Derby 0-3 Birmingham: Paul Clement and Gary Rowett reaction

Derby head coach Paul Clement admitted his team were in a "bad moment" after they were beaten 3-0 at home by Birmingham in the Sky Bet Championship.

Clement had slammed the Rams' performance against Reading in midweek as "awful" and there was little improvement as they crashed to their heaviest defeat of the season.

Any reaction Clement hoped for failed to materialise as Derby struggled from the start against a Birmingham side who limited them to only one clear first-half chance, which Jeff Hendrick headed wide in the 30th minute.

Birmingham did not have a shot on target until the 43rd minute but everything changed in the second half as the visitors ruthlessly exposed another desperate display by the Championship big-spenders.

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The alarm bells had already sounded before Paul Robinson headed in from four yards after Michael Morrison had flicked on a corner in the 59th minute and Birmingham increased their lead in the 74th minute when Stephen Gleeson deceived Lee Grant with a shot from 20 yards that dipped over the goalkeeper.

Any hopes of a comeback were snuffed out 10 minutes from time when Maikel Kieftenbeld sent a volley from just outside the box past Grant to leave Derby four points outside the automatic promotion places.

"I was very angry and frustrated after the game against Reading but I'm more disappointed today," Clement said. "I'm disappointed we didn't get the reaction and performance we needed.

"In the first half I thought we were so-so, neither poor nor good, but there were things we could have built upon and we had 45 minutes to try and get a positive result but the key moment for me was the first goal and our reaction to that.

"You could see how fragile confidence is and the second goal just knocked the stuffing out of us. We are a team in a bad moment and confidence is everything, it can go as quickly as it can come back and I still believe we are a good side.

"We are a good side in a bad period but I've full confidence in the players that we will get through this and I don't think it's abnormal that a team will go through a difficult period in a long season."

Birmingham manager Gary Rowett, who is a near-neighbour of Clement in Duffield, just outside Derby, sensed there was a chance for his team in this game.

"When you look at the week Derby have had and the two or three-week period they've had, you could sense maybe a little bit of nervousness around the place and vulnerability if we could just play a bit better than we did in the first half," he said.

"I thought we were okay first half but we didn't commit to our attacking play enough and I just said to the players at half-time, 'come on, if we are going to do it, we are going to do it properly, so can we get on the front foot and be a bit braver.'

"If we lose the game, we lose the game, but I really wanted to have a go and see what comes out of it and in that second half with a bit more drive about us and playing five more yards up the pitch, it made a huge difference."