Derby boss Paul Clement delighted with success over Preston
Saturday 12 September 2015 19:38, UK
Derby boss Paul Clement said performance is not always everything after watching his side grind out the first win of his reign with a 2-1 success over Preston.
Chris Martin's first-half double secured the visitors victory at Deepdale - despite Daniel Johnson's stoppage-time strike for the hosts - in their seventh game since Clement took over.
After a strong start to the season, defeat makes it three losses in a row for Simon Grayson's Sky Bet Championship new boys Preston.
"I won't shy away from the point that we've not started the season well in terms of results," said Clement.
"Maybe this was some of our poorest display in terms of our football. Better in the first half, but a poor game in the second half.
"What I'm happy with was the resilience of the players, they showed that they could deal with a very direct style of play."
The game was held up for 10 minutes in the 82nd minute when there was a nasty clash of heads between Preston striker Joe Garner and Chris Baird before the latter was stretchered off to hospital and Derby finished the game a man down.
"There was a lot of second-ball type football and obviously we played with 10 men at the end as well," Clement added.
"The goal for them came very late, which was not good but good that they had no time to build on it.
"In the first half we played well but not so much in the second. I was pleased with the character.
"The most important thing was the result and we know the results haven't been good.
"That puts us on seven points now and depending on how results have gone we'll see how far that pushes us up."
Defeat left Grayson with much to ponder after his side's strong start to the campaign.
"We always knew it would be a tough game against a team who have spent a lot of money and are one of the favourites for the division," he said.
"But if you don't do the basics against anybody you won't give yourself the chances to go and win a game.
"I thought we started well, but then the two goals I thought we could have defended a little but better.
"We felt we could have stopped the first a little bit earlier. That's the level that we're up against. We need to do the basics better.
"At least we had a go second half, we threatened them and they didn't have too many opportunities.
"We hit the post, their 'keeper made a couple of good saves but we didn't get the breaks that we wanted.
"When you go into the Championship, you know that if you make a couple of little mistakes, people are there to punish you.
"You have to learn from those mistakes and try and affect the game a little bit better.
"And in injury-time as much as you want to play nice football you need to get the ball in the box.
"They had 10 men so we need to learn from that. We need to keep improving and hopefully don't make those mistakes again."
