Derby County: John Eustace vows Rams will fight for play-offs to the end

John Eustace says his Derby side will go all-out to gatecrash the Championship play-off places, despite the odds being against them.

The Rams are eighth, four points adrift of both sixth-placed Wrexham and Hull City in seventh, with just two games remaining.

Tuesday's 2-1 defeat at Norwich was a third straight away defeat for County, who have now lost six of their past seven games on their travels.

However, Eustace told BBC Radio Derby they would set out to end that run at QPR on Saturday (15:00 BST) and hope other results help their chances ahead of a final-day visit of Sheffield United to Pride Park.

He said: "The last six or seven games, apart from the Portsmouth (win), it's been against teams who are all going to finish in the top seven or eight.

"There's been some really difficult away games of late, but the way we've gone about our business [has been good] - we haven't had the results we have wanted, we've been in all those games and lost by the odd goal, been in the lead, clawed our way back into some really good positions.

"The most disappointing thing is that against top teams we couldn't go on and win the game - it's something we have to work on and learn from."

The lowest the Rams can finish is ninth, an improvement of 10 places on last season when they beat the drop by a single point.

"We want to progress and build, of course - anything better than last season is progression," Eustace added. "We've done it in the right way, I feel. We have stuck together.

"The top six is always the aim, we're going to keep trying. All we can do is take care of what we can do. We want to go to QPR and put in a really positive performance and win the game and let's see where we end up at the end of the season.

"The team don't need lifting up, we have always bounced back and that won't be any different.

"It's never really been in our hands, we've always had to win more than the others. We have two games to go and stamp our authority on the game and see where it takes us."