Defender Ryan Bertrand scored his first professional goal in Wednesday evening's 4-1 thumping of Derby County, and the timing was perfect as Ryan's mother was at the game to celebrate her birthday and see him find the back of the net.

Bertrand, 20, has been playing very well over the past few weeks, and his goal was a fitting reward for a performance that earned him man of the match honours - no mean feat on an evening when a number of our players performed admirably in securing a sixth win in seven League games.

Ryan said, "The goal takes me up to zero now, if you count the own goal against Liverpool! I've got to get another one now! I like to get forward and I always want to score. It's something I've got to improve on - my end product.

"It's my mum's birthday, she was here so she'll be delighted. I pointed to the stands, but I didn't know where she was sitting! That goal was for her though.

"I had a chance earlier, and I thought 'I can push on here and get something.' And when the 'keeper went off, it was important firstly that the boys didn't get carried away with Robbie Savage being in goal, and secondly that we started shooting. Thankfully a few of the goals went in to ease the pressure. I think we were just trying to go forward a bit too quickly, without realising that there were still nine players stood in front of us that we had to beat first. It was important we just kept to our game."

Like so many players, Bertrand is thriving under Brian McDermott's management and helping the team in a great run of form. He said, "When the gaffer came in, he said it was a 20-game league for the matches that he was in charge of - and we've won six in seven from them and we've got another 13 games left. We'll take each one as it comes and try to win each game."

Stand-in 'keeper Savage performed well between the sticks, but the Welshman told the press afterwards that he's not hoping to don the gloves again anytime soon. "I room with Stephen Bywater and he tells me a lot about goalkeeping, but it's the most boring position in the world, it was just  horrendous. It's a very hard job - after that I take my hat off to every goalkeeper. I've never played in goal - it just came naturally! Maybe Wales need a goalkeeper do they?!

"I think it was the wise choice. I'm 36 years of age this year, we're playing with ten men away at Reading, they were passing the ball around us and we couldn't get close to them. My legs aren't what they used to be and we've got a hard game against Doncaster coming up - so it was the wise choice.

"Reading were by far the better team anyway and [me going in goal] wasn't a turning point in the game really, they could have scored three or four more before that."