Cocu: “Don’t Think About Anything Else, Focus On The Game”

Phillip Cocu wants Derby County’s players to channel their energy into nothing else but this weekend’s home fixture against Brentford.

Derby will take on the Bees, who are in the race for automatic promotion, at Pride Park Stadium on Saturday afternoon (12:30pm kick-off).

Cocu’s side are one of several sides in the chasing pack for a place in the Sky Bet Championship’s play-off places.

Sixth place, currently occupied by Cardiff City, is up for grabs with just four matches left to play in the league campaign.

Derby’s run of five wins and a draw from six fixtures either side of the break in the season, due to the COVID-19 outbreak, was followed by a 2-0 defeat at title-challenging West Bromwich Albion on Wednesday.

Cocu has made it clear his side need to place their focus on this weekend’s clash with the Bees and not on other teams’ results or their upcoming fixtures.

Speaking to RamsTV, Cocu said: “We don’t have the luxury of thinking about other games, rivals or anything else.

“Many teams are fighting for the sixth place in the table, to get into a play-off spot, so we know what we have to do on Saturday.

“That’s the only focus and job we have. Don’t think about anything else; we just focus on the game and try to get a good result.”

Cocu added: “It’s a challenge again for us and we will try to get a good result against one of the top teams - and the next opportunity is Saturday.”

Brentford have won each of their last six league fixtures and have applied significant pressure to West Bromwich Albion and Leeds United in the automatic promotion spots.

While Derby had more of the ball and enjoyed good spells in their loss at West Brom, they lacked a cutting edge in the final third.

Cocu wants his side to carry more of an attacking threat this weekend as they look to achieve a positive result to continue their push for a play-off spot.

“Brentford are in excellent form at the moment,” Cocu said.

“They are a good team and they play very good football. They have great combination with the young talented players, skilful individuals, and the intensity in which they play.

“They play with high intensity, can press, defend well, have good organisation and they are a strong team.

“Like we could see in our game against West Bromwich Albion, always in those games the details will decide if you win or not. Hopefully, we can progress and be more of a threat in the final third.

“We had a lot of possession against West Brom, but we had a lack of power up front to hurt the opponent, that’s what our game is about.”

He added: “We play our game to get in good positions up front and it was not easy against them, so we have to improve that part of the game against Brentford.”