Derby County Head Coach Paul Warne believes Forest Green Rovers will bring an air of confidence with them when they visit Pride Park Stadium on Saturday afternoon (3pm kick-off).
This weekend will mark the first time the two clubs have faced off in league competition and the first time Warne has come up against them as a Head Coach.
Speaking to RamsTV prior to the Sky Bet League One clash, Warne spoke about the threat they will pose, the unbeaten run and some all important Christmas talk.
On what Christmas looks like in the Warne household…
It’s about the kids but my kids are 19 and 16 now so Santa doesn’t bring them as much!
We’ll get up and me, my son and dog will go for a Christmas morning run and I’ll try and do a video message or something for the players and staff because everyone has got to send something in - so I’ll probably do that with a hat on or something.
The kids will open their presents after that. I take ages opening my presents, I’m still opening on the 27th December and because I know it irritates my family, I enjoy it even more.
I love turkey dinners, I love mince pies, I love Christmas pudding and I love Christmas cake so we’ll have all that at lunchtime and then in the late afternoon we’ll head into the village with my friends and then normally I’ll walk home around 8pm as I have a game to plan for and leave the wife and kids behind enemy lines and go home and see the dog.
On how football has changed his Christmas…
Since the age of 15 I was playing senior football and playing non-league until 23 so I was always playing on Boxing Day and so never had a drink over Christmas. It’s always been football.
I think for 34 years or whatever I’ve never not had a Boxing Day game so it’s a bit surreal for me. I’m not a massive drinker so I don’t massively miss out on that.
On making sure the work/life balance is right over Christmas…
I don’t know if we ever get it fully right but I try and give as much as I can. I can’t give more where I think we’re on the edge of underperforming. As a group of staff we have to try and get the team in a position of high-performance as best we can.
I want everyone out of the building by 1pm on Christmas Eve to get home and enjoy Christmas with their family.
They aren’t massive things but there aren’t massive things we can do, the schedule is what it is. I try and give the lads days off when I can because fundamentally if they are happy in their lives then they are happy at work and I think they perform better. That’s for all the staff and everybody that works here.
On how the squad is looking for this weekend…
I’m really pleased.
It’s been a weird week because the pitches have been frozen, so we’ve been on the astroturf and undersoil heating pitches.
The week has been a little different but the lads have trained pretty well. I’m pleased but I’m not ecstatic and I’ve said that to the lads. We haven’t lost many but we haven’t won enough and we want to win games. If we can keep trying to make incremental changes and try and make little improvements, they add up.
We know now though with the bench we can make tactical changes and changes for changes sake to freshen things up.
On whether the unbeaten run plays on the mind…
I never think like that. The last three performances have been pretty good but we could have won two of them by taking a chance and lost one and we don’t have that unbeaten run but we have more points.
Nobody cares the number of matches you’ve lost at the end of the season, it’s just about points you accumulate. Every game we go to win, whether it be Sheffield Wednesday or Plymouth Argyle, we set up to win.
I understand the way we play that sometimes we’re vulnerable on the counter-attack but that’s the way I want to play. I want to watch a team that attacks and is relentless and creates chances to score. My one criticism is in the final-third, I don’t think we’ve been as concise as we could be.
On Forest Green Rovers…
We’ve watched a lot of them and I think they’ve done really well. Any team that goes up brings a level of confidence and belief in what they do.
They are very comfortable in possession, they trust each other and they’ve been scoring goals.
You just have to take the titles away from each team, it’s just 11 men against 11 men.
If they get two or three wins on the spin they can really catapult themselves in a good position, like any team in this league. They’ve picked up good points against good teams and it’s going to be very difficult.
Teams that are dedicated to the cause and their team shape and have, togetherness which they have in abundance, are difficult to play against.
