Eiran Cashin believes Derby County are showing more consistency in their results and performances - but knows there’s still room for improvement.
Derby have won four games in a row in Sky Bet League One to force their way into the division’s top six in the lead-up to the ever-busy festive period.
Their last league outing was a 1-0 success at Port Vale just over a week ago while Paul Warne’s side also reached the Round of 16 in the Bristol Street Motors Trophy with a 3-0 home win over fellow League One side Fleetwood Town on Tuesday.
Cashin caught up with RamsTV ahead of Saturday’s away fixture at Leyton Orient to discuss the Rams’ winning run, the potential to improve even further and the prospect of facing former Ram and Academy graduate Jordan Brown this weekend.
On the side’s current run of form…
We are feeling in a good place and our confidence is up. We produced a good performance in the Bristol Street Motors Trophy in midweek against Fleetwood and got ourselves another win too. We’re putting a bit of a run together at the moment and long may that continue.
On the reason behind the side’s winning sequence…
I wouldn’t say anything specific is behind it, but we’ve certainly been more consistent. I feel like we have perhaps upped our standards a bit in training in terms of scoring goals and then when it comes to the games it is habitual and becomes second nature. We said earlier in the season we were ‘nearly there’ in quite a few games, but it feels like it is slowly coming together now and we’re putting a run together.
On the potential for the team to still improve…
We know we still have more gears to go through. We’re gone back through the matches we have won lately and still feel we can do better in certain areas. The gaffer does that the day after games too when we go into team meetings on where we can improve as a team or as individuals. You can always get better, so we see that as a positive. We know we can get better too ahead of more games this month.
On how he’s feeling after playing the most minutes in the squad so far…
I am feeling good! It is probably one of the benefits of being so young, I feel in a good place playing week-in-week-out. I try to recover well and I want to play as many minutes and games as possible and learn off the senior lads. They are probably the ones that are given the rest here and there and rightly so because they’re the ones that are pivotal to us and drag us through games.
On the potential of facing former Academy team-mate Jordan Brown at Leyton Orient…
I am still in touch with Jordan and I spoke to him the other week; I am looking forward to seeing him. I am buzzing to see him playing football down at Orient and he’s one of the nicest guys you will meet. He is a very good player as a well. He won’t be my friend on Saturday, certainly not until after the game!
Reflecting on the 2018/19 Under-18 title-winning success…
We were speaking about it the other day. It is amazing how many of that group have gone on to have senior careers. It doesn’t happen very often that so many from one youth team go on to ‘make it’ so it is a bit surreal looking back at what we achieved. It feels like a long time ago, I know it was a few years back, and we’ve all gone down different paths in our careers. What we did that season was special and it will always keep us all together in years to come.