Rory Delap gave no excuses after his and Justin Walker’s Under-18s side were beaten 3-0 by Stoke City in Premier League – North.
The Rams' Under-18s fell behind early on in their tie against the Potters and were a goal down within five minutes at the Training Centre in Partnership with the University of Derby.
A perfectly weighted through ball found Abdoulaye Toure before the Stoke winger ended a powerful run by sliding in the opening goal past goalkeeper Bradley Foster-Theniger.
The Under-18s pushed for an equaliser throughout the first-half but were further pegged back just minutes before half time when Scott Wara rose highest in the box to double Stoke’s lead.
In a tightly contested second-half Max Murphy added the Potters’ third and Eiran Cashin saw red late on for a second bookable offence to condemn the Under-18s to their second defeat in two games.
Having not played a competitive fixture since 10th March in a 1-0 defeat to Liverpool a lack of match fitness could have been partly at fault, an excuse which Delap did not agree with.
“You can make that excuse [lack of match fitness],” he said.
“But we’ve had friendly games in between and I don’t know if some of them don’t take it seriously enough which is a real problem.
“You can’t turn it on and off like a tap, you’ve got to mentally prepare for training and games in no different way.
“We drive that and we pull the lads up when we don’t see that so it shouldn’t have as big a baring as it seemed to have in the last couple of game but they’re [fixtures] coming thick and fast now”.
Due to the recent postponements the Under-18s now face a backlog of fixtures which will see them play four games in 11 days starting on Tuesday at home to West Bromwich Albion.
Delap added: “It’s a great experience for them because we try and replicate it with friendly games midweek and sometimes maybe that isn’t seen as how it should be and taken as professionally as it should be sometimes but it’s a league game.
“We play Tuesday, Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday in the next 14 days so it’s a chance for them to not only mentally prepare but also to physically prepare and do what they have to do to recover.
“So what we’ll try to do over the next couple of days in training, play the game on Tuesday and hopefully see a better performance."
Words: Andrew Haines