Andre Wisdom highlighted the standards that Derby County have set for themselves on the training ground as a key aspect of their unbeaten sequence in the Sky Bet Championship.
The Rams earned a point against Millwall at The Den on Tuesday night to make it 10 league games without defeat since the reverse at home to Ipswich Town in November.
Gary Rowett’s side have kept eight clean sheets during that run, and Wisdom believes that the squad’s determination to be successful this season has contributed heavily to the recent form.
Looking ahead to Saturday’s meeting with Brentford at Pride Park Stadium, he told RamsTV: “We set the standard so high in training and nobody wants to be on the losing team, so we take that into the games.
“You do what you’ve got to do, if you can block, get your foot in the way and run until you can’t run anymore, then we have a great platform to go and play football.”
Derby faced a physical encounter against the Lions earlier this week, and the full-back was encouraged by the way that Millwall’s combative nature was dealt with.
He said: “We battled all night, and we competed with the directness and physicality that they threw at us.
“It some games, we’ve been bullied a little bit, so it was good for us to go away from home and prove to ourselves that whatever is thrown at us, we can compete and give as good as we get.”
The Rams have taken a point from each of their home games so far in 2018, with the 1-1 draw against Sheffield United on New Year’s Day followed by a goalless stalemate with Bristol City.
With Derby sitting in second place in the Championship, teams might have extra motivation to come to Pride Park and earn a result, but that isn’t something that Wisdom is worried about.
“I don’t really look into it too much. No team wants to lose, so we just need to concentrate on what we’re doing,” he explained.
“We’re playing well at home, but we need to keep getting the points on the board, we know what we need to do and we concentrate on ourselves.”