Cocu blasts beaten Rams
PHILLIP Cocu delivered scathing criticism of his Derby County team after they crumbled to a 4-0 home defeat at the hands of Blackburn Rovers.
A goal from Tyrhys Dolan followed by a double from former Rams midfielder Bradley Johnson put Rovers 3-0 up at the break.
Adam Armstrong scored Rovers’ fourth in the second half to leave Derby with no points from their three Championship games and Cocu questioning the attitude, desire and passion of the players.
“A big part of our defeat is about our attitude, our passion, the willingness, the desire to defend, to track, to close down the midfielders, don’t give them a free shot,” said Cocu.
“It was too open, the defence run back and give space to the opponent.
“You can talk about tactics, if you play 4-3-3 or 5-3-2 in the second half. Of course it is part of the game, but any system is about how you execute it.
“I see how they (Rovers) play, the desire they have, and if they go, they go 100%. I see it sometimes with us but sometimes we don’t deliver.”
Skipper Wayne Rooney was also scathing about the performance.
“I can’t make any excuses for today; it wasn’t good enough and all I can say is we will work hard to put it right,” Rooney told RamsTV.
“I am not going to stand here and say we will win the next three, four or five games but we are working hard to get better.
“We will take the work we do this week into the Norwich game next Saturday and try to get a positive result. That is all I can say, I am not making any excuses for today and it hurt all of us.
“Right now as we stand here, it isn’t a great feeling for any of us.
“We started the game well and could have gone 1-0 up but within a few minutes we were 3-0 down. At that point we were chasing the game.
“It is not nice when you lose and it is not nice to lose at home. We have to learn; it is a bad start to the three games and no wins.
“I think anyone who watched the game could see that we had a spell where it looked like there was a bit of confusion.
“We were all over the place and we conceded three goals. We managed to create a couple of chances after that, which was surprising because having a blow like that when you concede three goals that quick is tough to take.
“I can’t stand here and say ‘we did this’ and ‘we did that’. We lost 4-0 and it was not good enough. We all have to improve. We have to improve on a few things in terms of how we are during the game and I think a lot of basic errors are costing us that we need to cut out.”
Cocu explained his decision to leave reigning player of the year Matt Clarke out of the team.
Clarke was on the bench, ending a run of 24 consecutive starts in the Championship that stretched back to December.
Cocu recalled Mike te Wierik after suspension and paired him with Andre Wisdom at centre-back.
Asked about his thinking behind leaving out Clarke, Cocu said: “He has to get back in the rhythm of how we play.
“So we sat down with him to show him some clips and we knew also that they (Blackburn Rovers) would start with Armstrong and that is maybe not the perfect fit at this moment for him (Clarke). Some more weeks in him, he can definitely deal with it but for now it was better that we had some more legs.
“But after the game, well, it was hard to say it was the best decision when you concede four goals, of course.”