Frank Lampard wants his Derby County players to continue to show belief from within as they hunt down a spot in the Sky Bet Championship’s top six.
Derby, unbeaten in their last five matches with two wins and three draws, head to Blackburn Rovers in their latest league fixture this evening (7:45pm kick-off).
The Rams go into the clash at Ewood Park in seventh spot, two points off the play-off places, following a thrilling 3-3 draw at Brentford on Saturday.
By contrast, Blackburn have won one of their last 11 games and occupy 16th place in the table.
Lampard, however, is expecting nothing less than a tough test against Tony Mowbray’s men.
If they’ve to return home with a vital three points to their name, he says it’s important to show a similar mindset the one on display in recent matches.
He told RamsTV: “Brentford gave us a really tough game at the weekend and I expect the same from Blackburn.
“I know people will talk about Blackburn winning once in so many games, but you can’t rely on form in this league.
“We can only rely on ourselves. I thought we played well at Brentford on Saturday, we should have won, and we will need to go to Blackburn with a similar mindset.
“When I say that, I mean we must know that they are dangerous and have players that can hurt you - but also have belief in ourselves.”
He added: “I know it’s easy to look elsewhere and at what other teams are doing but we need to focus on us.
“We have seven games left, in a short space of time, and they bring different types of challenges to get the points that we need to make the play-offs.
“Make no bones about it, we know that we need to win a big portion of those seven games.”
At a key stage of the season, Lampard is happy with the spirit within the group.
He has stressed on several occasions that everyone in the squad will have a role to play during the run-in.
The Derby boss has also been impressed with the way those not in the starting line-up are contributing in driving on their team-mates.
He said: “There’s a nice feeling around the squad at the minute.
“The players are training well and there’s a good spirit in the camp.
“The players are pushing each other on, as they do, and I think we have some players in good individual form.
“We need to make it count in this serious part of the season at what’s coming up.”
