Chris Martin’s fine start to pre-season continued in Germany on Saturday and the striker is delighted to be building some good form up ahead of the start of the 2017/18 Sky Bet Championship season.
The 28-year-old led the line and scored as Derby County recorded a 2-0 win – with Bradley Johnson scoring the other goal – over 2. Bundesliga side Kaiserslautern at their impressive Fritz-Walter Stadium.
Gary Rowett told RamsTV prior to the match that he wanted to trial a 4-3-3 formation for a number of reasons – one of which was to see how Martin performed in the lone forward role.
A lot of the good work, particularly in the first half, came through the Scotland international as he bagged his second pre-season goal, had opportunities to add to that tally and also carved out chances for others.
And with less than two weeks before the start of the new Sky Bet Championship campaign, Martin says he is feeling in great shape.
He told RamsTV after the full-time whistle: “I think the defenders will tell you about how confident they will feel with a few more clean sheets, but it’s the same for forwards too.
“If we can get on the scoresheet and get on a run of scoring goals before the season starts then it is an extreme positive.
“It’s nice to pull the jersey on and start scoring goals again. It feels like I haven’t been away to be honest.
“The first goal came after a lovely bit of play and it’s nice just to continue that run of form. It feels good for me heading into that first game of the season.
“There are so many positives that we can take from this game, but there are some things that we have still got to work on ahead of that first game at Sunderland.”
As well as from a personal perspective, Martin felt that the team, as a whole, could take a lot of positives away from their victory over Kaiserslautern.
As well as recording another clean sheet – their fourth in six games over pre-season – five of Rowett’s starting XI got a further 90 minutes under their belt, whilst four played 73 minutes and the other two got 85 minutes under their belts.
Far from the finished article, though, Martin has pinpointed one area that Derby need to improve on ahead of their trip to Sunderland.
Although they went into the break two goals to the good, the forward feels the Rams needed to be more clinical in front of the goal.
Assessing the game, he added: “They were a good side. Over the first 10 to 15 minutes they had a lot of corners, got into some decent areas and we weathered the storm well.
“After that, we probably could have scored more than the two that we did and that was something that gaffer touched upon at half-time – we could have been slightly more ruthless and been three or four goals up.
“In the second half they grew into the game and brought on some fresh legs and in the end, it is a decent clean sheet and a good workout.
“It’s one of those games that you don’t want to look too far into.
“I have had pre-season campaigns before where we have won every game, but that doesn’t necessarily reflect on your start to the season.
“It is nice to build the confidence, though, and keep winning games for sure.”
All pictures taken from Derby County’s match at Kaiserslautern were kindly provided by John Millar.
