I think we are a little bit disappointed

In the first twenty-five minutes of the game we played the kind of football I want us to play and we were on top. It became a closer affair after that, but we stuck to our task. It was our third clean sheet on the bounce and when you keep clean sheets you pick up results.

“I'm extremely satisfied with that point and now we can focus on our next game against Wolves at Pride Park on Boxing Day.”

Steve Cotterill saw the result differently than his former next door but one neighbour and said: “I think we are a little bit disappointed to be honest. Probably in the second half we looked the team more likely to score, so I think Derby will be happier with the draw than we are.

“Over the past few weeks I don't think we've been terribly lucky and you need that little bit of luck. At the moment we are earning it but it is not quite dropping in the right areas for us. We just feel that little bit of luck is missing, but having said that we are not too disappointed.

“The lads put an enormous amount of effort in and it was quite intriguing playing a 4-4-2 system against Derby's 4-3-3. I thought our back four were excellent. It gets though when you have to switch things around because you don't have much time to work with them, but I thought their efforts were as good as anything in front of them.”

Regarding the injuries, Steve added: “Frank Sinclair has a calf injury and John McGreal a hip injury and neither of them were ever going to be fit for this game. To add to that Danny Coyne has been feeling a hamstring all week and I think it was the right decision for him to put his hand up and say he needed to come off. We'll assess him on Christmas Eve ahead of the two away fixtures.”

It appears we also came close to having another player ruled out yesterday, striker Gifton Noel-Williams. “He stepped on a nail this morning,” Steve said. “He's having some work done at his house and we were very worried about losing him, particularly with Andy Gray also out.”

Gifton will surely be looking forward to taking on Barnsley again, and so is the manager. “We are looking forward to it,” he said. “It isn't too far which is good for our supporters and I'm sure we'll have a good turnout and we'll be looking to get three points on board there.”