Curtis Davies believes Derby County are more than capable of using their impressive home record to help improve their results on the road.
Derby will kick off a busy month of action in the Sky Bet Championship during December with a trip north on Saturday to take on Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park (3pm kick-off).
Last Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Queens Park Rangers at Pride Park Stadium saw Phillip Cocu’s side extend their unbeaten run on home territory to eight games.
From 24 available points during those eight fixtures, the Rams have picked up 18 points in total.
Away from home, the Rams haven’t had the points return that their performances have deserved with one win and three draws to their name from nine matches.
Davies, who has racked up over 500 career appearances over his career so far, is convinced a result on their travels will quickly change the outlook for everyone.
“It probably is a mentality thing and away from home, first and foremost, you need to be solid,” the experienced defender said.
“We conceded inside the opening six minutes in our last away game at Fulham (lost 3-0) and that wasn’t good enough.
“When you speak about the mentality, a win can change everything because that’s how football works.”
He added: “I didn’t play earlier in the season but when I came into the side against Birmingham in September we hadn’t won since the opening day.
“We beat Birmingham at home and by the following weekend we had seven points from a possible nine and we could, and probably should, have had the maximum return.
“As I said, it just takes that win and shows that you are capable of getting a result away from home and we want to address the away form on Saturday when we head to Blackburn.”
Davies, who has started Derby’s last 11 Championship fixtures, has stressed that the side can’t solely rely on their exploits a Pride Park.
He believes a result in Lancashire this weekend would be the perfect build-up to next week’s back-to-back home fixtures against Sheffield Wednesday and Millwall.
The 34-year-old said: “Sometimes it can come from a performance; for example a dogged away display where you grind it out and nick a win or one where you’re in the opponents’ faces and take them game to them.
“A result is a result and we know that’s what we need to get. If we can do that, hopefully it can give us some momentum ahead of two home matches after that.
“Winning and doing well at Pride Park is all well and good but if you want to be up near the top then you have to be able to do it consistently away from home as well. There’s no reason why we can’t do it on the road.”
