3/1 To Win
Gary Rowett wants Derby County to take their impressive home form to the road when they travel to Carrow Road to face Norwich City on Saturday.
The Rams have swept aside Nottingham Forest and Sheffield Wednesday in recent weeks to extend their impressive run of form at Pride Park Stadium, but Rowett’s side are without an away win since August.
The boss has seen traits in Derby’s recent performances – following the draws Brentford and Cardiff City at the end of September - that suggest a change in fortunes on the road could be just around the corner.
Speaking to RamsTV, Rowett said: “I think it’s all about the mindset. We’re starting to feel a little more confident, we’re in a better place to go away from home and play a more consistent style.
“We’ve not won enough away games, but we’ve shown that we can be resilient and limit the opposition and now we need to transfer some of the good attacking moments from our home games into the away games.
“Now that we’ve won two games at home, the debate will be whether we can go away and be far more expansive, and we want to build the confidence of the team so that we can attack away just as well as we do at home.”
Rowett admits that morale is high on the back of back-to-back wins, but he urged his side to keep their concentration in order to keep producing positive performances.
He said: “The mood is good in the camp, I always try to keep a level head because I’m conscious that when we’ve previously eulogised about a win, we’ve then lost a tiny bit of focus.
“My response is always to look at some of the things that we don’t do so well, but that’s not to say that I’m not happy with the way that we’re building.”
Derby’s defensive form has seen a marked improvement in recent weeks, keeping three successive league clean sheets for the first time since December 2016, and Rowett is pleased that his side are hitting their targets.
He added: “Our recent run of limiting the opposition, in terms of goals and chances, has been excellent. At the moment, we’re due to concede less goals than last season and score more, so we’re heading in the right direction.
“Building that solidity is important. When you look at the teams that have got out of this division, they’ve conceded between 30 and 45 goals per season, so it doesn’t take a genius to say that you’ve got to concede less than one goal a game on average.
“We’ve been a little more solid away from home in terms of our shape and personnel, and we got a couple of draws that could have turned into a couple of wins, so we’re pretty pleased with that.”
