Sat 29 Nov - Posted in Breaking News
Time to read: 4mins
Head Coach John Eustace and forward Ben Brereton Diaz offered their honest reflections following Derby County’s 2-1 defeat on the road against Middlesbrough.
The Rams made the perfect start at the Riverside Stadium when forward Patrick Agyemang calmly slotted into the bottom corner to put Derby ahead inside the opening two minutes.
However, a dramatic late turnaround in the final quarter of an hour, featuring goals from Matt Targett and former Derby Academy product Morgan Whittaker, saw the hosts claim all three points in the Sky Bet Championship.
The clash with high-flying Boro was the Rams' third fixture of a demanding week on the pitch with plenty of miles clocked up on the road, following a 3-2 loss at home to Watford last weekend and an impressive 2-1 victory at Swansea City in midweek.
Eustace spoke to RamsTV post-match, offering his assessment and describing his side as ‘fully committed and unlucky not to get at least a point’.
I'm proud of the efforts of the group. It's been a really tough week, obviously. The home game on Saturday against Watford needed a really big effort and to lose it in the way we did was disappointing. The performance was good, then to go to Swansea on Tuesday and perform like we did was excellent. To come here at the end of a tough week and perform like we did in the first half, I thought we were superb. In the second half we ran out of legs and to concede two goals off set-pieces is really disappointing.
Apart from that, Middlesbrough had a lot of possession, of course, but I didn't really feel like they were going to score. It’s disappointing, but we always looked a threat on the turnover today, especially in the first half.
There's lots more to come from the group. We're 18 games in. We're in a really good position. We've done well of late and it's important that when you're coming to a top team in the league, which Middlesbrough are, you look at their bench and you look at the changes they made at vital times. To still compete, still be in the game and still be giving it our best is really encouraging.
You look at the players that are going to be coming back over the next three or four weeks as well; the squad's going to get stronger. This week the boys have been magnificent, and they haven't got the points I feel that we deserved, but we will keep going.
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It’s good news on Carlton. I think it's going to be about 10 weeks. That's great news. We were obviously fearing that his season was going to be over. He'll be back and by the time he's back, it'll be like a brand-new signing at the end of January or February time. It is a huge relief. He's a fantastic player for us; a great character, a great person. Injuries are part of the game, it's part of football.
RamsTV also caught up with forward Brereton Díaz following the defeat, who shared his verdict on 90 minutes and looked ahead to next weekend’s return to Pride Park Stadium to take on Leicester City.
The boys are gutted. It was such a good performance in the first half and most of the second half, and to then just concede from being sloppy on two set-pieces, everyone's gutted. We've got to dust ourselves off again and go again.
Now we know what we've got to do, we're going to work hard again and put it right, that's all we can do. It's a big game coming up. We've got to leave this in the past, obviously we will review it and see what we can do better and stuff like that. Everyone's excited for the games coming up and we've proven that we can play good football, we can score goals and we're nice and compact with our defending, so we're excited.
Words: Ella Barber.
Riverside Stadium
Middlesbrough
Hull City
Wrexham
Derby County
Norwich City
Birmingham City
Swansea City
Bristol City
