3/1 To Win
Captain Curtis Davies was left frustrated following Derby County’s 1-0 defeat against Millwall at Pride Park Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
Lions striker Tom Bradshaw scored the only goal of the game in the first half and despite the Rams’ best efforts, especially in the second half, they fell to defeat.
Jayden Bogle’s deflected effort in the second half was Derby’s best chance of the afternoon but after throwing everything forward late on, they could not find an equaliser.
“It was similar to Wednesday night against Sheffield Wednesday as it was a game of two halves,” Davies told RamsTV. “We didn’t do enough in the first half and in the second, we threw everything at it but we were 1-0 down.
“That’s not enough. With all due respect, we are playing Millwall at home and we shouldn’t be having to, at the end of the game, sling the goalkeeper and centre-backs into the box to try and get a draw.
“We should be able to dominate these games and unfortunately, we are not doing that. We are not using the ball well enough, we are not finding a way to unlock teams, or to just dominate in general and that is frustrating.
“When you play against Millwall, and similar to Wednesday, it’s second-ball football. It’s long balls, it’s 50/50s, it’s a bit of desire and bodies on the line.
“We lacked that for massive patches today and if you don’t win second-balls against Millwall with the size that they are then you give away silly free kicks and chances to sling the ball into our box.
“The most frustrating thing is that you limit them to chances but for me having to go up front at the end to rescue a point, that’s not good enough.
"Coming into this Christmas run now, we need to find a way and a formula.
“It doesn’t have to be pretty but we need to find something to get results because over these games over Christmas where you are playing four games in 12 days, if you can get a run together then you can climb up the table but if you don’t, you find that people are overlapping you and we definitely don’t want that.
“We need to work it out, find a way and start climbing the table.”
It’s now five games without a win for the Rams and Davies knows that form will have to change if the Rams are going to climb the table.
“If we are not going to win away from home then we need to be winning here at Pride Park,” he said. “We need to get the away results right because even if we are winning at home, we need to do that to try and climb the table.
“If we are not winning at home and then find yourself not winning away then you find yourself in a sticky patch and then not getting any confidence from anywhere. We need to stick at it.
“Next Saturday against Reading is not going to be easy again and then we go into a patch where there are games we can win but it’s down to us to do it.
“There is no cans and wills in this league, we have to make sure we are at it from the beginning.”
