Paul Jewell hopes the Rams' performance for large parts of Saturday's 2-1 defeat at West Ham was indicative of how he wants his side to play next season.

Derby started slowly at the Boleyn Ground and found themselves behind to Bobby Zamora's 20th-minute header but they recovered to dominate.

Tyrone Mears scored a deserved leveller and the Rams had plenty of other chances only to be undone by Carlton Cole's close-range finish.

But with their 2007/08 fate sealed, Jewell is already building for an assault on promotion from the Coca-Cola Championship next season.

He told www.dcfc.co.uk: "We lost the game but the way we want to play next season is with slick, attacking football, and hopefully what we saw in the second half is what we will see next season.

"I thought we deserved three points and our second-half performance was very heart-warming.

"In the first half-hour we looked like we felt sorry for ourselves last week but I thought the second half was great.

"At 1-1 I made a change and fancied us to win it from there.

"It didn't quite work out like that but a lot of the stuff we played was terrific."

Jewell was looking for a reaction from his side after watching them beaten 6-0 at home to Aston Villa last week.

For a while it looked as though they were still suffering but he was pleased with their response.

"In football you normally get another chance and if we could have played on Sunday morning to get it out of our system we would have done.

"It has been a long week and in the first 25 minutes it looked as if we were feeling sorry for ourselves.

"We got over that then gave away a horrendous goal - which has plagued us all season.

"In the second half I thought we looked full of energy, full of life, and we were passing the ball around but couldn't find that second goal.

"West Ham were hanging on at the end."

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