Derby County Head Coach Paul Warne says his side need to focus on their own performance when they host Carlisle United at Pride Park Stadium on Saturday - and the rest will take care of itself.
The Rams need just one point to secure promotion back to the Sky Bet Championship, regardless of Bolton Wanderers in third spot do at Peterborough United, on the final day of the 2023/24 Sky Bet League One season.
Speaking to RamsTV ahead of the visit of Paul Simpson's side, Warne gave his pre-match thoughts ahead of the clash at a packed Pride Park.
On the end of the season this Saturday…
Hopefully it does end on Saturday, but I’m not counting any chickens. Every season is long. The next season starts the week after the current one ends, strangely enough. It’s an absolute marathon. I feel good, though, going into it. The lads are in pretty good form, they are positive and upbeat. We are home and it’s in our hands, that’s as much as we do know. We just have to look after our own performance and if we do, then hopefully we’ll have enough. The lads told me at our pre-season camp in July they wanted to go up automatically, they wanted to go up as champions. We’ve reiterated the point many times that we just need two points a game and if we win on Saturday, then we’ll reach that total. That total would have been enough to be champions last year but not this time around because Portsmouth have been outstanding and congratulations to them. We just have to perform at a level on Saturday that is enough to win a game.
On making this week feel as normal as possible…
You always have the end of season awards nights at this time of year, but everything else has been normal. It’s very difficult not to get too distracted with everything going on, but we’ve banned all talk apart from Saturday’s opposition. They caused us problems up there in September. It wasn’t an easy game and it won’t be an easy one this weekend.
On whether he’ll be paying attention to what is going on elsewhere…
At half-time I’ll definitely check what the score is and at full-time, hopefully, it won’t matter anyway.
On the home areas at Pride Park being sold-out…
You always need your fans, it makes a difference to every team in the world. Generally speaking, everyone’s home form is better than their away form. If you get the fans behind you it’s always easier to feel gladiatorial when you’ve got 95% of people behind you. My message to the fans is to come along, wave the flags and get behind the lads. Hopefully, we can all go home happy.
On the test that Carlisle United pose give they have won at Bolton and Peterborough…
Every professional team in every league beats someone. There’s always going to be games like that. Every game is difficult, there are no easy matches. We’ve shown the lads the problems Carlisle can cause so we’re well aware whoever the opposition are, they will prove to be difficult. They will want to finish their season well and the players will want to put on a show for their travelling fans. I’m well aware that on their day, they can beat anyone. We are preparing to be the best we can be and hopefully we can perform.