Derby County Under-21s Lead Coach Jake Buxton admits his side needs to be more ‘ruthless in the final third’ after their second half fightback against Aston Villa showed their potential.
The Under-21s fell to a 3-1 defeat in their opening game of the 2024/25 Premier League 2 season on Friday night, as a double from Ben Broggio in the first period and second half strike from Rico Richards saw the hosts take the points.
Despite the loss, Derby’s second half rally and goal from Emmanuel Ilesanmi, later creditedas an own goal by Kerr Smith, showed glimpses of their quality.
Buxton spoke after the final whistle about the positive play he saw from his team, the impact of the substitutions made and the importance of being sharp and taking chances.
On needing to assert themselves from the start...
We didn’t settle into the game until we found ourselves behind. But once we started to believe in ourselves and realised that we could compete without the ball and we could hurt the opposition with it, we looked a lot better. We cannot wait until we are behind to do that and need to believe this from the start.
On showing their potential throughout the game…
Physically we competed well and our fitness levels over the course of the game were good. You could see that with how we came on strong late on. We have a little bit more to do in terms of sharpness and also the tactical understanding out of possession needs to be reinforced to make those distances between units better - that would help with the sharpness, too.
We are competing with top opposition, but we can definitely look at improving in those areas I mentioned, as a group, but there were signs of improvement as the match went on.
On the impact of the substitutes…
All the changes made a good impact and showed good energy. We’ve spoken about the importance of the squad and making sure you’re ready to be the best version of yourself, whether you start the game or come on as a non-starter.
On needing a cutting edge in attack…
The second half was very pleasing as we created four very good chances to score goals and that is another area we will continue to develop the group, to be clean with technique but be ruthless in the final third.
Overall, there’s a lot to improve on but I’m definitely happy with how we ended the game as we move on to Preston in the Central League on Tuesday and then our first home game at Matlock against Manchester City next Friday,
Images kindly provided by Neville Williams (Aston Villa).