Eiran Cashin believes Derby County’s tough pre-season programme has got the best out of the 'excellent' new signings coming into the 2024/25 Sky Bet Championship season opener at Blackburn Rovers on Friday night (8pm kick-off).
The centre-back made the Sky League One Team of the Year last season for his performances, as he made 52 appearances and helped Derby to 21 of their 22 clean sheets as they clinched promotion back to the second tier.
Securing promotion back to the Championship was imperative for the Derby Academy graduate, after going on the journey through relegation in 2022 after he was part of the squad for the final three months of the Rams’ last Championship spell.
After a 2-1 home win over Spanish top-tier side Real Valladolid in the final pre-season friendly last weekend, Cashin believes Paul Warne’s additions to the squad this summer are gelling well.
Cashin spoke to RamsTV ahead of the new season starting on Friday night to discuss his journey with the club, pre-season preparations and the squad coming together.
On the Rams' pre-season programme...
It has been tough and it's been challenging. With the gaffer, it was a tough pre-season last year and it was the same again this time around. We've had some new lads through the door, and we've started to gel now - the last few games you can really see us. We've started to have much better performances. I’m just looking forward to the season starting.
On returning to Pride Park last week and the Real Valladolid friendly...
It was great to be back, to be fair, to see the fans. It was just nice to be back on our home pitch. I really enjoyed it. It was a good performance and a good result. That gives us a bit of confidence going into the first game.
On David Ozoh’s performance in the last friendly and the new signings...
They've all been excellent. David's been excellent, too. He's a great lad and a great character. You can see his potential and his skill on the ball. He loves to get the ball and turn and play forwards. He'll be massive for us going forward.
He is just like the other lads, Kenzo Goudmijn, Kayden Jackson and Jerry Yates. All the lads that have come in are massive for us. You can see what they all bring to the table. We've got Ebou Adams back too.
We'll just carrying on working with them and gelling, getting to know what they like, what they don't like and the sort of players they are. That will come with time, but I think we're getting there.
On his personal ambitions for the season...
I’ve got lots of goals. The first one is for the team to do as well as possible. I want to do as well as we can as a team and see where we end up. On a personal level, I just want to play as many games as I can. I want to try and play every game in the season. I want to be quite robust. I want to stay fit and be available to play every game. Then just kick on from there, really.
On returning to the Championship after relegation and facing first opponents Blackburn Rovers...
It'll be massive. I was there when we were relegated after at Queen’s Park Rangers. I know what it felt like to get relegated. I was there with the fans. It would have been nice to be back at Pride Park the first game of the season to really take it in and be back with the fans. However, we'll bring a good away support to Blackburn and I'm looking forward to it. We want it to be a good one to get the ball rolling.