Derby County’s players are into their final week of pre-season training ahead of the 2017/18 season.
Gary Rowett’s squad reported back for duty at the end of June to begin their preparations for the upcoming campaign.
Reviewing the last month’s work, Bradley Johnson feels that Derby are in a good place in the lead-up to the big kick-off at Sunderland on Friday 4th August.
The midfielder, who joined the Rams just under two years ago from Norwich City, feels the Rams are edging towards finding the match sharpness required for competitive action.
With two more games this week to gain match minutes, and impress the Derby boss, a great deal of importance hangs over the matches against Northampton on Tuesday and then German top flight side Hoffenheim on Saturday.
Johnson told RamsTV: “Pre-season has been good.
“There’s been a lot of running and a lot of hard work but that’s what you expect with pre-season.
“Everyone came back fit and ready to go.
“We had a hard week of training in Tenerife and since we came back from that it’s been good to get into the swing of things with games.
“We had two 45-minute run-outs and then obviously stepped it up with 90 minutes on Tuesday then Kaiserslautern on Saturday.
“At this stage of pre-season, it’s about getting the minutes in and also being match sharp.
“We would like to win all the games but we know what the main priority is.”
Not only has pre-season been a time to get match-ready from a fitness perspective, but also from a playing style point of view.
Johnson says a considerable period of time on the training ground has been spent on how Rowett wants the Rams to play this season.
He said: “The games are coming thick and fast. That’s what everyone wants; we want to play games.
“You can do as much running as you want on the training pitch but there’s nothing like match fitness.
“As well as that, the manager has new ideas which we are trying to put into practice in the games.
“We work a lot on the training pitch about how we want to play, shut down teams and press them.”
