Lewis Dobbin issues emotional Derby County message after final day heartbreak | OneFootball

Derby County loanee Lewis Dobbin has expressed his disappointment following yesterday's 1-0 defeat against Sheffield Wednesday, taking to Twitter to issue an emotional message after the Rams narrowly missed out on the play-offs.

A win would have guaranteed the East Midlands side a place in the play-offs and even with Peterborough United's victory yesterday, it turns out a draw against Sheffield Wednesday would have been enough for the Rams to stay in the top six on goal difference.

However, the fatal blow for them came just before half-time when Curtis Davies' challenge on Marvin Johnson in the box was judged to be a foul, leading to a red card for the centre-back and a penalty for the hosts.

Michael Smith made no mistake, putting the Owls 1-0 up. And Darren Moore's side were able to hold on to this advantage, allowing Wednesday to build momentum going into the play-offs.

Derby, meanwhile, have been consigned to another season of League One football.

Although many of their supporters will just be glad to be alive after their fall into administration, plenty will be disappointed that they weren't able to cement their place in the play-offs considering the calibre of players they had.

What did Lewis Dobbin post?

The 20-year-old enjoyed a productive campaign at Pride Park, recording five goals and six assists in 54 competitive appearances during his loan spell.

That's an admirable total and this game time has allowed him to form a real and meaningful connection to the club.

Clearly emotional after such a heartbreaking end to a respectable campaign, the Everton man posted: "From day 1 I’ve felt at home and this one will hurt for a while💔 some club and some group of lads, Thankyou for the memories and all the best."

What next for Derby County?

The size of the club alone should help the Rams to attract some excellent names, as well as manager Paul Warne who has experienced real success in this division before.

They won't have the biggest budget to play with, but there will surely be room for quite a few players to come in.

It will be interesting to see whether they try and utilise the free agent market more than the loan market. That would probably be better for the long term but they can't afford to spend too much on wages.

Now they have a season of third-tier football under their belts, you feel they will be better prepared for next season and with this in mind, it would be a surprise if they don't secure a top-six place next term.

Two very strong teams have gone up with one more to join them. In terms of who's coming down, Reading face a rebuild so aren't guaranteed to be successful, Blackpool are set to lose some talented loanees and Wigan are in off-field turmoil again with another wage saga.