3/1 To Win
Head Coach Paul Warne says Derby County have shown resilience and fight in recent games that will stand them in good stead ahead of a competitive Sky Bet Championship tie with Stoke City on Saturday (12:30pm kick-off).
The Rams head down the A50 to play against the Potters at the Bet365 Stadium in an early kick-off.
Warne’s side have a near-perfect home record in the league, losing only one of their six games at Pride Park Stadium this term but will be hoping to ramp up their away record on Saturday after picking up their first two points of the season on the road in draws against Millwall and Oxford United last week.
Stoke City come into their ninth game since Head Coach Narcís Pelach took over the team. He will be looking to pick up his second competitive win, after three draws and one win (a 6-1 reverse over Portsmouth) have seen the Staffordshire outfit pick up six points under the tutelage of the Spaniard.
Warne caught up with RamsTV ahead of Saturday’s Championship clash in the Potteries.
On training ahead of another three-game week…
On Monday, the lads who haven't played as many minutes played a game with the Under-21s, which was good. Everybody trained pretty hard on Tuesday and worked on a lot of stuff in the final third. After the day off yesterday, we have all the tactical stuff today and tomorrow. So, yeah, getting ourselves ready for a tough week, three games in a week. Wednesday then Saturday isn’t my favourite schedule, but we'll have to shake the pack up a little bit.
On Dajaune Brown taking his chance in the team and getting his first Derby goal…
I am pleased for him. It will be one of many. I can remember my first league goal and what it meant to me and my family. I can remember it really well, but I can't remember hardly any others. Daj has been scoring in the Under-21s or in training and then all of a sudden you score in a league game and in the Championship, which is some standard and you don't get many chances in the game. We had a photo with him after, which he's got on our ‘win wall’. And it's just a magic moment for him.
On taking stock of recent results after a trio of draws…
I look at it no different to how I've looked at the whole season. I'm proud of predominantly all of it, but just sometimes there are little moments in games that let us down. I don't think I can be too critical of a goal going in from 30 yards through someone's legs. They're the random things that happen in football.
But I'm proud of the way that the lads have gone behind in two of the games and got back to a draw. But disappointed still that we didn't take more, possibly, at Millwall. I'm pleased with the performances. You want to accrue points and that's what it's all about. But as you can see in the league table, at this point in the season you can win two on the spin and be in the top six and you can lose two on the spin and be in the bottom six. The margin of error is so small and if you over-scrutinise it, you just go insane. We live off the last game and we look forward to the next game and that's how we live.
On Stoke City and their new manager Narcís Pelach joining the squad…
It's surreal when you first join a club. You're just talking to different players; you just need them to understand how you want them to play. And as time goes by, you get more and more of your points across.
So, the more transfer windows you can have, the more of an identity with the club and with the players and they understand how you want to play and the standards and everything. And it does take time. There's always that initial bit of honeymoon where everyone tries ridiculously hard, which sounds awful because you always try really hard. But the ones on the periphery think I've got a chance now and the standards of training go up because everyone's trying to impress. And then slowly but surely, it just fades away a little bit. And then the real, true values of the coaching staff come good. I do not doubt that Stoke will have a great season.
