Frank Lampard wants to see more urgency from his Derby County side following their 1-0 defeat to Rotherham United on Saturday afternoon.
Tom Lawrence was sent off just before the hour mark in South Yorkshire for a late tackle on Richie Towel and Lampard felt his side, despite being a man down for the majority of the second half, displayed more urgency in their game after the Welshman saw red.
Ultimately, Derby tasted defeat as Ryan Manning scored the only goal of the game from the penalty spot soon after Lawrence's dismissal.
From that point Lampard’s side, after admitting they started slowly against the Millers, displayed some of the qualities that were on shot during their four-game winning run before the international break.
However, the Rams boss said it came too late on a frustrating afternoon that also saw Lampard sent off in the second half.
“Our performance with 10 men, that urgency should have been there when we had 11 and then we would have had a result,” Lampard told RamsTV following the match.
“That’s something for us to consider – we don’t tell them not to have that urgency and the players don’t go out not to.
“Sometimes in the game you just start to slow it down a little bit and the conditions didn’t help that today. But as we saw, if you do put more to it you can get something going.”
In a game that drew a lot of attention to key decisions going against Derby, Lampard made no excuses.
Goalkeeper Scott Carson was called into action in the first-half and put in a typically solid shift to ensure the Millers didn’t take the lead early on, while he also made some fine stops in the second period.
Derby had a few chances of their own and the 40-year-old felt his side could have got on the scoresheet.
Lampard said: “Let’s get this straight, we didn’t play well. We can talk about the refereeing decisions, but Rotherham did well, they are fighting for points here, as we are, and they were very effective.
“It was difficult for us to play, long grass and a dry pitch, and we couldn’t get the ball zipping around as we would like to.
“They played very well, and we weren’t at it. That is another question that we have to put right.”
He added: “They were direct in their approach and then when opponents are direct we have to work really hard to stop second balls and second chances that fall down around and we weren’t good enough at that.
“We created a few chances ourselves, but it’s the sort of game you are disappointed when you don’t come away with a point.”
Lampard won’t have to wait long for his players to answer his questions as the Rams return to Pride Park Stadium on Tuesday night to face Blackburn Rovers, before taking on Brentford on home turf next Saturday.
Derby sit seventh in the Sky Bet Championship table at this early stage of the season, and Lampard is already looking ahead and is confident his side will remain competitive.
“That’s the beauty of the game, we have three games in the week. If we get a few good results it will push us up the table,” he said.
“These results do happen in the Championship, we don’t like them, but the league is so competitive. We have got a home game now and we will focus on that.
“Our standards need to be high, we need to be competitive with the squad we have. We need to regroup and go again.”