Jason Knight toasts 'special night' after scoring his first senior goals for ten-man Derby County in Charlton Athlteic win

Jason Knight toasted ‘a special knight’ as the Cabinteely teenager capped off a breakthrough 2019 with his first two senior goals in Derby County’s 2-1 win over Charlton Athletic.

The 18-year-old’s double (watch here) helped Philip Cocu’s side to end a run of seven games without a win despite playing 75 minutes with only ten men following Krystian Bielik’s dismissal.

An underhit pass from Knight saw the big defender jump into a reckless challenge on Tomo Gallacher, but by then the former Cabinteely underage midfielder had already put his side in front.

A fearless attempt to follow up Martyn Waghorn’s deflected shot saw him take a kick to the face that left him with a black eye, but he got the all-important touch to put Derby 1-0 up.

He netted his second in far more emphatic fashion 15 minutes from time as he expertly steered Max Bird’s cross low past the Charlton goalkeeper Dillon Phillips.

Lyle Taylor pulled a goal back from the penalty spot shortly afterwards but Derby, and Knight, kept battling to end the year with three points.

“It is a special night for myself, scoring my first two goals for the club but it was a very important win and a very good performance,” Knight told the club’s official website.

“It’s another milestone in my career so far. I need to push on, keep working hard and keep doing what I’m doing.

“Everyone in the team and the staff knew that this was going to be a massive game for us.



“Charlton are around our position in the table and we needed to win the game so luckily we did that, and we can now push on to Thursday against Barnsley.”

Knight admitted he didn’t know an awful lot about his opening goal, and he took a boot to the face for his trouble, but his second will live longer in the memory,

“I’ll take what I can get really. If it goes in off my head then I will take it. I saw the ball drop and I just thought I would throw myself at it and see what happens. I got a nice boot out of it in the face but that happens sometimes.

“I gave Max Bird a lot of praise to pick me out for the second]. There was a lot of bodies running at him in that situation and then it was a nice little finish from myself and it was nice to get a second goal to secure the win at the end.”

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