Derby boss Paul Warne hailed Dwight Gayle’s ability to make “a massive difference” after his first goal for a year helped promotion-chasing County beat Port Vale 3-0 at Pride Park.
The 34-year-old striker, who joined Derby last month as a free agent after leaving Stoke, opened his Rams account to make it 2-0 on the stroke of half-time – just as Vale were starting to cause the home side some problems.
Derby had made a lively start and went ahead in the fourth minute through Louie Sibley, whose shot took a big deflection to beat Connor Ripley.
The Vale goalkeeper denied Derby a second in the 11th minute with a double save from Nathaniel Mendez-Laing and Max Bird and the visitors had a good period before Gayle pounced in the 44th minute.
Ebou Adams provided the cross and Gayle planted a header from 12 yards into the bottom right corner, and Derby sealed victory in the 58th minute through Sibley’s powerful finish.
Warne recognised the importance of Gayle’s first goal since he scored for Stoke on March 4th last year.
He said: “It was nice Dwight got his first goal, I think he’s scored in every league now.
“I’ve said all along you are only ever as good in any game as your goalkeeper and your centre-forward, and if your centre-forward can get a yard in the box and get a goal at a crucial time it makes a massive difference.
“It will give him a right boost, it will do him no end of good. We know he’s rusty but we also know that he can definitely play at this level and he’s another threat for us.
“Some of his touches today were good again and he’s taken a little bit more rust off. It’s obviously great that Dwight scores because all strikers want to score.
“It was nice to get the second goal just before half-time, it made the lads happier in the dressing room but I wasn’t really happy, I was disappointed.
“We had put ourselves under pressure and seemed to panic with three players going for the same ball but I thought in the second half we were comfortable.”
Derby’s win kept them second in League One, seven points behind leaders Portsmouth, while Vale remain deep in trouble at the other end of the table after suffering an eighth defeat in 11 league matches since their last win.
Vale manager Darren Moore said: “We gave ourselves a mountain to climb conceding an early goal. The manner of the goal wasn’t very good but I just thought in the game after we had that early setback we never really condensed the pitch.
“I think the difficult thing was the two goals, one in the first five minutes and then the other just before half-time, that was probably the most disappointing one because 2-0 is a damaging blow.
“There is a little bit of naivety with us, our mindset can be better, needs to be better, will be better because we get some time to work with them on the training ground this week.”