepared to put their body on the line, not everyone’s prepared to chase the goalkeeper in the 90th minute but our team, they are! Hence why they’ve won loads of matches. I’m not stupid, we could have played better today, but I’m not bothered. I just want to win. You’ve got to be brutal winning your headers, you’ve got to be brutal putting your body on the line and you’ve got to be brilliant at picking up from throw-ins. They’re the things you put pressure on yourself, not the result. I wanted the players to just worry about our own game and felt the result would take care of itself.
On setting a new club record for away wins in a season…
I’m just the spokesman, that’s down to everyone at the football club. We’ve got a great team. The wins are all different, aren’t they? Today we got the win, I think, because our back three didn’t lose a header and Joe Wildsmith defended the goal when needed It is a really proud moment for the lads. It seems a bit of a cycle, because we started here at Cambridge in October 2022 and then our last away game of the season is here. It is a pity we couldn’t clinch promotion today, but to be fair another 32,000 that are going to turn up next week against Carlisle would prefer to wait! The away following is great. I had my son behind the goal, my wife behind the dug-out and it felt great. It is good but we still haven’t finished it, so we’ll be back in on Monday to work again to prepare for Carlisle.
On keeping everyone focussed on having a job to do….
We’ve got to get a positive result next week, that’s it really. I don’t know what more to say! We’ve come this far, everyone’s exhausted, so we’ll go home and watch the game back and prepare again. A win away from home and a clean sheet, that’s what we needed to take us into next week and give ourselves a really good chance of getting over the line.
