It was pleasing to see us continue recent form, making it four wins in a row against Derby, writes Tom Schofield.

It’s a result that has seen us move to within two points of the play-offs, before our midweek fixture against Swansea.

If we play anything like we did against Derby, there’s no reason we can’t make it five in a row.

We are now seeing why Tony Mowbray put so much faith in Manchester City loanee Tosin Adarabioyo, making him the sole central defensive addition.

In fits and flashes we have seen his quality, Saturday’s performance was complete though and it led to a well-deserved man of the match award. We have lacked for some time a good ball-playing central defensive option.

Charlie Mulgrew offered some of those qualities, but his passes were often diagonal balls to the wing.

Adarabioyo is as comfortable threading the needle through a small crowd of players as he is switching it to the flanks, rarely giving it away.

Much was made of the decision to let Mulgrew go with only the one central defensive addition, in truth the Scottish international was unlikely to get much game time when both Adarabioyo and Lenihan were fit.

It makes quite the difference having two commanding centre halves who are more than willing to throw their bodies, and quite often their heads in the way of anything.

In games gone by, think the defeat at Preston, the high ball has been cause for much concern.

That’s all that Derby offered and I thought we dealt with it superbly.

Being able to head the ball beyond the halfway line alleviates the pressure and gives the defence time to set out their stall.

One criticism of last season was the fact we defended so deep and looked rather uncomfortable doing so.

We still do have that tendency to drop a little too deep for my liking, especially when sitting on a one goal lead, we looked more comfortable doing it though.

Progress was always going to be a big thing this season and with Adarabioyo and Lenihan at the back, we won’t concede just as many.