A Cracking Squad

Clough heaps praise on his Rams squad with the new season less than a month away.

Nigel Clough has labelled Derby County’s first-team squad as ‘the best for some time’.

Since taking charge of Derby in January 2009 Clough and his backroom team have worked tirelessly to assemble a squad capable to mount a top six challenge.

The Rams boss feels the class of 2013-14, with two months left of the Transfer Window, provide plenty of encouragement that Derby can build on last season’s tenth-placed finish and challenge for the top six this time around.

Lee Grant (Burnley), Chris Martin (Norwich City), Johnny Russell (Dundee United) and Craig Forsyth (Watford) are Clough’s four summer signings to date, while free agent John Eustace is training with the Club with a view to becoming signing number five.

A number of players have also been made available for transfer, but Clough believes a stronger strength in depth will be at his disposal in the coming season.

He said: “There’s a bit of work to do on the players going out but the squad, as it stands, is the best we’ve had for some time.

“That’s due to a number of reasons which brings everything together as one.

“The quality of players is certainly as good as we’ve had in five years and the spirit, along with the type of characters, really does provide an element of excitement for next season.

“We would like a little bit more quality in it at times, what manager doesn’t, but for what we’ve got available we think have a cracking squad.

“When you think we could add Shaun Barker and Mark O’Brien to it as well when they come back from injury, we’ll be very strong indeed.

“The honesty and workrate of this group always pleases us, and we’ve seen it in pre-season already.

“We feel we’ve got also got a bit of depth now which is always required in the Championship.

“A few injuries set us back last season at important times but hopefully that won’t be the case this year.

“We’re delighted with the four we’ve signed so far and we’re in a good position when it comes to bringing in one or two more, as we don’t have a huge amount of work to do with this group.”

He added: “The top six will be out aim. Whether that’s realistic or not will become clear once we get near to the start of the season, but that’s what we’re setting our targets towards.”

On Adam Legzdins, James O’Connor, Tom Naylor, James Bailey, Nathan Tyson and Theo Robinson still remaining available for transfer, Clough added: “There’s a few lads still available and it’s not that we don’t like them, it’s just that if everyone is fit we don’t see them being in the squad.

“They’ve come back with a great attitude and we don’t like to see them not playing first-team football, which is why we think it is important they get fixed up.

“There’s nothing major to report on teams being interested in them, other than a few enquiries – but we think they’ll get fixed up by the end of the window.”

Watch more from Nigel Clough on Rams Player.