Striker James Collins says it’s a ‘great honour’ as he approaches his 100th Derby County appearance ahead of the Rams’ Carabao Cup Round One clash with Chesterfield on Tuesday night (7:45pm kick-off).
Collins was instrumental in last season’s League One promotion-winning campaign, finishing as the team’s top scorer with 19 goals in 46 outings overall.
The striker also surpassed 600 appearances in club football during last season and secured his sixth promotion in the EFL.
Derby will get their domestic cup campaign underway at home against newly promoted League Two side Chesterfield under the Pride Park floodlights.
Collins spoke to RamsTV ahead of the cup clash against the Spireites to discuss his journey with Derby, looking forward to 100 appearances and reflecting on Friday’s 4-2 defeat to Blackburn Rovers.
On closing in on 100 appearances for the Rams…
It's a great honour. To get to 100 appearances for any club is a fantastic achievement. It is a great feeling and especially for this club, the size of it and the history it's got. To get 100 appearances is fantastic. If I am selected to play against Chesterfield, then it'll be a massive honour for me and one that I've thoroughly enjoyed. Hopefully there's a lot more to come.
You never know what could happen in football. I was lucky that Paul Warne, after he came in, liked me as a player and allowed me to continue my journey at Derby.
I've signed for clubs with managers and they get change and the new manager comes in and they don't fancy you, and you've got to go and find another club. I was really fortunate that the gaffer liked me as a player, and he's allowed me to continue my journey here to hopefully 100 appearances and 30-plus goals.
On scoring in important moments…
The promotion last year was the big one for me because that's the reason why I signed for this football club. It was a massive football club in League One that didn't deserve to be there, and it was probably an underachievement from us all that we didn't manage to do that in my first year. The goal was to seal this promotion last year was probably the one that stands out.
The two goals away at Cambridge were memorable, scoring in front of the away fans behind the goal. There are loads of memories but when you're scoring goals, you've got a lot of happy times. To seal promotion last year with a goal against Carlisle at Pride Park was probably the one that stands out.
On learning lessons after defeat to Blackburn on Friday…
We were confident going into the game. We'd watched Blackburn quite a lot. We'd set up all week and how we were going to play, but this is a tough league and there are no easy games. We came across a Blackburn team who were ruthless on the night. In the middle part of the match, I thought we were the better side. When we got the equaliser, I felt we'd got a chance to go and get a positive result.
It was perhaps a bit naive from us, maybe. We got caught on the counter-attack a couple of times and there's a lot of good quality and athleticism in this league. There are a lot of things to look back on and learn, but we've got to put it behind us now and move on.
On playing against Chesterfield in the cup after meeting them in pre-season…
It probably makes it even more of a tougher game because of losing 4-0 there in pre-season. I know pre-season is pre-season and there'll probably be a lot more changes and a different line-up for both teams. Chesterfield will probably have their tails up a little bit too because of the result a few weeks ago. It probably makes it a harder task for us because we've got to go out there and not only win the game, but show people that we're a good side. It is going to be a tough cup tie. Paul Cook's got Chesterfield playing really good football. They’ve got some good players, so we've got to be right at it because it's not going to be an easy game.