Darren Wassall has challenged Derby County’s Under-23s to take the next step towards qualification for the last-16 of the Premier League Cup with victory over Nottingham Forest at the City Ground.
The Rams are currently top of Group A – three points ahead of both Birmingham City and Forest and boasting a slightly superior goal difference.
Derby were beaten by an experienced Forest side at Pride Park Stadium back in November, and Wassall wants his side to follow up their seven-goal performance against the Blues last time out in the competition.
He told RamsTV: “There is always a little bit more spice, earlier in the season they brought a very strong side to Pride Park, which shows how important it was for them.
“We understand that Monday is going to be exactly the same, they will want to put one over their local rivals and we want to do the same.
“It will be a very tough encounter but we’re looking forward to it because we’re doing well in this competition.
“We need to take the previous performance in this competition against Birmingham where, in the second half particularly, we ran riot and we were at our very best as a counter-attacking side.
“We’ll go into the game full of confidence thanks to our outings in the league and the last one in this competition, and we’re looking forward to the game.”
It’s another break from the league schedule for the Under-23s, but despite being without a win since November in Premier League 2 – Division 1, Wassall says that performances have consistently been up to the desired standard.
He explained: “Over the last five league games, with the exception of Sunderland, the players have performed very well and we’re delighted with how they’ve approached the games with their mentality and attitude.
“After the game against Manchester United on Sunday, we said to them that the draw was deserved, and it was actually payback for the performance the previous week against Liverpool.
“We lost that game 1-0, unjustly in our opinion because we didn’t deserve to.
“You have to deal with the times when your performances don’t reflect your results, but if you keep playing like that, then normally football does reward you.”
