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James Crawley writes

Posted Friday, January 19th 2018 @CrawleyJames92

A deserved point - Johnson

Friday, January 19th 2018

Lee Johnson hailed his hard working players as they departed Pride Park with a point.

The 0-0 draw with Derby County on Friday night means City have overcome their run of defeats and recorded their first points of the calendar year.

The Rams wasted a number of opportunities with Frank Fielding and Luke Steele producing exceptional saves to deny them, but City were also unable to capitalise on the break.

The Robins also survived late calls for a penalty as the referee judged Rams substitute Cameron Jerome to have dived.

After watching the video evidence, Johnson believes a penalty should have been awarded.

But when asked if the point was deserved, Johnson told BCTV: "I think it was. I think we rode our luck a little bit with the penalty when Rams TV decided to replay it which is out of order because you're not supposed to do it.

"I thought the boys worked extremely hard against a flying Derby County who have a very experienced squad. They've bought a new striker in (Jerome) who is a good player for the Championship so we needed to stop that tiny rut that we were in.

"I thought we did that very well. We had some good chances of our own where we didn't quite connect as well as we hoped but the attitude and application from the players was very good. I'm excited about the future."

FULL INTERVIEW ON BCTV

City were indebted to both of their keepers, with Frank Fielding making a couple of smart stops in the first half before being replaced due to a groin injury by Luke Steele at the break. The former Manchester United goalkeeper was equally impressive between the sticks.

Johnson added: "Steeley has had to make a couple of good saves; Frankie has made a great save but we did have opportunities on the counter. That's what we pay them for and they get paid well so they are there to make those saves!

"They probably didn't look as clean as they should have been, given the areas we were in. Pato (Jamie Paterson) in the first half, Browny (Josh Brownhill) in the second half. We had a couple of appeals we thought we might have been awarded which we didn't but we take the point."