Liam Rosenior believes Derby County are progressing in the right direction after they continued their pre-season games programme with a 1-0 home win over Hertha Berlin on Saturday.
Derby’s second run-out of the summer saw them face the German top-flight side in the Derbyshire sunshine at Pride Park Stadium.
With the 2022/23 Sky Bet League One season just two weeks away from getting underway, the Rams produced another confident display following the 2-0 victory at League Two outfit Bradford City last week.
Summer signing Nathaniel Mendez-Laing scored the only goal of the game shortly before half-time following an evenly contested first half with a fine curling effort in front of the South Stand.
Rosenior shuffled the Derby pack in the second half to get minutes into the legs as possible over the course of the 90 minutes, while he also handed first outings to recent summer signings Conor Hourihane, James Chester, David McGoldick and James Collins.
A crowd of just over 7,000 supporters were in attendance and Rosenior believes the Rams’ preparations for the new season are progressing well and, after the final whistle, he spoke to RamsTV to discuss the clash Hertha and the latest from the Rams camp.
On The Workout This Afternoon…
I think it was the perfect workout for us. We’ve just played a really good team who are in the top league in Germany which is a fantastic league full of top teams. They beat Borussia Dortmund last season, so what pleased me was that we have worked with James Collins for a day in terms of the tactical work we’ve done and, to a tee without the ball, we were well organised. They didn’t have a shot on target so to see that engagement from the players in a short space of time; I’m happy. There is a lot we can work on and improve but we are delighted. It’s nice to win but it’s not the most important thing at the moment. The most important thing is that the players understand how we play, how we want to work and each of them carried it out. The new players showed their quality at times as well which is fantastic for the fans to see and we move on to next week.
On What He Wanted To Get Out Of The Game…
It is a fitness exercise more than anything and we need the players working hard. With everything that has happened this summer, we are two or three weeks behind everyone else but to see the fitness levels and the attitude of the players today was outstanding. We need to take that on another level now. Nathaniel Mendez-Laing will grow in terms of his fitness and so will Tom Barkhuizen. They are all really honest players so we need to get them as fit as possible quickly ready for the first game of the season, but for a today I was again delighted with every player like I was at Bradford last Saturday.
We need patience but you can be really organised and well drilled and we showed that today. There was a lot of shape work today and when you are organised it always gives you a chance. What delighted me was the clean sheet and the fact they didn’t have a shot on target, and there were some world class individuals on the pitch for them. There were some good passages in possession in terms of how we want to play. We want to play with wide players and with speed and David McGoldrick showed touches of class, James Collins showed what he was all about and he will score goals for us, so far so good.
On Transfer Business From The Past Seven Days…
We started this recruitment process six months ago and we knew we needed more experience in the squad. More importantly than experience, you want good characters. Every single player that steps foot through this door is a good character and has good values and will work for the team. I was delighted with every one of them today and they will prove good assets moving forwards.
On Injury News…
Krystian Bielik is someone we have to manage really carefully because he has come back from two difficult and long-term injuries. He went away with Poland in the summer and felt his knee and the worst thing for Krystian is to rush him back. He’s a fantastic player and a great person so it’s about making sure he is alright mentally and physically to come into the way we work.
On The Week Ahead…
It’s going to be challenging but that is why you are in football, for challenges. I’m going to rotate on Tuesday at Stevenage and give the players who didn’t start a chance today a chance. I looked at the team at the end and I think there was something eight Academy products on the pitch and that’s what I want as well. For all the talk of experience players, we’ve got some fantastic young players in the squad and that’s important too. I will give some of them a chance on Tuesday night to stake their claim for the first game of the season against Oxford and see how it goes from there.
There are a lot of people at the club working hard behind the scenes and hopefully we can add to the squad this week and make sure we have a good season.