John Eustace tells his Derby County players to “step up and take responsibility” after a 1-0 defeat to 10-man West Brom.
Aune Selland Heggebø scored the only goal of the game, while Brayann Pereira received a second yellow and left the Baggies a man down since the 34th minute.
The result sees Derby down in 22nd in the Championship table, with 4 points from 6 games played, while West Brom are the new league leaders, with 13 points from 6 games.
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Derby’s John Eustace said, as per Sky Sports:
“Obviously frustrated but I thought we started the game really well and even when we went a goal down I thought the whole of the first half was a real positive from my point of view.
“The lads did exactly what I wanted them to do and we had a couple of chances first half which we couldn’t put away.
“Then in the second half West Brom defended really well and I’m disappointed that we couldn’t break them down.
“We just need a bit more quality and the lads to step up and take responsibility for trying to make something happen. We got into some really good areas and we’ve got to keep working in that final third.”
🗣 𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗖𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 🗣
“It is a results-driven business, so we’ve got to start winning a few games.”
Derby County head coach John Eustace says there were positives to take from tonight’s defeat to West Bromwich Albion, but acknowledges his side’s results need to improve.
Hear… pic.twitter.com/sXQWnZugyF
— BBC Sport Derby (@BBCDerbySport) September 9, 2026
West Brom’s James Morrison said:
“I thought we were pretty poor for the first 20 or 30 minutes, we caused our own problems really.
“I think the sending off summed up our start really, we gave the ball away far too much and the one time we did string some passes together we scored.
“It was important we got to half time and sorted a few things out. We limited them to crosses coming in and heading from 12 yards, we defended the box really well with everyone putting their bodies on the line.
“That defensive unit of the whole team really when we were low was pretty impressive.
“I felt it from day one really, after last season to now, it’s a credit to the lads and the new lads coming in and fitting in really well, hopefully that will spur us on.”
Here’s the social media reaction after John Eustace tell Derby players to “step up and take responsibility” after defeat to West Brom…
@dcfc_connor: No surprise when you just go sideways or backwards good job guys there clueless
@sandez666: Loose this game 1-0 playing a full strength west brom team. Fair enough….. to be playing against 10 men for 60 mins and doing fuck all with it is disgusting
@Alex_Lipniski: Massive advocate of JE me but that game was a sackable offence. No reason for having 0 idea in how to break a side down given that’s exactly the way we try to set ourselves up. Ridiculous amount goals conceded in the first 20 mins of games this season already
@Gav1981: That performance was awful… absolutely clueless! Yes we have injuries but JE should be getting more out of the players he has available… Birmingham Saturday and I just can’t see where the goals are going to come from!
@adaml88: Who’s to blame then the players for being so bad! So poor or John Eustace’s shit boring football? Something needs to change we in a bad place atm
@n_dcfc41406: Just so so so shit. No patterns of play. No idea what to do at either ends of the pitch. Couldn’t score in 65 minutes against 10 men with 5 attackers on the pitch. If Eustace doesn’t sort this out, he’ll come under fire. Rightly so. Unacceptable yet again. Mind you WBA were good
@kayden_rankin: Get him gone, honestly someone needs to get a hold of this team. It weren’t this bad last season, our usual 3 pts are no more. Wtf, I’m slowly leaning towards Eustace out
@Gems171: Literally could have played for another hour and still not scored! Couldn’t even tell we had an extra player for most of the match. Simply not good enough and haven’t been for almost all of the games this season. 🙁
@richdawson84: Fucking shit that was! No idea, toothless, passive, weak and pathetic performance. Ozoh the only player to come away with any kind of positives. Absolute disgrace.
@carolyn005x: Not good especially after playing against 10 men for a large portion of the game and so many corners with no end product
