After Derby County’s 0-0 draw with Sunderland at Pride Park in the English Premiership on Saturday, Derby manager Paul Jewell in a much better tone than he was same time last week when Derby displayed their worst performance of the season against Wigan Athletic.
Jewell says that he is happy with the result and even happier with the spirit that his players exhibited against the Black Cats. Jewell says:
The players tried today. Last week was the lowest I’ve been for a long, long time in my football career.
And today was a terrible game, let’s have it right. It was windy conditions, certainly our players were playing with a lack of confidence, the referee was blowing the whistle every two seconds so you’re never going to get a classic.
We have to take anything out of that we can, we got a point, we have got double figures, we got a clean sheet… so for us it is an improvement on last week but that wouldn’t be hard. Terrible game, but we’ve got a point.
Yet there’s no denying that Derby will be the first club to be relegated from the top flight this season. They have just 10 points from 28 matches and are rock bottom in the league with no practical chance of survival for one more season in the Premiership.