Derby County were knocked out of the Carabao Cup in the Second Round after a 2-1 defeat to Preston North End on Tuesday evening at Pride Park Stadium.
The Rams played the majority of the second half with ten men when Mike te Wierik was shown a straight red card for bringing down Sean Maguire on the edge of the box.
Phillip Cocu’s side then had 35 minutes left to defend a lead that they had just grabbed ahead of the card. Brilliant work by Graeme Shinnie set up the goal as he took the ball from the Rams’ area to the oppositions before cutting back to Jason Knight to fire in from close range.
Despite good defending, Derby conceded with 12 minutes left to play, when a strike by Tom Barkhuizen flew in. The in the 90th minute, Daniel Johnson conceded from the penalty spot to knock the Rams out of the cup.
Derby struggled to find a way to break down Preston’s defence for large parts of the first half, with the only openings coming in the form of long-range efforts. Lee Buchanan came the closest with a half-volley late on in the half from 25 yards out, but the effort flew just above the crossbar.
Meanwhile, the Lilywhites also had a difficult time breaking through and shots were limited down the other end too in a game where the referee’s whistle was getting heavy use.
On the 20-minute mark, Preston were awarded a free-kick from 25 yards out after a challenge by Morgan Whittaker. Paul Gallagher looked over the spot-kick and sent it just above the crossbar.
Another opportunity fell to the visitors when they won the ball back just inside the Derby half and the ball was squared to Josh Harrop.
The Rams finally broke the deadlock five minutes after the restart through the hard work of Graeme Shinnie from deep in the Rams half all the way to the opposition box.
The midfielder won the ball back just outside the Derby area as the Lilywhites where scrambling for a goal, he held off his markers before the ball was tipped to Andre Wisdom who played forward to Shinnie again to drive all the way forward.
He cutback brilliantly to Knight who found the back of the net on his second try from ten yards out.
Just moments after grabbing the lead, the Rams were dealt a blow as they were reduced to ten men when te Wierik was shown a straight red card for bringing down Sean Maguire as he approached the Derby area.
Curtis Davies was brought on to add to the defensive ranks straight after before Preston drilled the resulting free-kick into the wall.
Preston looked to immediately capitalise on their man advantage when Alan Browne brought the ball down nicely for Jayden Stockley on the edge of the box. He hurtled his effort towards the goal, but Roos brilliantly denied him with instinctive reactions.
The Derby keeper made another good stop with 20 minutes left to play when he had to quickly switch direction and dive to keep a low shot out of the bottom corner.
They found their equaliser in the 78th minute however, through a sweetly struck volley by Barkhuizen that struck the inside of the cross bar before flying in.
In the 90th minute, the visitors took the lead from the penalty spot. Another great save by Roos was palmed back into a crowded box, where Lee Buchanan was adjudged to have handled the ball. Johnson took the spot kick and fired in to sent Preston on to the next round.
Derby County: Roos, Wisdom, Shinnie, te Wierik, Clarke, Sibley (Davies, 56), Whittaker (Brown, 67), Evans (Marriott, 89), Buchanan, Rooney (C), Knight
Substitutes: Marshall, Forsyth, Bird, Ibrahim
Preston North End: Rudd, Fisher, Bauer, Bayliss (Barkhuizen, 67), Browne, Harrop (Sinclair, 76), Gallagher (C) (Johnson, 76), Rafferty, Stockley, Huntington, Maguire
Substitutes: Ripley, Davies, Hughes, Ledson
