Gary Rowett has confirmed that he is looking to field a separate team in each half for Derby County’s opening two pre-season friendlies this week.
Derby will kick off their games programme in the lead-up to the 2017/18 Sky Bet Championship campaign against non-league opposition in the coming days.
They will head to National League - North side Kidderminster Harriers on Tuesday (11th July, 7:45pm), before travelling to last year’s beaten FA Trophy finalists Macclesfield Town, who play in the National League, on Saturday (15th July, 3pm).
After just under two weeks of pre-season work under the their belts, aided by a week-long training camp in Tenerife last week, the opening friendlies will be mostly focused on getting minutes into the legs of the Rams’ players.
Rowett admits the main focus this week is getting the players used to match situations ones again, in addition to seeing some of the work undertaken in training coming to the fore.
He told RamsTV: “The games will be 45 minutes each so we’ll take two teams to the first two matches (at Kidderminster and Macclesfield).
“That will be, really, just about getting back on the pitch.
“Of course, there’s the fitness side too and we will also looking at one or two things; nothing over the top.”
Following this week’s games, Derby’s squad will play two matches on the same night next Tuesday (18th July).
One squad will head to League 1 side Doncaster Rovers, while another will make the journey to Port Vale.
Rowett says those matches will provide the perfect opportunity for his players to get more match time.
The 43-year-old has already earmarked the trip to German second-tier side Kaiserslautern on 22nd July (4pm kick-off local time) as the point where there will be a real shift in focus towards the season-opener at Sunderland on Friday 4th August.
He said: “When we do the two games on the same night, that’ll give people the chance to get the same time into their legs and we can also have the same preparation all week.
“I think once we get to the Kaiserslautern game that will be when we begin to really look forward to the first game of the season.”
