Paul Clement relieved to see Darren Bent score in Derby win
Sunday 27 September 2015 09:45, UK
Derby stretched their winning run away from home to three matches with a 3-1 victory at MK Dons and manager Paul Clement was relieved to see Darren Bent among the scorers.
Bradley Johnson for Derby and Josh Murphy for MK Dons traded goals after the break and the two sides, in their first ever competitive meeting, were level heading into the final five minutes.
But former England striker Bent and Tom Ince struck late on to ensure Derby - now with just one defeat in their last nine league games - edged closer to the play-off spots. For Bent, it was his first goal of the season.
"It's good that Darren Bent's got a goal because I know he's been frustrated," said Clement. "He's not been playing as much as he would like, and to come on and get the winning goal in the 89th minute is very nice for him.
"All of us really wanted to win this game to keep our good run going. It's hard to win any game in this league but we've now won the last three games away from home - and that's not easy.
"We know that they played in midweek in a hard game [against Southampton in the League Cup] and they got beat 6-0. That's difficult to take physically and mentally so we did have that slight extra recovery time."
Derby, knocked out of the League Cup by Portsmouth in the first round, had been last in action when drawing against Burnley on Monday.
"We've still got a lot to improve on," said Clement, "but that's a good thing - because if you are picking up positive results and you're not playing that well then I think then we've got a really positive future."
The hosts had Norwich loanee Murphy to thank for many of their good moments, while captain Dean Lewington saw an effort cannon off the bar.
But they eventually ran out of steam, allowing substitute Bent to tap in an Andreas Weimann cross and Ince to finish things off in injury time.
MK Dons have now lost five games in a row in the Sky Bet Championship.
"We didn't deserve that at all," said Dons boss Karl Robinson. "For 70 minutes we were tremendous and I always knew that in the last 20 minutes there would be a bit of fatigue because we played on Wednesday night.
"We were outstanding - we moved the ball efficiently and effectively, which is pleasing to see - but every time they come forward and have a shot it goes in and that's the difficulty for us.
"We have to persevere and we'll start winning football matches. It's easy when you're winning, but when you play the way that we play and you're on a bad run it takes a lot of bravery to play the same way that we do.
"I really do think we've been harshly done by. We've only spent £150,000 on that team out there - but we all work hard here and we're very honest with each other, which perhaps allows us to go on a bad run like this."
