3/1 To Win
Wayne Rooney labelled Derby County’s performance in their 1-0 defeat at Stoke City on Saturday afternoon as not good enough.
In a game of few opportunities, Jacob Brown’s close-range header with 16 minutes remaining condemned Derby to defeat at the bet365 Stadium.
Rooney’s side were limited to efforts from distance by the hosts throughout and the closest they came to taking the lead was Louie Sibley’s curling effort from Patrick Roberts’ cut-back.
Derby were unable to build on their excellent comeback in midweek to claim a 2-2 draw against promotion-chasing Brentford at Pride Park Stadium and Rooney was unhappy with his side’s showing.
The Rams are currently without a win in seven matches and occupy 19th place in the Sky Bet Championship table and five points clear of the bottom three with eight fixtures remaining.
Speaking to RamsTV after the final whistle, Rooney said: “Today wasn’t good enough.
“We had a game plan, in terms of how we prepared and how we wanted to play, which was about being on the front-foot, aggressive and getting to the ball.
“I felt we could cause Stoke problems with that, but we failed to do it.
“For whatever reason, we failed to do it, especially in the first half when we failed to put tackles in and failed to pick up second balls; so it wasn’t good enough.
“The game, in fairness, wasn’t a great one from both teams. I think the first half was almost like a testimonial, which for Stoke that is fine, but for us we cannot afford to play like that. I am really disappointed.”
He added: “The only good performance from today in my opinion was young Teden Mengi; I thought he was excellent. The other players seemed off it.”
“We were chasing a goal, of course, and we wanted to try and score – but until the last five minutes I don’t think we looked really like scoring and that is frustrating, we want to score more goals and it is a disappointing result for us.”
Derby now face just under two weeks without a game owing to the latest international break and return to Championship action at Pride Park Stadium against Luton Town on Friday 2nd April (3pm kick-off).
On the prospect of an extended break coming at the right time for the Rams, Rooney said: “I think it has come at a good time for us as we are not in the best of form.
“It is a chance for some players to get a rest physically and mentally. For us as staff we will assess the team and what we can look at to do better to try and get more out of the players.”
