Sunday 1 February 2015 21:36, UK
Derby manager Steve McClaren admits his team must learn to be more ruthless, despite Saturday's comfortable 2-0 win at Cardiff.
Chris Martin scored to keep the Rams' hopes of securing promotion hopes from the Sky Bet Championship well on track.
The Scotland striker netted his 19th goal of the season, having earlier missed a penalty, after Scott Malone's own goal had given the visitors a lead they rarely looked like surrendering.
McClaren's side stalled in the second half, though, and had goalkeeper Lee Grant to thank for snuffing out a brief Cardiff rally.
"It was a professional performance and we won the game in the first half," McClaren said.
"Missing that penalty would have affected us a year ago, but not now with the maturity of this team. They kept competing and got the two goals.
"I told the players at half-time to take it on and we had opportunities to get the third. But we got sloppy and too casual and should have scored again because anything can happen at 2-0.
"Lee made an unbelievable save but that could have been 2-1 and then it's a very different last 15 minutes. So it's a lesson to the players that when they are in control to stay in control.
"The second half we just saw the game out without imposing ourselves. It was disappointing. We should have pushed on but relied too much on the back four and Lee Grant."
A fourth defeat in a row for Cardiff leaves them well off the pace for the play-offs and now looking nervously over their shoulders, just seven points off relegation.
But manager Russell Slade insisted he was not under pressure, despite winning just one of his last nine in the Championship.
He said: "I'm a positive person and I don't think we are getting dragged into a relegation fight.
"We need to stop this trend of losing but I don't see why we can't go and win next week and get some momentum. This has been a tricky period as we go through transition with players leaving and coming in, but it's not impossible to make the play-offs.
"That is becoming less realistic with the points we need to catch up, but we won't give up."
Derby saw promotion rivals Bournemouth and Middlesbrough both win in earlier kick-offs and thought they had the early breakthrough when Martin was fouled by Aron Gunnarsson only to fire his spot-kick straight at Simon Moore.
But the Scotland striker made amends by helping set up Derby's opener on 22 minutes. Jamie Ward drove a low pass that deflected off Malone and wrong-footed Moore.
Martin then doubled the lead when he headed in Cyrus Christie's cross at the far post in stoppage time.
Slade had left top-scorer Kenwyne Jones on the bench and Cardiff struggled to make any impact until the striker appeared after an hour, forcing a save from Lee Grant with his first touch. But it was a rare effort from a Cardiff side desperately low on confidence.
