3/1 To Win
Liam Rosenior believes the current international break is a chance for Derby County to reflect on the opening month of the 2019/20 campaign in detail.
The Specialist First Team Coach, who joined Phillip Cocu's staff in July, admits it has been a mixed start to the season for the Rams but says everyone is focused on looking at the bigger picture and striving to find consistency for the months ahead.
A 2-1 victory over Huddersfield Town at the John Smith's Stadium got the campaign up and running, but since then Derby have drawn three and lost two in the Sky Bet Championship to pick up six points from their opening six matches.
Dominant performances against Swansea City, Stoke City West Bromwich Albion saw the Rams have to settle for a point on each occasion, with the only league defeats so far coming at home to Bristol City and away to Brentford.
However, Rosenior insists that the team must take the positives from the opening month of the campaign and continue implementing the plan that the coaching staff have in place to turn more performances into positive results going forward.
"My assessment of the season so far is it could have been a lot better in terms of points total," Rosenior said in The Derby County Show.
"There have been missed opportunities, losing at home to Bristol City when we dominated pretty much every aspect of the game, but we made mistakes and we were punished for that.
"At the same time there are positives. I can see the process and the way of working, you see a lot of debuts for our young players coming through from the Academy."
He added: “What I will always say is how well you start or how badly you start in the Championship, there are still 40 games to go, that is two more than the whole of the Premier League seasons.
“That is what the Championship is. It is all about when you have bad times, not getting too low and when you have really good times not getting too high and making sure you are consistent. If we do that, we will be where we want to be towards the end of the season.
“The most important thing is what happens now until the end of the season. I can remember Norwich City a year ago, I think this time last year they were 17th and people were talking about the manager leaving and he had been there for a year already. Now, they are in the Premier League.
“Sheffield United are another. I think they lost three or four games from their first six last season and they ended up getting promoted.
“You want to win as many games as possible, but you have to have a process and a plan behind that and that is something that us as a coaching staff are really building towards.”
Rosenior says the Rams are utilising the first international break of the season to not only ramp up the work on the training pitches, but also delve deeper into the analysis of the season so far.
The Rams will get Championship action back underway when they face Cardiff City under the floodlights at Pride Park Stadium next Friday evening before what promises to be a tasty meeting with Leeds United at Elland Road the following weekend.
“For me the international break is great because it gives us all time to sit down and analyse the block of games rather than going from game to game and really focusing on the next team,” he explained.
“We can look at the last six league games and look for trends, look for things we have been doing well and things we need to improve on.
“It builds into two great games. Cardiff City at home and Leeds United away are two unbelievable games for us to go and play. I am really excited, and the players should be a well.”
