fbpx
Connect with us

Derby County

Footage goes viral showing Derby players and fans celebrating very late comeback at Port Vale

Footage goes viral showing Derby County players and fans celebrating their very late comeback at Port Vale on Tuesday night.

Nathaniel Mendez Laing and David McGoldrick scored in three minutes to to extend the Rams’ unbeaten League One streak to 14 matches.

The hosts come so close to sealing all three points after Funso Ojo, who made his first start since September, converted on the rebound following Joe Wildsmith saving Dan Butterworth’s initial attempt.

The 20-year-old ran down the left in the 87th minute to cross for McGoldrick to send home his ninth league goal of the campaign.

Dobbin did the same two minutes later, escaping to steer a ball to the near post where Mendez-Laing arrived to smash into the roof of the net and spark wild scenes among the travelling fans.

There was still time for Dan Jones to head narrowly wide in search of an equaliser, while Dobbin nearly capped his blistering appearance in fine style but sent his curling strike against the woodwork.

Derby stay 4th, despite claiming a fifth consecutive victory. Yet, they are within eight points of Sheffield Wednesday’s second place. Port Vale fall one place to 14th.

Speaking to RamsTV after the match, Paul Warne spoke about the performance as a whole and the team’s mentality.

On the result…

I thought our overall performance wasn’t bad. The pitch was something else which is no excuse but I didn’t think we were able to play as well as we possibly wanted.

Port Vale are a really hard team to play against, they took three points off us back in October so we knew it would be a tough game and we knew we’d have to match their effort.

Even if we’d have lost tonight, I wouldn’t have had any complaints with the lads as they did everything we asked them to do -we just couldn’t get the goal we wanted. The fact we got two goals so quickly at the end where our fans were was something else. It takes everyone. I took some of our superstars off the pitch and put the young ones on and they came good for us. I’ve said it all the time, if you’re going to be successful it’s not just the first eleven it’s the whole group.

I love them guys and when Nat scored late on down that end; wow. It was breath-taking.

On the mentality of the squad…

We just keep going. We weren’t going crazy on the side of the pitch as there wasn’t a lot wrong really. The team have got a real belief and a real togetherness which is worth a lot and to get the two goals, I still can’t get over it, it was beyond Disney.

I don’t think anyone can leave the ground and think we didn’t deserve to win, I thought we created enough chances., but we could have conceded another couple ourselves. I’m not saying it was perfect but in terms of entertainment it doesn’t get much better.

On individual performances…

I can’t have too many complaints if we lose a football game if we give everything as sometimes it just doesn’t go your way and tonight it felt like that at times.

There were some unbelievable performances out there and all the substitutes did really well but it would be amiss of me not to mention Knighty. To cover that amount of grass on the heaviest pitch in the world is something else. He was winning the ball late on to take us over the finish line but it was a team effort, a squad effort, and I’m really pleased.

On the connection with the fans…

I appreciate them all that travelled. Luckily I had Curtis Davies out there to do ‘the bounce’ as that got me right out of it – I’m a bit stiff for that!

To score two goals late on always feels even bigger than a win but the lads can take confidence as they aren’t going to have everything their way between now and May. They are going to go behind in games but as long as they know they have the character and keep trying to do the right things then they have a chance.

I said to the lads tonight, if they play at their absolute best then they are a very difficult team to stop.

Port Vale manager Darrell Clarke said the dressing room was despondent after his side lost on Tuesday night.

Reflecting post-match with iFollow the Vale, Clarke said: “It is a tough night, for sure. The changing room is gutted, the staff are very low but I think we need to be proud of a lot of that performance tonight.

“We will pick ourselves up; I said to my players in there to ask themselves if they can go home, look in the mirror, and say you gave absolutely everything, be honest with the man in the mirror and see what that comes out with. I think the majority of the players, certainly those who started the game, will come off the pitch and think yes, I was at it.

“We are a little bit despondent in there as you’d expect, losing a game in that manner, but we will heal our wounds and I have confidence in the group to pick themselves up and myself and my staff will do that too when we are back in on Thursday morning.”

Clarke adds his side could’ve controlled the game better in final ten minutes, having performed so well for the 87 minutes.

“It goes to show how far we have come as a football club that we are really gutted that Derby County – and a team of their calibre of players – have managed to pinch it 2-1,” Clarke explained. “Credit to Derby, they kept going, that is why they will finish in the top six, maybe even top two, but for ourselves it is a steep, harsh learning curve, that we have to control moments of the game better in the last ten minutes.

“When I watch it back – and I’ll have a look at it – there were a lot of loose passes, we lost control and when you do that, and you keep quickly turning over transitions, you are penned back in and we didn’t get that spell in the game.

“It is about keeping the ball at times in the right areas of the pitch to make sure that you’re game management is good which, to be fair to the boys, over a period of time has been pretty solid, but tonight I thought we lost too many transitions late in the game and when you do that against a team of Derby’s quality, they can punish you.

“They chucked more and more forwards on and we gave them the first goal through a little bit of loose play from ourselves. It is about hitting the right areas, getting the ball in the right areas of the pitch and then getting the control in their half of the pitch and we didn’t do that for the last ten minutes, and that is probably the disappointing aspect of the night for me because we could have seen the game out a lot better with control of the ball.”

“The lads will need tonight and tomorrow with their families to get over that and I don’t want any sour faces come Thursday morning, when we’ll pick it up and build towards the next game,” he continued.

“We care, the group care, so we are hurting tonight – that’s a good thing – because if we weren’t hurting, I’d be a little more worried. The group is hurting and despondent but myself, the staff and I am sure our fans will pick us up and we will be ready to go come Saturday.”

Twitter users had their say as footage goes viral showing Derby players and fans celebrating their very late comeback at Port Vale…

@DcFcTalk: After all the shit we’ve been through, moments like last night makes following a team through thick and thin all worth it

@evo2965: Makes me smile as NML is first into the corner and then sneaks nicely first out of the “scrum” 🤣👊👍

@samueldcfc: “GO ONNNN” you know only one thing is gonna happen when you hear that

@teamluca: Incredible… nothing beats the collective ‘go on’ followed by a goal

@Vikslew: That synchronised “GO OONNN” 🐏

@KayGeeSnazz: I wanna live in this moment forever 😭😭😂 the sound, the feeling, it was all mad 😍

@EmilyRWebster: stewards never stood a chance lol

@GTF_94: I’ll say it before I’ll say it again. Absolute scenes. 🐏

@s0phiemitchelll: Feel bad for people who don’t like football

@ktownniko: this is why we fought so hard for our club to exist 🖤🤍

@dcfclakey: The noise 😍😍😍

Related Topics
Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

More in Derby County