Derby County skipper gives his verdict on his side’s relegation battle

Despite a losing a 1-0 lead to be beaten 3-1 against Blackburn midweek, Derby County captain Tom Lawrence still has belief in his side to stay up this season. 

The defeat has left Derby second bottom in the league and six points from safety. However Barnsley and Reading, the teams directly above them, both have games in hand over Derby making their task of staying up even more difficult now.

Reflecting on Tuesday night’s game in which The Rams conceded all of their opponents three goals in the second half, Lawrence told Derbyshire Live: “It hurt. The first half performance was really good, I think its one of the best halves we’ve played this season.

“To have a bad spell int he first 20 minutes or so of the second half, where we gave the game away, hurt a lot. We need to learn form that and we need to improve our game management from now on.

“It’s down to the senior players, myself especially, to read the situation and help the team. We need to make sure we do that from here on in.

“We know that every game we play is a big one and we need to start winning matches again.”

Although it currently looks like a hard task, Lawrence has faith in his team to give it a really good go as he said: “We’ve had a few setbacks throughout the season, so we need to bounce back on Saturday before the international break.

“If we get a win on Saturday, it will stand us in good stead for the rest of the season.

“We went five games unbeaten earlier in the season, four wins and a draw, so we know we need to do that again. We need to win two games to get level with Reading so we know what we’ve got to do and we’ve got to put that plan into action at the weekend.”

The verdict:

It’s good to see the belief is high amongst the players at Derby.