Boss hails Rams grit

NIGEL Clough was pleased with the battling qualities shown by his Derby County side after they came from behind for the second home game running to beat Reading 2-1, writes TOM SLOAN.

The Rams fell behind early in the second half to a Gylfi Sigurdsson strike before Paul Green and Rob Hulse struck to bag the points.

Derby had to hold on late on against a barrage of pressure from the visitors, who had been reduced to 10 men following the dismissal of striker Shane Long.

And Clough feels his side could have coped better with the onslaught — and not got themselves in such a difficult position in the first place.

He said: “We have to battle because we make it so difficult for ourselves sometimes.

“At 0-0 there was nothing in the game — we had a bit more of the play in the first half and we went and gave a goal away.

“It was a very, very soft goal we gave away again just trying to play out from the back and in the position weʼre in itʼs probably not the thing to do.

“But having said that, to come back at home second game running and win 2-1 (is good). And once the equaliser went in I think everyone in the ground thought we were going to go on and win.

“I thought they were both good goals and itʼs something weʼve been stressing to them — smash the ball across the six-yard box and we might get a striker or a midfield player on the end of it. Itʼs almost impossible to defend when the ballʼs been put across.

“Itʼs why Lee Croft isnʼt in the team at the moment because itʼs something weʼve been asking him to do (and he hasnʼt been doing it).

“They threw caution to the wind and got the ball in the box — something can always drop. What we did then was not deal with it very well.

“When we got it we gave it away and didnʼt get out. There was one on the far side when we had Robbie Savage chasing and there should have been one or two others out there as well.” Clough felt that Longʼs dismissal for a crude challenge on Freddie Stoor was deserved — and disagreed with Reading that the tackle was like one from Hulse in the first half.

He said: “Their argument was that it was similar to Rob Hulseʼs challenge in the first half but he did seem to have a jump and a lunge. He certainly caught Freddie on the ankle, looking at the state of it.

“His ankleʼs quite swollen at the moment and he has had a bad ankle as well so itʼs probably made it worse.” Brian Howard also suffered a broken jaw in the match in an unintentional clash of heads with Shaun Barker — with the midfielder needing an operation to put a plate in place after the match.

Rams goal hero Paul Green, meanwhile, was pleased to get on the scoresheet for the second time this season.

He said: “Itʼs nice to score. We were 1-0 down, I got the equaliser and it set us up really.

“I thought we played some good stuff after that.

“I thought their goal came from nowhere really. We werenʼt under pressure or anything like that and they scored and it put the onus on us to get forward.

“We did that and got a quick goal.

“It was a great ball from Teale. Itʼs my job to get in the box, which I did.”