Lampard Expecting Tight Clash This Evening

Manager Frank Lampard is expecting a tough encounter against Blackburn Rovers at Pride Park Stadium this evening.

After four wins from four before the international break, the Rams felt disappointment on Saturday as they were beaten away at Rotherham United.

However, Lampard’s men have the chance to put that result behind them tonight in front of the home supporters.

“We played two really good games before the break and before Hull and it shot us up the table,” the manager told RamsTV. “We must use that atmosphere that the fans create and the confident feeling we have at Pride Park.

“We understand that we have two in-form teams coming. Blackburn are in really good form, same with Brentford so it will be two difficult games.

“We need to use the home advantage to help us and more than that, our performances need to be as good as they were in the second half against Preston. We need to be full of energy and have quality in our play and if we replicate that then we will be alright.”

Blackburn Rovers secured promotion to the Sky Bet Championship last season and have started this campaign in good form.

Bradley Dack was a key player in their promotion season and he has already notched three goals in five games this campaign. Whilst the manager did not want to single him out, Lampard did concede: “He is a quality player.

“Blackburn’s strength is probably where we are in transition at the moment due to the turnover in players. They have brought up a squad who are confident playing with each other and they have added a couple of loans and strengthened as a whole.

“Dack is a threat, he is confident and scoring goals at the moment and they have threats all over the park. They are organised, hard working and have good quality as well so, as all games, they bring different challenges and we need to combat those but use our own strengths.

“I’m more focused on us on Tuesday to be honest. If we get it right at Pride Park we should get results against most teams.”

Tom Lawrence will serve the first of his three match ban following his dismissal at Rotherham at the weekend, but the manager has reinforcements available.

“The squad will look after itself over a period of time,” he said. “We have a big squad, particularly in attacking areas and it’s difficult to have people on the bench or out of the squad but that’s the nature of it. We like to train at a high level so when asked players can come in and do well.

“I tend to pick teams on who I think can win games rather than getting too far ahead of myself. We want to win games and they are all as important as each other.”