Clement pleased with Bent

From that point The Rams stepped their game up and dominated the closing stages with Ince firing wide from Martin’s layoff as they increased the pressure.

Dons were, however, left to lament a wasteful afternoon in front of goal – only four of their 26 efforts hit the target – as Bent won it in the 89th minute and Tom Ince added a stoppage-time third. The home side were denied by a super close range save from Scott Carson in the first half and found themselves behind eight minutes into the second period when Bradley Johnson drilled in his first goal for The Rams.

Karl Robinson’s men were emphatically dumped out of the Capital One Cup in midweek, too, losing 6-0 to Premier League outfit Southampton, and the Dons boss is after a response against the Rams.

But they eventually ran out of steam, allowing substitute Bent to tap in an Andreas Weimann cross and Ince to finish things off in injury time.

Derby take on MK Dons today and have sold 3,300 tickets for the Championship clash at stadiummk inspite of the game kicking off at 12.30pm and being shown live on TV.

“I think he is one of those players, like (Chris) Martin, like (Johnny) Russell, that needs to be given the ball”.

“We were outstanding – we moved the ball efficiently and effectively, which is pleasing to see – but every time they come forward and have a shot it goes in and that’s the difficulty for us”.

‘We have to persevere and we’ll start winning football matches. It’s easy when you’re winning, but when you play the way that we play and you’re on a bad run it takes a lot of bravery to play the same way that we do.

Speaking on Sky Sports, the former Liverpool and Manchester United star said: “I saw Paul Clement do a Mourinho running down the line, I thought he was going to pull a hamstring!”