Clough pleased with Rams character in fightback
NIGEL Clough was full of praise for the character his Derby County players showed in the crucial victory over Reading.
For a third time this season – and for a second consecutive home game – the Rams hit back to win after going a goal down.
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They did so against Plymouth Argyle in August and Coventry City earlier this month.
Gylfi Sigurdsson's 56th minute goal gave Reading the lead but Derby responded quickly and positively.
Paul Green equalised four minutes later and leading scorer Rob Hulse popped up with the winner after 73 minutes.
It was the striker's sixth goal of the season.
"We showed character but we have to because we make it so difficult for ourselves at times," said Clough after the 2-1 win lifted Derby to 16th in the Championship.
"At 0-0, there was nothing in the game," added Clough.
"We probably had more of the play in the first half but then we give away a very soft goal when we tried to play out from the back. The position we are in, it is not the thing to do.
"But to come back again from a goal down at home is encouraging and once we equalised, I think everyone in the ground believed we would go on and win.
"When they scored first, it was important we responded positively and that's what we did."
Clough was delighted with Derby's two goals.
"I thought both were good goals," said the manager.
"It is something we have been stressing to the players – smash the ball across the six-yard box and we will get a striker or midfielder on the end of it."
Gary Teale sent in a low centre for Green to score from close range and then Jay McEveley delivered perfectly from the left for Hulse to find the net from inside the six-yard box.
"Those sort of crosses are almost impossible to defend," said Clough.
"Rob scored the winner and ironically it was one of the poorest first halves he has had this season.
"He did a lot better in the second half.
"We are not always going to get perfect service to him the way we are playing at the moment. It was like when Paul Green just missed finding him in the first half but Rob has still got to chase those balls."
Stephen Bywater made a couple of important saves late on as Reading, unbeaten in three going into the game, pressed for an equaliser.
The Royals were down to 10 men at that stage, after substitute Shane Long had been sent off for a late lunge on Fredrik Stoor, but the visitors battled right to the end.
Clough replaced the impressive Paul Dickov with Miles Addison to keep Reading at bay.
"People say we should have left two up. We couldn't cope with 10 back there, so I don't know what we would have done with eight or nine," said Clough.
"It would have been lovely to leave Paul on but we needed Miles because Dean Leacock could not win a header for a while and we just wanted Miles to go in front of the two centre-halves."
7 Comments
by john, derby
Tuesday, December 01 2009, 1:12AM
“the best form of defence is attack, if your opposition are having to concentrate on defending they cannot possibly be attacking you!!
If I had a quid for every time I saw a team try and defend a lead unsuccesfully by sitting back I could buy DCFC and sort this mess out!!
Not just NC tho, anyone else remember when we were murdering Man Utd 2-0 at half time years ago when Chopper was on fire and then came out and sat back and were very lucky to get a 2-2 draw!
If Leacock was struggling then do a straight swap for Addison and keep the ball up the other end with 2 strikers - basic common sense football but maybe too sophisticated for the Blue Square schooled NC, I really think his naivety is incredible!
Have said it b4, pls bring in an experienced assistant to help the poor guy out!”
by firthy, ilkeston
Monday, November 30 2009, 10:07PM
“we won!
Manager right fans wrong”
by Steve Fisher, Derbyshire
Monday, November 30 2009, 6:53PM
“Well done Bywater,Barker and Dickov who were excellent, also congrats to Stoor,Pearson and Savage who were decent.
Leacock was okay and McEveley was an improvement. Green,Teale and Hulse were poor. (ironically they all came up trumps near the end though!!) Personally i would try Hendrie..the team is crying out for creativity and he has more than our current team.”
by Chris, Cirencester
Monday, November 30 2009, 2:21PM
“"People say we should have left two up. We couldn't cope with 10 back there, so I don't know what we would have done with eight or nine," said Clough.
Nigel, the team only struggled to "cope with 10 back there" because your substitution of the excellent Paul Dickov by Miles Addison immediately surrendered the initiative to a 10-man Reading team, and gifted them the possession that almost led to an equaliser on at least two occasions.
The team had "coped" sufficiently well with Reading's attack before the substitution, as evidenced by the fact that they were able to free midfielder Paul Green to score the first of their goals and Jay McEverley to break forward for the second.
The substitution changed the momentum of the game by signalling to Reading that Derby were 'there for the taking'. The fact that this 4-5-1 tactic has made Derby the worst away team in the league should have killed it off as an option - especially when leading at home against ten men.
As your Dad used to say, "Giving the ball to the opposition is the biggest crime in football." With no viable outlet from defence, the substitution turned the team into serial offenders!”
by Pinner Ram, Pinner
Monday, November 30 2009, 1:22PM
“John, I agree with your every word.
PR”
by John Clement, Harrow
Monday, November 30 2009, 1:14PM
“The negative substitutions nearly cost us the game, because we just handed reading possession and opportunities at goal and were lucky not to concede an equaliser. We are not good enough defensively, to sit back, because eventually we will conceded as we did at Swansea. When we were 2-0 up against QPR we immediately pulled Dickov deeper and QPR scored 4 goals with all the possession.”
by mr, here
Monday, November 30 2009, 9:43AM
“until clough gets rid of his obsession of 4-5-1 we will continue to struggle,we was winning with 4-4-2 and they go down to 10 men and he reverts to his useless 4-5-1.we should have stuck with 4-4-2 and went at them because with 4-5-1 reading came at us and even though they only had 10 men we were hanging on.we would have lost that match if it wasn't for bywater being on form.god help us with clough as manager and god help us against west brom !!”