Wayne Rooney says he believes in “miracles” after his Derby side moved out of negative points with a 1-0 home win over Reading on Wednesday night.
Craig Forsyth's first goal in over five years gave Rooney's side a second victory in three games since being hit with a 12-point deduction for going into administration.
The Rams move from minus two to one point with the win as they gave the whole club a huge boost amid redundancies at Pride Park in drastic cost cutting measures, reports The Mirror.
Derby deservedly won thanks to Forsyth's rare goal in the 33rd minute and boss Rooney is now praying the Rams avoid anymore points deductions over FFP.
Rooney said: “I was really pleased with the performance and delighted with the three points.
“It is a very difficult moment we are in but the players are giving everything and deserve a lot of credit.
“We are back into positive points and to turn it around so quickly, they deserve a lot of praise.
“It is never nice to look at the table and see minus points. It is almost a siege mentality where we stick together and we will get through it.
“I believe the players trust and believe in me. I believe we will stay up if it stays just minus 12 points.
“If that happens these lads will have performed miracles.”
Derby were the more dangerous side and their keeper Ryan Allsop, making his full League debut, was impressive.
They eventually took the lead in the 33rd minute after great work by Jason Knight who swung over a cross to the back post.
Defender Forsyth met it with a looping header back across goal for his first goal since August 2016 as Josh Laurent on the line was unable to keep it out.
Rooney claimed: “It is something we have been working on since pre-season.
“We haven't got the tallest of strikers but we play with the full-backs high. He is a real option for us and it was a great header.”
The hosts might have doubled their lead before the break but Luke Southwood made a good save from Tom Lawrence.
After the break the hosts were forced to hang on after seeing two penalty appeals in the Reading box waved away.
“I don't know what we need to do to get a penalty - perhaps there is an embargo,” quipped Rooney, who has been operating under a transfer embargo.
“There has been a few times this season we should have had one. We'll have to try and score goals in other ways.”
Reading are in the dock too for heavy spending in three sets of accounts between 2017 and 2019.
They are tipped to suffer a nine-point deduction for breaching FFP.
Coach Veljko Paunovic, after his side's first defeat in four games, said: “It is out of our control, we need to win points no matter what and we focus on that.”
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