3/1 To Win
Paul Warne challenged his Derby County side to show their ‘character’ and return to winning ways when they face Sheffield Wednesday at Pride Park Stadium on Sunday (3pm kick-off).
The Rams will be looking to get points on the board after a 1-1 away draw against Preston North End last Saturday and a narrow 2-1 defeat to Swansea City on Wednesday night - just their second defeat on home turf this season.
They face Sheffield Wednesday for the first time since a 1-0 defeat at Hillsborough saw Derby miss out on a place in the play-offs on the final day of the 2022/23 campaign.
Warne caught up with RamsTV ahead of training on Friday to discuss Sunday’s clash against the Owls.
On taking the positives from Wednesday night’s defeat against Swansea…
I take encouragement from a lot and I am also hard on ourselves about a lot. I'm pleased with the lads’ character to, collectively, come back after a poor start. The little things that I liked are how many times we had touches in the opposition's box, how many times you have attempts on goal from the opposition's box, and how many times you concede chances in your box.
We conceded maybe two attempts inside our penalty area, which they scored from, and we probably had four or five real chances ourselves. I'm just frustrated that we wasted a portion of the start of the game, which ended up being crucial to the final result.
On the last time meeting between the two sides back in 2022/23…
It was pretty brutal, really. I'm a big believer in positive thinking. I've always been really upbeat on my mindset and I honestly believed during the season that we would go up. I honestly thought if we got into the play-offs, with the personalities that we had, we would thrive in that environment.
We were on the edge of something amazing but then the game panned out the way it did. That's how football is and that's why everyone turns up because you just don't know what you're going to get. That result stung big time, but then it ignites a fire under you. It made us do everything we possibly could to improve the team and make them a force in League One to achieve promotion last year, which we did!
On Danny Röhl’s management of Sheffield Wednesday…
I've been really impressed, as everybody has and as their fans have. I've watched Sheffield Wednesday play live four times this year. They sing the manager's name win, lose or draw and they're a knowledgeable fan base. They're really impressed with him. So, that's probably the best way I can talk about how well he's done.
They've made a couple of really good signings, and they’ve strengthened. They're more athletic than they were previously, which causes problems in every league, but even more so in this one. They've played really well this year. We are well aware of a lot of their threats and the strength of their squad and the enormity of the game for us. We will need to be at our best to get a result.
