Liam Rosenior sees Derby County’s final five games of the 2019/20 Sky Bet Championship season as an opportunity to test themselves against the best the division has to offer.
Derby head across the Midlands this afternoon to take on automatic promotion chasers West Bromwich Albion at the Hawthorns (5pm kick-off).
From the Rams’ final five games of the campaign, they face four sides occupying a top six spot.
As well as taking on the Baggies, they also have to take on Brentford, Cardiff City and Leeds United in their upcoming fixtures.
Derby can, however, go into the matches off the back of a promising run of form throughout 2020.
Either side of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Rams have been one of the form teams in the Championship since the halfway point of the campaign.
They are in the race for a place in the play-offs and are unbeaten in their last six outings, winning five and drawing one.
Rosenior believes the Rams’ upcoming fixtures should be viewed as an opportunity to showcase their qualities and have a positive affect on the weeks ahead.
Speaking to RamsTV, Rosenior - Derby’s Specialist First Team Coach - said: “You have to play every team twice; it’s the same rule in every league and in every country.
“You play the same teams twice so for me, we will be where we deserve to be.
“If we make the play-offs then we deserve to be in them, if we don’t make them then we don’t deserve to be in them.
“We can’t start thinking about how we affect other things, we just want to affect our season and our performances the best way that we can.”
He added: “I think it’s a positive that we are in a good run of form and we get to test ourselves against the teams who are the best in the division.
“Hopefully that ends with us really testing ourselves in a play-off format which is what everyone is working towards at the moment.”
Alongside Derby’s impressive results in the second half of the season have come some fine performances.
The first half of the campaign was inconsistent for the side, but there is no doubting they have hit their stride since the turn of the year.
Rosenior now wants to see those performances continue against the top sides in the Championship.
The 35-year-old said: “We are playing against some really good teams but what I want to see from us as a team is us playing our way.
“That is by us imposing our style of play on the opposition and there is no better way of testing that than against the best teams in this league.
“At the moment you are seeing teams adapt to the way that we are playing now.”