Derby County Head Coach Paul Warne says his side will have to be 'firing on all cylinders' to get a result when they come up against Bristol City on Saturday (3pm kick-off).
The Rams came out on top in an empathetic 3-0 win over the Robins at Pride Park Stadium in August.
Derby will be hoping to repeat the feat as they enter the game at Ashton Gate off the back offa 4-2 defeat against Sheffield Wednesday on New Year’s Day.
Warne spoke to RamsTV ahead of Saturday’s Sky Bet Championship clash against the Robins.
On how the squad is shaping up ahead of Bristol City...
Ben Osborn’s back, so that’s a boost. It looks positive with Ryan Nyambe, Eiran Cashin and David Ozoh too. I think, after the Leyton Orient game, I should have all three of them back on the grass. Especially with Ryan and David, it will feel like new signings, so that’s good.
On the challenges coming through the busy festive fixtures...
This is the lifestyle we choose, so I don’t want to sound too downbeat on it; but it is tough. We play the game - win, draw or lose - and watch it back that night. Then, the next day, you do a debrief. After that, you have to quickly forget the last fixture to reload the players with the next game’s information.You’re also trying to get the lads to recover and flush out and all that thing. On top of that, ou’ve also got your own life with family, so it is a very hectic time.
It’s a good time, it’s an exciting time for everyone and the family especially, but it is an exhausting period. I’m looking forward to giving the lads a couple of days after this last game at Bristol City.
We just need a really big push away from home - and then we can build for the FA Cup tie at Leyton Orient. It’ll just be nice to have a little bit more normality, because sometimes you forget what day it is over this period! That’s how I think everyone’s felt.
On reflections after Wednesday’s defeat to Sheffield Wednesday...
I still feel that we had enough chances in the match. We should have been leading going into half-time, but I was disappointed with certain aspects of our game, and a little bit of it was a little bit of a lack of energy to a certain extent. There was a lot of things I was pleased with.
On facing Bristol City and former Rams Jason Knight and Max Bird...
They play virtually every week. I understand why Bristol City wanted to sign them, because they’re a good age and both physically very good and very good footballers. I think Hayden Roberts may play as well, so it’d be nice to catch up with all of them afterwards.
When we played them at home back in August, for those who went, people will remember the scoreline and we were 3-0 winners. However, for the first 20 minutes, we couldn’t get a kick. They kept causing us a lot of problems. We’ve shown the lads a lot of their matches, because they’ve changed their shape a little since. We’ve also shown them a little bit of when we played against them and the problems they cause. We’ll go there and have to perform at a high level. I’m well aware of how hard the opposition is, and it’s got familiar faces in, so they obviously know a bit more about us than most teams.
On Bristol City having a point to prove after the reverse fixture in August...
I always regard going into a match against a team that you’ve previously lost against as having something to prove. There will be differences from earlier in the season, they’ve even changed shape since then, but there are similarities. Form and energy, and everything else, comes in to play a massive part too.
