Wade Elliott: Cheltenham beaten by ‘possibly best player’ in League One at Derby

Cheltenham manager Wade Elliott said his team were beaten by “possibly the best player” in League One after a 2-0 defeat at Derby.

David McGoldrick scored one and made another to keep Derby in the hunt for automatic promotion and leave Cheltenham hovering above the drop zone.

McGoldrick’s class broke the deadlock two minutes before half-time when he lashed a shot into the bottom corner after a cross was deflected into his path.

Cheltenham had frustrated Derby up to that point but they rarely looked like getting back in the game and McGoldrick engineered the second goal to seal victory.

The striker cleverly slipped away from his marker on the right and picked out Lewis Dobbin who found the bottom left corner from 12 yards.

That gave Derby breathing space and they were able to take off key players, including McGoldrick, ahead of Saturday’s home game against Shrewsbury who are also in the race for the play-offs.

Elliott was quick to recognise McGoldrick’s influence, saying: “I thought it was a tight game, I don’t remember either goalkeeper having lots to do.

“I thought we failed to capitalise on our moments and they capitalised on theirs. I thought McGoldrick was the difference, he’s possibly the best player in the league and well above the level, his quality was the difference in the game.

“I thought our performance was good, the shape was good, the structure was good, it was just we couldn’t capitalise on the moments we did have.

“It’s been two or three games now without a goal and that’s something we will look to address. We’ve had games where we made plenty of chances and have shown the capability to score goals so it can change pretty quickly.”

Derby head coach Paul Warne said: “We needed that after the performance on Saturday and it will give the lads a bit of confidence, we looked a bit shy of it in periods and it felt a bit nervy.

“It’s a good night for us, Bolton lost, we kept a clean sheet, scored two and maybe could have scored more.

“I thought box to box we were really good but we were picking the wrong pass at times and I thought the goal just before half-time gave the lads a boost and took a bit of pressure off.

“In fairness to Cheltenham they worked really hard and made it hard for us and teams aren’t going to come here and lay down and get their bellies rubbed.

“I didn’t think we had enough cutting edge first half in the final third but we did enough to win and at this time of the season it’s about wins.”