3/1 To Win
Gary Rowett has given his reaction to Derby County’s 2017/18 Sky Bet Championship opener away to Sunderland.
The Rams will take on the Black Cats at the Stadium of Light on Friday 4th August 2017 (7:45pm) to kick-off the new campaign live on Sky Sports.
Sunderland were relegated from the Premier League last season and are back in English football’s second tier for the first time since the 2006/07 season.
Following David Moyes’ departure in May, the Black Cats are yet to appoint a successor and they released club statement recently stating that ongoing takeover talks meant they were ‘unable to give the assurances any potential candidate.
Rowett, therefore, admits there’s an element of unknown when it comes the type of Sunderland side they will be coming up against at this stage.
He told RamsTV: “It’s a good start and one that is interesting.
“It is a bit of a journey and at the moment, Sunderland are a tad unknown in terms of the manager and the make-up of their squad.
“That being said, it’s a good opener and hopefully we can be the first ones off to a good start but I’m sure Sunderland will be saying the same thing.
“In the Championship, you can play anyone at any time and I don’t think it makes that much difference.”
Rowett admits his eyes were immediately fixed on the first five games of the campaign, swiftly followed by the final five matches of the season.
Other than that, the 43-year-old is happy to go with the flow when it comes to the make-up of the fixture list.
He certainly isn’t a manager to put games into blocks and reviewing certain periods in the season where the games, on paper, may look more favourable.
He said: “I usually look at the first five games and the last five games and then I also look at some of the key dates that probably mean something to me as well.
“It is my wife’s birthday on Boxing Day and so Hull away didn’t go down overly well with her but that’s how I tend to view it!
“I’m not the sort of manager to put games in blocks and think about how easy or difficult they are.
“I’ve done that before and often it proves to be that you end up losing the winnable blocks so I don’t think in this division you can worry too much about who you are playing.
“As we know every opponent is a tough one in this Championship.”
