Midfielder Max Bird was left frustrated as Derby County were beaten 1-0 by Charlton Athletic at The Valley on Saturday afternoon.
Corey Blackett-Taylor scored the only goal of the game on the hour mark as the Addicks punished the Rams after not making their first-half chances pay.
Derby were by far the better side in the opening 45 minutes but could not find the breakthrough, whilst following the goal Bird produced an inch-perfect cross for Jason Knight but the Republic of Ireland international could not convert from close range.
Speaking to RamsTV after the game, Bird was left disappointed by the result in the capital but felt there wasn’t a need to panic as the Rams suffered their first defeat of the campaign.
On The Game…
We are very frustrated. We started so well. In the first 40 minutes we were very good and then they had a little sniff with a couple minutes of the first half left which gave them a boost going in at the break. They brought that out in the second half, which we were expecting, and at the end of the day we didn’t take our chances today. We conceded a sloppy goal on our behalf. Our structure and counter-pressing positions when we had the ball wasn’t great which led to a lot of counter attacks for them but we have to move on. There is a big and long season ahead.
On The First Half Performance…
We played some really good stuff. You can see the quality we have on the pitch but we just didn’t have that cutting edge. We know we have it, everyone can see we’ve got it. With the players we have brought in, we have a really talented bunch of lads so today maybe just wasn’t our day. We couldn’t get the ball in the back of the net but on another day we could be 3-0 up at half time. That’s on us and we need to keep working on that on the training pitch and take it into the next couple of matches.
On How The Dressing Room Is Feeling…
The lads are devastated in there. The gaffer has just come in and hasn’t had to say much because we’ve spoken about it already as a team. We know we didn’t have that cutting edge and we were sloppy in some parts of our game defensively, but it’s something we have to look back on. We have a long season ahead of us; we have to keep our heads and keep going. We are expected to win every match and we should aim to win every game, no matter who we are playing in this league. You can see the talent and quality we have on the pitch and we have to have that ambition.
On The Mentality…
It’s the mentality in the dressing room; we are winners and there are a lot of talented young boys. The experienced lads have come in and won many games of football. We are all winners in there and we have lost a game of football, so we are devasted. We have to move on from that, we have to put it behind us and go again.
On A Quick Turnaround…
It’s probably a good thing that football comes around like this. We have another game on Tuesday at Mansfield in the Carabao Cup and then it’s relentless from then onwards. It’s a good thing on our behalf that we can just keep playing football and try to win games.
On The Fans…
They’re unbelievable. I don’t have to say much because they know how important they are to us and how brilliant they have been. You could see it at the end that we are all devasted, but they stuck with us, clapped us off the pitch and hopefully they can stay behind us because we believe we can do special things as a group. I hope they believe that as well.
