Neil Redfearn believes United are "going in the right direction" as they prepare to face Derby County this Saturday (3pm).

Redfearn’s side have won just once from their last 10 outings and are set to face one of their sternest tests of the season so far with the visit of Steve McClaren's league leaders.

However, Redfearn has been encouraged by what he has seen and thinks the players have already shown they are capable of putting a consistent run of form together.

"We had a good run in the caretaker spell, we picked results up and got ourselves in a good position," said the head coach.

"We proved it can be done. From my point of view, we’re eight games in - we’ve won four, drawn two and lost two so it’s not bad.

"We’re going in the right direction.

"We got in front of goal quite a bit on Saturday. If you look at the goals scored column now, we’ve added to that. We’ve just got to be a bit more disciplined and a bit more thorough."

Since taking the job on a permanent basis at the start of November, Redfearn has been keen to see a more attractive style of play, but the head coach is also mindful of his side's in-game management.

"We want to play this kind of football, there are no two ways about it," he said.

"We want pass it and we want to get it down because we’re in control about what we’re doing.

"Definitely in the last three games, for me, we’ve seen aspects of that where we’ve controlled it and we’ve been in control of our own destiny because we’ve got the goal.

"But there are times in games where you’ve just got to defend. If it means putting your foot through it, you’ve got to put your foot through it.

"Then we get the chance to regroup, we’ll get the ball down and start to play again when it’s in an area we can play.

"We’ve just got to be aware of the business ends of the market at both ends of the pitch. We’ve just got to be a little bit more thorough with our defending. We’ve got to make decisions."