Defender Richard Stearman admitted Derby County’s players were left disappointed that they couldn’t pick up all three points in their goalless draw at Shrewsbury Town on Tuesday night.
The League One clash may have been short on goals, but it certainly wasn’t lacking in excitement as the two sides were forced to settle for a point apiece at Montgomery Waters Meadow.
Derby had 75% of the ball over the 90 minutes but they were unable to break down a resilient and stubborn Shrewsbury outfit in the sides’ first league meeting since the 1986/87 season.
Stearman headed a Conor Hourihane free kick wide in the first half while Tom Barkhuizen had a shot saved.
Derby pushed for the breakthrough in the second half and substitute Louie Sibley was denied by home goalkeeper Marko Marosi late on.
The hosts had their moments too on the break, notably with Daniel Udoh blasting over deep into added time.
Stearman, who has started the Rams’ last two league fixtures at the heart of the defence with skipper Curtis Davies sidelined due to injury, spoke to RamsTV after the final whistle to offer his verdict on the game.
On The Draw…
We are disappointed we haven’t picked up the win tonight. We feel as though it’s two points dropped with how much we have dominated without maybe creating as many clear-cut chances as we would have liked. To come away from home and keep a clean sheet is pleasing and if you can’t win a game you certainly don’t lose it, but as a team, we have disappointment and frustration in the dressing room that we haven’t put them to the sword tonight.
On The Ruthless Edge Missing…
That’s throughout the team. I myself missed one from a yard or out at the far and we’re doing everything but scoring when we should be at the moment. At Charlton in our last away game, it was the best we had played in the first half, we should have had two or three goals but we end up losing the game and that’s this league in a nutshell. If you don’t put teams away, then at some point they will get a chance. We managed to keep them out tonight, but we are disappointed it’s not three points.
On Doing The Right Things…
There is too much quality in that dressing room. We are creating so many chances that at some point someone will get a beating. We are dominated the ball, playing lovely football and we are thoroughly enjoying our football with the way the manager has set us up to play and you can see it’s going to bear fruit. Even at this early stage of the season, this group haven’t had a lot of time together. We didn’t have a lengthy pre-season and we are still half treating this as an extension of pre-season because of the lack of games we’ve had. To be able to sit here on the points we are on, playing so well in patches, we are delighted with that but we are also disappointed not to be on maximum points. That bodes well for the future and we are certainly optimistic about it.
On His Chance In The First Half…
I’ve got to hold my hands up and say I should have put it in the back of the net. Conor Hourihane put a great ball in for me; I got up there a bit early and instead of powering it through, I’ve had to glance it and the ball went wide. It would have been a legitimate goal for me this time and it would have been a different story if that had gone in. Shrewsbury dropped off deep tonight, they played a deep block and we didn’t create as many clear cut chances as we would have liked because they set up in the way they did to defend. If we had scored one they would have had to come out a bit more and do something and things would opened up.
On The Clean Sheet…
I’m delighted, especially as a defender. That’s our job to keep the ball out the back of the net. Eiran Cashin played fantastically well tonight and is performing well. He has such good potential and part of my job is to help him fulfil that and get the best out of him. With Joe Wildsmith behind us and the back four throughout the season so far have defended well. It was the same story against Barnsley on Saturday where we have had to dig in and stand up to the test but we are delighted with the clean sheet but disappointed we haven’t put the ball away at the other end.
On Heading To Fleetwood On Saturday…
The matches come thick and fast. It’s another away game, we hope to play similarly like we did tonight and pick up the three points. That would be four points out of the two away games and we can be happy with our work at the start of the season if we achieve that target.