United boss Paul Simpson gave us his reaction to the Derby game shortly after the full-time whistle had blown on Saturday.
“I thought in the first half we were excellent, but I don’t think we did enough second half,” he said. “We didn’t really trouble them and we didn’t work their goalkeeper enough.
“I’m so pleased with what we did in the first half, I thought it was a great reaction. I didn’t think we deserved to go a goal down, it’s a bit of a weak goal to give away.
“With the penalty there are a couple of things, we allowed it to come back into us, when we were trying to stretch them, by making wrong decisions.
“I don’t think Jokull [Andresson] was aware that the lad was coming behind him, so he brings him down, and it is a penalty.
“I think there are some fine margins in the first half. Luke Plange’s shot goes against the post and Jordan Gibson’s shot goes through the keepers hands then hits the crossbar, instead of going in.
“I’ve seen the penalty appeal and it’s hand ball, I don’t get it. I’m sick of talking about the number of times we should have had penalties. I don’t believe it, but people keep telling me it’ll even up over the season, so we’ve got a shed load of penalties to come.
“That was all in the first half, and I don’t think we did enough in the second half to go and trouble Derby, who I thought showed their experience and their know-how. They killed the game when we got any momentum.
“First half their keeper went down as if he had a calf injury when there’s probably nothing wrong with him, but it killed our momentum.
“Second half Mendez-Laing went down when we were getting up a head of steam. That’s clever football to manage games that way. I think their experience came through, which we didn’t quite show.”
The appeal for a spot kick when Craig Forsyth appeared to stop a cross with arm fell on deaf ears as the officials waved play on.
“I do think it’s a penalty because he blocks the cross,” he insisted. “I don’t actually know the rules, and I’m not actually sure if the officials know the rules if I’m going to be really honest with you.
“I thought there were some strange decisions to play advantage when there wasn’t any advantage, then to stop the game, taking our advantage away when we could have played on.
“It isn’t the referee who has lost us the game today, we’ve conceded two sloppy goals against what we have to remember is a strong Derby County side. That’s the biggest disappointment, we did some good things in the first half but we weren’t able to continue it in the second half.”
And the Rams capitalised on their fine margins by converting the only two shots they had on target.
“That’s what happens when you’re playing against stronger sides, they’re clinical and they punished us for our little mistakes,” he agreed. “I can’t think of many other saves, if any, that Jokull has had to make.
“That’s football and they showed their experience and their level of players. We weren’t quite able to produce it ourselves.
“The higher you go the better quality of players you play against and the more likely you are to get punished for them.
“The striker has punished us with the first one, and the same for the second one by getting across Jokull and getting brought down. Other than that we defended well and defended our box ok. I think it’s just fair to say that they defended theirs better.
“I think we’ve got good footballers here. Callum Guy showed good control in midfield, Owen Moxon got on the ball and Jordan Gibson was excellent. We’ve created some good opportunities, we’ve just got to keep being positive and believing.
“We can’t fault anything with the effort, we’ve just made some silly mistakes which have cost us today. It’s a game where we’ve shown we can compete and we’ve done a lot of good things, unfortunately when you step up a level, if you don’t take your chances you get punished for them.”