3/1 To Win
Striker Colin Kazim-Richards knows Derby County aren’t far off turning their form around as they face a trip to the capital to face Millwall this weekend (3pm kick off).
The 34-year-old got off the mark for the Rams on Tuesday night, netting his first goal in English football for just under eight years, as he headed home at the back post to put Derby ahead against Coventry City, a game which they would eventually end in a 1-1 draw.
And it was a positive display from the Rams, who created numerous chances but were undone in the final minutes of the game as the Sky Blues equalised through Gustavo Hamer’s volley.
Kazim-Richards, who has started Derby’s last two fixtures against Wycombe Wanderers and Coventry after joining the club as a free agent in October after playing his football in Brazil and Mexico, has seen enough to believe that the Rams’ form will turn around sooner rather than later.
“I was looking at the league table yesterday and I was looking at it like: ‘we are at the bottom, but we can definitely do this’,” he admitted, chatting to RamsTV ahead of Saturday’s game against Millwall.
“I got some encouragement from it. I looked at it and feel that we are not far off. We are not in a position where Derby should be, but in reality this is where we are.
“So looking at it, we aren’t that far off from moving out of it - but we need to do it. I’m not happy at the situation but I thought: ‘you know what, we can do this’.
“It gave me another lease of energy and be like ‘come on man, let’s go’. Roll up the socks, we are in the trenches and there are a lot of guys in the football trenches in here that I would pick to be in with. Let’s go and do it.”
It’s an honest approach from the Turkish international and with experience well and truly under his belt, he knows what it takes to turn the club’s current form around.
On and off the pitch, you can see and hear him offering words of encouragement to his teammates which can only be a positive in the long run.
“I don’t like to be like ‘yeah, I’m the leader and I’ve come here and done this’,” he explained. “I just think it’s natural and I think the guys that we have are really honest. We’ve got many leaders and it’s a shame at the moment the results haven’t shown what we have got.
“I said a few words in the huddle before the game on Tuesday but it was nothing different to what I would do when we are warming up or when we’re shooting or when we are doing possession work. It is something that doesn’t just come out from a situation. It’s all the time."
