Home form not good enough, admits Derby boss Paul Warne

Posted Sunday, October 01, 2023 by PA

Derby head coach Paul Warne admits home comforts are in short supply after his team were held to a goalless draw by Cambridge.

Warne saw his side dominate but fail to break down a resilient Cambridge team, leaving County with only one league win at Pride Park this season.

Tom Barkhuizen should have done better with a chance in the first minute which he fired at Will Mannion and the winger had another goal-bound shot blocked before half-time.

Martyn Waghorn should have broken the deadlock in the 66th minute, but his header bounced over the bar with the goal at his mercy and, despite late pressure, Derby could not break through.

Warne said: “Our form at home hasn’t been good enough to justify a top-three spot, has it?

“If we’d hung on against Wigan and Portsmouth and scored late here we’d have been in the top three or four and it’d look great.

“Collectively we have to find a way to take our chances at home. When we’re on top we need to be clinical and at the moment we possibly aren’t.

“There wasn’t a lot wrong with the performance, but people don’t turn up to watch us draw 0-0, they want to see us smash teams up. But that wasn’t the case and that’s the disappointment for us.

“We need to be better at things if we’re going to be successful, we have to score goals.

“We didn’t have enough to finish the game off and we didn’t take our gilt-edged chances. We created enough chances, we had maybe four very good ones, and I’d expect us to take 50 per cent of them.”

Cambridge head coach Mark Bonner said: “A fifth clean sheet in nine league games and a brilliant point for us.

“I think every time we go to the top teams we know how hard it is over the last couple of years, so to get a result on a day where we had to defend so often in our box keeps us ticking along nicely.

“We played better at Wigan two weeks ago and lost, but that’s just how football works.

“I think our performance levels against the top teams have been okay and there’s definitely things we can do better, but this is a big, big point for us and gives us some confidence that we can go and get results against teams.

“We’ve had some horrible days against the biggest teams, so it’s not like a tourist day out, you’ve got to take something from the game, then you do learn from them and they are ones that can inspire you.”