3/1 To Win
Frank Lampard has laid down a challenge to Derby County's players – to build up some momentum.
Derby return to Sky Bet Championship action on Saturday afternoon when they take on Preston North End at Pride Park Stadium (3pm kick-off).
Lampard’s side have racked up three wins and two defeats from their five matches in all competitions so far this term.
After claiming their first home win of the campaign in midweek with a 2-0 victory over Ipswich Town, thanks to second half goals from Joe Ledley and Tom Lawrence, Derby will go into the clash against Preston chasing back-to-back wins for the first time this season.
Lampard is anticipating a tough test against a strong Preston side which finished 7th and just two points outside the play-offs last time around.
He told RamsTV: “It’s going to be another tough test on Saturday, like they all are in the Championship.
“I watched Preston the other night when they played at Norwich and they were very solid until late in the game when Norwich won it.
“They had a very good season last year for a reason and have a very good manager. They are very well drilled, organised, have good players in their team and are a strong group in attacking areas.
“They will be very difficult to break down, that’s for sure, and will offer something against us. We need to be on top form.”
He added: “We need to try and make sure, if we can, to get some momentum.
“For me, momentum comes from a mindset of hard work on the training ground and not feeling everything is all good just because we have won one game. We need to keep pushing and pushing and if you have that attitude, hopefully the wins will follow.”
Lampard labelled his side as ‘brilliantly patient’ in midweek to overcome a well organised Ipswich side.
Ledley broke the deadlock just before the hour mark before Lawrence added the Rams’ second nine minutes later.
Derby got themselves into some good attacking areas against the Tractor Boys, but Lampard felt his side needed to be prepared to take more chances in the final third.
The 40-year-old admits the Rams are still in the infancy of a new style of play but is convinced they will only improve and get better.
He said: “I spoke to Paul Hurst (Ipswich manager) after the game on Tuesday and he was very complimentary about the way we played. Obviously, he knew we wanted to move the ball and they defended as a block and made it hard for us.
“My one disappointment the other night was that we probably didn’t get in enough shots or crosses. We got into positions to do those things, but we need to be prepared to take chances in those areas.
“You won’t always get chance after chance and it can be hard to create them. What we needed the other night was a shot from the edge of the box, like the one Joe Ledley scored, to get us going.
“Teams are organised in modern football and the nature of it is to be organised and try to stop the opposition doing what they want to do. You have to find a way around that and we will always try to do that by getting in to areas to hurt the opposition.”
He added: “It’s not just about patience and slow balls; at times we played some great balls from back to front through Scott Carson, Fikayo Tomori and Richard Keogh where we upped the pace.
“It’s about how we work on possession and upping the pace at important moments. We’re working on it and we’re only going to get better at it as we’ve only had around two months so far with the players. We’ll keep working and find the right solution because we don’t want to take the easy way out; we want to be exciting, entertain the fans and win games.”
