Striker Jerry Yates felt Derby County ‘dug deep and fought hard’ to earn three points against West Bromwich Albion on Boxing Day.
On-loan Swansea City striker Yates netted his fifth goal of the season for the Rams to open the scoring as they secured all three points in a 2-1 win over the Baggies at Pride Park Stadium in the Sky Bet Championship.
The striker spoke to RamsTV after Derby's seventh league win of the campaign in the second tier.
On a well-earned Boxing Day win…
In the first half we were very good and created a lot of chances. They changed their structure a little bit in the second half and we had to dig deep and do a lot of fighting. We matched them for that and it was a good performance overall.
On bouncing back after a tough 2-1 loss at Luton Town…
We obviously came out of that game, weirdly, with a lot of confidence. Up until the last five minutes at Luton, we thought it was excellent. We took that performance into today, we stuck together and got the three points in the end.
On scoring the opening goal…
It was a lovely pass from Kenzo Goudmijn - there was a lot of disguise on it. I’ve been working on it all week; getting it out of my feet in the box and striking in between legs and, thankfully, it went in. Kenzo’s a very talented player and we're very lucky to have him. When he's on it, he'll make any team tick. We'll stay on him in training and I'm sure he'll put in a lot more performances like that in the future.
On going again at Pride Park against Leeds in three days’ time…
We'll be in at Moor Farm tomorrow morning for a little bit of recovery and there'll be a lot of meetings going off over the next couple of days with regards to playing against Leeds. We know they're a talented group and played them not so long ago. Obviously, we need to go out there and put on a performance. I'm sure we can shock them.
On having the backing of a 31,000-strong crowd at Pride Park…
They were singing everyone's name throughout the game. It's massive. It gives a lot of players real confidence. To have 31,000, it's a bit surreal, really. When you're younger, you dream of stuff like that. It was like having a 12th man for us today.