PRE-MATCH INTERVIEW: Eustace and Adams preview Tuesday’s return to Pride Park against Norwich

John Eustace and Ebou Adams admitted Derby County need to look forward to facing Norwich City on Tuesday night in a positive frame of mind and take accountability as they look to bounce back from Saturday’s defeat at Oxford United.

Derby were beaten 1-0 by the U’s at the Kassam Stadium in their first outing following the October international break, with a Stan Mills goal in the first half enough for the hosts to take all three points in the Sky Bet Championship.

The Rams will be looking to bounce back from their first loss in a month with two home games this week, as they look ahead to facing Norwich City on Tuesday night before hosting Queens Park Rangers on Saturday.

Eustace spoke to RamsTV after training on Monday and laid down the gauntlet for his squad to respond positively to the loss at Oxford when they come up against the Canaries under the Pride Park floodlights.

His reflections after Saturday’s defeat at Oxford…

It's the first time this season that we've let ourselves down. The first thing we have to do is compete and we didn't do that over the 90 minutes. Sometimes, it's a bit of a wake-up call and a bit of a smack on the back of the head to say: 'keep doing the basics well.' We didn't do it well enough on Saturday.

We're really looking forward to Tuesday now to try and put things right. It's a collective effort. We win, lose and draw together. It's a collective and it's something we all have to learn from. There are things we could have done throughout the week and on matchday as well to be better.

Win, lose or draw, we stay together and that's the most important thing. We're building something special at the football club and there's lots of hard work ahead. On Saturday, we let ourselves down. We know that.

The one thing, as I've already said, is that we have to be competitive in every game and unfortunately, we weren't in that game over the course of the 90 minutes. There is lots to learn and take from it and we move on.

On taking advantage of two home matches this week…

The lads have performed well overall up to now at home. We haven't got the points that we deserve, but we scored in most of the games. We've shown that fighting spirit.

I think our last performance at home was an excellent one in the 1-1 draw against Southampton. It's a long season and over the course of the 46 games you get what you deserve, and we've got to keep believing in what we're doing. We need to keep building and keep positive. In the next two games, as long as we're very competitive, that's what I ask for.

Midfielder Adams also caught up with RamsTV and provided and honest reflection on the loss at the weekend and a positive outlook moving forward.

On taking lessons from the weekend's loss at Oxford…

It was very disappointing. I don't think the performance was a Derby County performance from 15 minutes onwards. It was the simple things, the basics, that we didn’t get right. If you don't do the basics, the result we got is what ends up happening. That's a lesson for us to learn: you have to show up no matter who you're playing against, because there's no walking in this league.

I'd rather the situation we're in to be happening now than towards the end of the season, because there's time to put it right. We can't waste time doing that. We have to start now in training, start performing, and then we can lay that performance in training into a game. Hopefully we can start collecting points, because, at the end of the day, that's what matters.

We have to take accountability for ourselves because it is on us as players to perform. We want to forget about Saturday’s performance quickly and look to move on and rectify it.

On looking for the first home win of the season on Tuesday night against Norwich...

It's always nice to get the first home win as quickly as possible and that is what we are looking for. We just have to take Tuesday as a normal game, we don't need to put more pressure on ourselves. We know the situation we're in right now is not ideal.

That's life; if it was a straight road, I'll be on that road! It's always a bumpy road. Sometimes you take the wrong turn, and it's a really bumpy road. It's up to us to get through that and to weather the storm.