First-team coach confident players can handle expectations this season
After coming within a whisker of promotion to the Barclays Premier League last season, Derby County knew there would be a rise in expectations.
Not just from within the Club, but outside as well and Paul Simpson, Derby’s first-team coach, believes teams are now treating Steve McClaren’s side with more respect.
The Rams have recorded four wins and two draws from the first seven games of the new season, but have had to play with a degree of patience in a bid to grind down their opponents over the course of the opening month.
Simpson admits Derby are still adapting to the way teams are setting up against them, but feels if his players retain an air of calm and patience, they will reap the rewards as the season goes on.
He told Rams Player:“We’re still learning on it. What we are finding is that everybody is treating us with a bit more respect than last season.
“Clubs are coming and knowing that they can’t allow us to play, they are making it difficult.
“Ipswich made it very difficult for us; we’ve had it in other games: Fulham did it for 60 minutes before we grounded them out and ended up coming out with an empathic victory.
“It’s something we are going to have to deal with, we are going to have to learn to deal with it even better than we have done so far.
“When teams come and make it difficult, we have got to not get frustrated, but keep playing with a positive attitude, but keep calm about it.
“It’s something that, I’m sure, the fans are finding is different as well. The supporters, who are turning up in their numbers, they’re seeing a different type of football game.
“We have to be patient, we have to keep moving the ball from side to side and just grind teams down eventually.
“Unfortunately, we couldn’t grind Ipswich down because they were relentless in the way they went, but over the season, if we can keep calm and keep patient, as a whole football club, I’m sure we will reap the rewards.”
With only five league games down, Derby sit well placed just outside the top six as they prepare to make the short trip down the A52 to face Nottingham Forest – the early pace setters – on 14 September.
Simpson, though, highlighted that nobody is taking any notice of the standings within the Rams’ camp and their aim is ensuring that they are in the mix as the season enters its final 12 games.
He added; “I did actually see the league table in the changing room after the (Ipswich) game and it’s the first that I have looked at it.
“I don’t tend to look at it, but we are in and amongst it. We have had a reasonable start, we could easily have won the game at Sheffield (Wednesday), we could have easily won the game at Charlton (Athletic), but we could have easily lost the game against Sheffield as well.
“There are all sorts of ifs and buts that happen at this stage of the season. It’s how you are going into that last 10 or 12 games, whether you are in the mix, whether you have given yourself a fighting chance of being involved and that’s what we have got to make sure we do.”
Watch the full interview with Paul Simpson on Rams Player.
