Eustace aims to continue Rams' progression

Before Saturday's reunion with his former club Blackburn, John Eustace says Derby want to continue the progress they have made this season.

The Rams went down 4-2 at Hull on Tuesday to suffer back-to-back Championship defeats for the first time since the start of December and are now 11th, six points behind Wrexham in the final play-off spot with 12 games remaining.

The first of those is against Rovers at Pride Park on Saturday (12:30 GMT), a fixture in which Eustace claimed his first victory as Rams boss a year ago to lift Derby off the bottom of the table and spark an impressive climb to safety.

Eustace told BBC Radio Derby: "We'd lost our first three games, it was always going to be a big game, to get that result was great and really kick-started our season to keep us in the league - it was a huge game.

"We've got a number of ex-players who used to play for the club [Blackburn], it's a fantastic club and I'm sure it will be a great game."

He added: "This season was all about progressing, a lot of players coming out and new players coming in, lots going on behind the scenes at the training ground. Up until now we have certainly progressed the club and we want to keep going."

Derby have conceded in 26 of their 34 league games and Eustace says it is something they need to work on.

"We have to defend a lot better," he said. "The main thing we were after (at Hull) was a reaction after Saturday's performance (at Watford) and we certainly got that, the game could have gone either way.

"There were lots of positives to take from it but we have to keep learning from a couple of the negatives.

"We have to start keeping some clean sheets, we haven't had enough clean sheets throughout the season, if you don't do the basics well enough you're not going to.

"We all know we can still do better from a defensive point of view."