Derby County suffered yet another blow in their quest to break into the Sky Bet Championship top-six, after a shock defeat to Cardiff City on Tuesday night.
Steve McClaren’s side will have been full of confidence going into the game after staging a second-half comeback against Bristol City in their last league outing, where they drew 3-3.
Julien De Sart and Darren Bent gave Derby an early lead over Cardiff, before three unanswered goals put the Welsh side in control.
Bent equalised for McClaren’s side before a late Joe Ralls penalty gifted Neil Warnock’s side all three-points.
The defeat leaves Derby 11th in the Sky Bet Championship, eight points adrift of sixth placed Sheffield Wednesday, leaving a chance to break into the Play-Offs looking unlikely.
McClaren’s side had been on a mesmerising run, and were undefeated in 11 matches at the Pride Park Stadium, before last night’s defeat.
Here we look at TWO issues McClaren must fix immediately following the defeat to Cardiff:
Leaking defence
Derby have conceded ten goals in their last three fixtures, if you include the FA Cup defeat to Leicester City.
Recently it had looked like McClaren’s problems were in attack, where his side were too reliant on Tom Ince scoring and creating goals for Derby.
However, the Rams seem to have addressed that issue, with Bent scoring four goals in his last two outings.
McClaren now faces an issue at the other end of the pitch, and must stop his side conceding goals.
If Derby are to resurrect any chance of making the Play-Offs, their defence needs to tighten up to match their free scoring attack.
One step forwards, two steps back
Derby have picked up one point from a possible six against Cardiff and Bristol City, two teams in the bottom-half of the Championship table.
Results like this will frustrate everyone associated with the club, particularly after some promising results recently.
Despite defeats to Newcastle United and Leeds United, McClaren’s side put in an impressive display to beat promotion chasing Reading last month, putting themselves within touching distance of the Play-Offs.
Since then, McClaren’s side have failed to win in the league and fallen further off the pace.
For every positive at the Pride Park Stadium, there has been negative this season. McClaren needs to address this issue quickly, in order to turn the Rams season around.