Derby 3 Leeds 1: McDermott angry at United defeat

Leeds's Michael Tonge moves across John Eustace.Leeds's Michael Tonge moves across John Eustace.
Leeds's Michael Tonge moves across John Eustace.
Steve McClaren celebrated his first match in charge at Pride Park with a convincing 3-1 victory as Leeds were beaten by Derby for the 10th game in a row.

The former England manager saw a sparkling attacking performance rewarded with goals by Chris Martin, Johnny Russell and Will Hughes that secured Derby’s first home Sky Bet Championship victory of the season.

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Jason Pearce had given the visitors hope with a header on the stroke of half-time but Leeds were second-best and have not beaten Derby since September 2005.

For Leeds manager Brian McDermott it was old failings which cost his team again.

“You are disappointed when you lose the first goals which we have done too many times this season,” he said.

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“In the last two games we have let ourselves down away from home but before I turned up here I think we had 21 games away from home and won one.

“We need to get a mentality away from home where we are very difficult to play against and we weren’t today. This has recurred too many times, giving away the first goal and it’s something we need to look at.

“We played a lot of football today in the middle of the pitch but you are judged on what you do in both boxes and we weren’t good enough in both boxes.

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“We need a winning mentality. When I was at Reading two years ago when we hardly had any points on the board after 10 games and we just clicked into place and we worked on that.

“We’ve had that conversation in the dressing room today and talked about that mentality and it’s not about hoping you will get a result, it’s knowing you will get a result and that’s where we have to get to.”