3/1 To Win
Manager Frank Lampard believes hard work and resilience will get Derby County back on track in the Sky Bet Championship following a disappointing run of results in recent weeks.
The Rams have lost their last three league fixtures but sit only three points off the play-off positions as the business end of the season closes in.
Lampard’s side were beaten 4-0 by Aston Villa at the weekend but now the manager is challenging his players to bounce back tomorrow night against Paul Cook’s Wigan Athletic on home turf.
“We need a reaction now,” Lampard told RamsTV. “If we work hard and believe in ourselves in what we have got here then we will turn that corner.”
Attempting to put his finger on the club’s recent form, the boss said: “There are a lot of reasons. We have played an awful lot of games and we have now got a lot of injuries in the squad.
“It wasn’t something that I pinpointed earlier on so much but we have the long-term injuries who are important to us in Curtis Davies, Craig Forsyth and Marcus Olsson. Now we have a midfield that has been stripped out in terms of personnel.
“They are reasons, there is no doubt about that, but we have to find ways around it. We have worked hard to play well in big parts of the season and sometimes you get asked a lot of questions and we’re being asked those now.
“We didn’t answer it in the right way on Saturday, so we have to find a way and it’s up to myself and the players.
“This is the first real question we have been asked so it’s up to the players now to show against Wigan that we have pride and determination in us. A hard-fought win against a difficult Wigan team can change it, of course it can.”
Tomorrow’s game kicks off a run of four consecutive home fixtures for the Rams.
Form at Pride Park Stadium has been good but the manager isn’t looking too far ahead.
“We have to go game-by-game,” he admitted. “We don’t have to think about the four home games in a row as a block, we need to focus on Wigan. We need to produce on the pitch and the players know that.
“We do want to look upwards and we’ve managed to stay in contention for a big part of the season so now it’s the critical time and the test.
“More than ever, we need our fans behind us. We need to use the strength of being at home to help us get results.
“Of course, the players need to give everything but in these four games, we need the home crowd to give us absolutely everything because, you can sometimes forget when you are in a rough patch, we are only three points off the play-offs. It’s all there with four home games coming.”
