Derby County 3-0 Bolton Wanderers
- Published
Matej Vydra's best goal tally in an English season was 24 for Watford in 2012-13
Matej Vydra scored his 20th goal of the season as Derby County cruised to a comfortable home win over Bolton.
The Czech forward rolled the ball into an empty net after Ben Alnwick had saved from David Nugent.
It doubled a lead given to Derby in the early stages by Alex Pearce, who headed home Joe Ledley's corner.
Tom Lawrence sealed the points after the break with a 30-yard shot into the corner, while Bolton's David Wheater saw two efforts blocked on the line.
The win kept Gary Rowett's Rams fifth in the Championship, three points clear of Millwall in seventh, as they look to guarantee a Championship play-off place.
Bolton are 21st, just two points clear of the relegation places following Barnsley's 3-2 win over Sheffield United earlier on Saturday.
Their best efforts came from defenders, with Scott Carson twice denying Mark Beevers in quick, succession, and Wheater foiled twice in a goalmouth scramble.
And substitute Cameron Jerome could have stretched Derby's lead late on, but headed wide from Chris Baird's cross.
Derby boss Gary Rowett told BBC Radio Derby:
"We controlled the game without the ball and it actually gave us really good opportunities to get into attacking areas.
"When you see that, you see some of our incisive players - but give them space and they'll hurt any team, and I thought that's what we did.
"We should have had more, first half, and were a little bit wasteful with our finishing, but I felt we did enough."
Bolton boss Phil Parkinson told BBC Radio Manchester:
"We gave ourselves a mountain to climb. I'm very disappointed with the first goal because it was easily avoidable - we didn't deal with a very basic set play.
"We gave ourselves a lot of work to do against a team who have obviously struggled recently at home, and we gave them a huge lift.
"The first goal gave a team who were nervous last time here against Sunderland a massive lift. It lifted the crowd and it was a very, very soft goal. From now on in, we have got to be more resilient at keeping the ball out of the back of our net."