Martin: “We Will Maintain Our Standards”

Chris Martin says Derby County’s squad will strive to ‘maintain their standards’ in the final five games of the 2019/20 Sky Bet Championship season.

Derby sit three points adrift of Cardiff City in the final play-off spot ahead of their last five fixtures.

Their impressive run of form during 2020 has propelled them from mid-table and into the play-off race, with the three-month break in the season owing to the COVID-19 outbreak doing little to halt their momentum.

Martin scored a dramatic late equaliser in the Rams’ 1-1 draw at home to local rivals Nottingham Forest on Saturday to extend their unbeaten league run to six matches, following five successive victories ahead of the local derby clash.

Four of Derby’s final five fixtures are against sides in the top six, including all of the top three, and it’s a run Martin insists the squad are relishing.

First up is a trip to automatic promotion hopefuls West Bromwich Albion on Wednesday (5pm kick-off).

“We feel confident and we are on an extremely good run of form,” Martin told RamsTV.

“We have momentum which is massive in this league at a key stage of the season. We have a tough run in; I’m sure people have been talking about it but I don’t read much about it.

“As players, we are not thinking too much about that, we are just concentrating on our own game and try to play that.

“We will maintain our standards in training every day and I think that has been a massive key to the turnaround in results since the season restarted.

“If we continue to do that then we will give ourselves a tremendous chance moving forward.”

Martin, who is 31, has scored 11 times from 33 appearances in all competitions during the campaign.