Rowett: We Deserved All Three Points

Gary Rowett thinks that his Derby County side deserved all three points after holding the Sky Bet Championship leaders Cardiff City to a goalless draw.

The Rams went closest through Craig Forsyth’s looping cross which hit the post, and a late flurry of chances almost saw Derby get the winner in added time.

Rowett had no doubts that his side performed well enough take the victory away from the Cardiff City Stadium.

He told RamsTV: “I think we deserved all three points. From the start we were magnificent, we looked much stronger and much more physical in the way that we dealt with Cardiff.

“We knew they were going to be direct and put a lot of set pieces into our box but we dealt with them really manfully, and I’m really pleased with the clean sheet.”

Derby kept Cardiff quiet - recording their first away league shutout since January - and they had no problems with the creative side of their game, with Forsyth, Tom Huddlestone and David Nugent all going close to taking the three points.

Rowett said there was only one thing missing from an otherwise impressive away performance.

He added: “What you saw at Brentford was a resilient performance and we nearly won the game, today we saw a lot more quality and some of our build up play and interchanging was really, really good.

“We got into some areas when we then needed to make the next pass forwards into space, because we dragged them out and when we did that we got into some really good positions.”

Tom Lawrence started in a slightly different role as he partnered Sam Winnall up-front from the start, and the boss was pleased with the showing from his attacking players.

Rowett continued: “Nugent had a fantastic shot when he linked up with Chris Martin, Lawrence has got into some brilliant positions and Johnny [Russell] gets into some great positions.”

Next up for the Rams is the East Midlands derby against Nottingham Forest at Pride Park on the 15th October, and Rowett is excited for the challenge.

He said: “We’ve got to put in a performance to lift everyone’s spirits, I’ll be asking as many fans as possible to get to the game and give us as much support as we can, because the players will need it.

“It’ll be an amazing atmosphere and I’m looking forward to my first home derby.”