Gary Rowett was impressed with the impact that Johnny Russell made after he returned to the Derby County starting line-up at Cardiff City.
Russell, 27, had not started in a league game in a month before the goalless draw at the Cardiff City Stadium last weekend.
He had also not been involved in the matchday squad for Derby’s previous two fixtures, against Birmingham City and Brentford.
However, he came in from the cold against the Sky Bet Championship leaders and impressed as the Rams returned home with a point.
Rowett felt Russell would be ‘hugely motivated’ to impress and that proved to be the case as the Scotsman responded with a lively display.
The Derby boss said: “I had a good chat with Johnny on Friday and I felt it was good timing to come back in and show us what he could do.
“I felt he would be hugely motivated after not being in the squad for the last couple of games – and I think he was.
“He took a knock to his back and hip area towards the end of the first half and it did stiffen up, which was the only reason I took him off.”
Rowett made some tactical tweaks in attack for the game against Neil Warnock’s side.
Deploying two strikers in attack, opposed from playing one central striker, the 43-year-old wanted them to play wide and Russell was given the license to drift inside and cause problems.
The former Dundee United man did that well on a number of occasions as the Rams asked questions of the hosts.
He said: “Tactically I thought that if we played up against Cardiff and played down the middle, they would like that with two big centre-backs and Sol Bamba in front of them.
“We wanted to play a bit wider in between the full-backs and the central defenders and, on a tactical basis, I thought we got it spot on.
“It allowed Johnny to come inside and be the one to get inbetween the strikers. It gave him some chances to run forward and we did that well.”
Another player who made an impact at Cardiff having been out of the starting line-up in recent weeks was Chris Martin.
The Scotland international has largely been restricted to substitute appearances this term, as well as starting both of Derby’s Carabao Cup matches against Grimsby Town and Barnsley.
Martin came off the bench at half-time and provided a real focal point in attack after being tasked of holding up the ball and providing some tidy link-up play.
He said: “It was tactical to get Chris on at half-time at Cardiff as when we got it up to our strikers, especially if they had become isolated with how the game was going, we needed to keep hold of the ball.
“I felt we couldn’t hold the ball well enough to get out. Sam Winnall didn’t do anything wrong and I am sure he was disappointed to come off, but we felt it was a change that we needed to make.
“Chris came on and gave us that bit of tidy link play. It then allowed us to get into those final third positions with that little bit more quality.”
