Head Coach Paul Warne gave an honest assessment after Derby County fell to a 1-0 defeat against Sheffield United in the Sky Bet Championship on Saturday.


After a first-half shut-out from both teams, Ben Brereton Diaz netted the only goal of the game in the second half, with United seeing off late pressure from Derby to take all three points at Pride Park Stadium.

Warne spoke to RamsTV to give his thoughts after the final whistle.

On his feelings at full-time…

It’s pretty raw. I'm disappointed to lose a game and, because of the run we're on, a point would have felt like a worthy one. I've just said it to the dressing room, I'm proud of the effort the players have put in and they kept going until the end. We're asking a lot of people to play and have been riddled with injuries. We've asked a lot of people to play out of position; we asked Ryan Nyambe to play right centre-half for example. Unfortunately, we had to take him off at half-time, so then we had to take Ebou Adams out of midfield. I thought we were doing quite well in midfield, it was nice to have David Ozoh back and he only played an hour because it was his first game back from the start since September. You're then taking your two stronger players off and the physicality out of the team, so it was difficult.


On missed chances proving to be pivotal…

In the second half, apart from the goal, I don't remember any goal threat from Sheffield United. Unfortunately, I can't keep saying it because I've said it a lot of times now, we're losing by one goal. We're not losing by four or five goals. We do create chances, we had a really good opportunity to score late on through Matt Clarke, but we're in that form at the moment where we don't take our chances and get punished. Apart from a couple of long-range shots first half, I didn't feel that threatened. The best teams take the chances and that's what's happened today.


On the squad’s belief coming into the final stages of the season…

I didn't feel there was a massive lack of belief. I just think that we asked a lot of people to do different things and play a different way. It was a bit of typical winter football for both teams. I don't think anyone played creative, unbelievable soccer. No one's involved in sport at any level to continuously lose, which we are doing in this run.

The lads are hugely disappointed, but I don't feel they lack confidence. I just believe we came up against a really good team. If this was an independent result, or three months ago and we’d lost 1-0 at home to Sheffield United it would probably be a bit okay. It's the fact that it's on the end of a poor run, that magnifies everything. I understand that. I don't think the lads have a massive lack of confidence.