Pre-Match Thoughts: Warne Looks Ahead To Pride Park Double Gameweek

Derby County Head Coach Paul Warne believes it is important that his side get two positive results from a double gameweek at Pride Park Stadium.

Exeter City are first up on Tuesday night before Bristol Rovers come to Derbyshire on Saturday afternoon in Sky Bet League One.

The Grecians are under new management ahead of the contest with former Scotland international Gary Caldwell taking the reins this week to replace Matt Taylor, who replaced Warne at Rotherham United earlier this month.

Speaking to RamsTV ahead of the clash, Warne spoke of the importance of getting points on the board from what will be the final two league matches on home turf at Pride Park until December.

On the squad fitness…

It’s not an injury crisis but Curtis Davies took a whack to his knee. We were hopeful that he could train on Monday but he couldn’t so he will be missing for Exeter.

Tom Barkhuizen has tweaked his hamstring a little bit so he will be missing for a short period as well.

On the positive side, David McGoldrick is back fully fit and Korey Smith got through the game against Ipswich with no problems.

It’s a shame that we lose two as we gain two but it’s not a crisis, it’s just not ideal with a small squad.

On managing the players’ hectic schedule…

The mental side is difficult. I let everyone have Saturday off and they were in Sunday, but I’m always aware that on a Sunday that I don’t want players in too long as I want them to spend times with their families.

I try and give the lads late start times sometimes so they can take their kids to school but fundamentally we are here to win games and the balance is always difficult. You’ve got to treat them as a human and an athlete. When there are a lot of games in quick succession, the lines get a bit murky.

On the number of penalties being conceded of late…

I’m not concerned by it but I’m not dancing about it either.

We always say that a goal or a penalty comes from three mistakes so you always highlight the last moment but we had chances to win the ball back before then, so that’s my frustration.

I think sometimes that we’re the big club in the match and the officials want to prove that they aren’t swayed by the big club. I’m not saying it’s deliberate, it’s more subconscious but my frustration is that two of the penalties I’ve seen - there’s been a massive time delay from the incident happening and the flag going up. If you see a penalty, why don’t you flag straightaway? I don’t get it.

It feels like a couple of them, to me and only to me, is a reaction from the noise and the players more-so than what they’ve seen.

On Exeter City’s new manager Gary Caldwell…

I do know him. He’s really good friends with Mike Pollitt who was my goalkeeper coach for a while at Rotherham United - they played at Wigan Athletic together for a bit.

He had real success at Wigan and then he went to Chesterfield. He got Wigan out of League One and then he went north of the border.

He joins a club that are in a good place. They’ve got promoted, they are scoring goals for fun. They’ve scored 24 of which 20 have come from the front three so it’s a trio that have been excellent.

They are continuing the good form from last year in the same way that when you get relegated, sometimes you see teams go down and go down again. At the moment they are above us in the league so we cannot underestimate them.

On the importance of the two home games coming up…

You always want to win your home games and anything you can get on your travels is great. I didn’t think in possession we were as good as we could be against Ipswich. I always back us in any game home or away but obviously when you’ve got 28,000 people there’s an expectancy and a want for us to do well at home.

You have to perform at home. You can’t always guarantee results but you have to play in a way that excites people, so hopefully we can do that and if we could get back-to-back wins then it takes us on our travels full of confidence and hope.

But we could draw them both and those two points could be the two points that are crucial at the end of the season.

From my point of view, there’s always a pressure to win at home. I don’t want my players to ever play with pressure but there is the feeling that after these two games we’re leaving Derby due to the amount of away trips in November.

To win these two games is important but not imperative.