Derby County Head Coach Paul Warne says the squad are in fine spirits ahead of Saturday's Sky Bet League One trip to Barnsley (3pm kick-off).
The Rams bounced back from their two games without a win with a 2-0 victory over Charlton Athletic last Saturday and are looking to make it a third win of the season over the Tykes.
Derby won the reverse fixture 2-1 in the third league game of the 2022/23 campaign, before knocking Barnsley out of the Emirates FA Cup at the Third Round stage with a 3-0 victory at Pride Park Stadium in January.
Warne previewed the weekend trip to Yorkshire when he sat down with RamsTV on Thursday afternoon.
On The Team Spirit...
The players always train really well. We trained them reasonably hard on Tuesday and they had their day off on Wednesday, so today was like the first day back at school. We have to let them have a laugh and a joke sometimes and they were in good form today.
On James Chester And Max Bird...
Both are doing different rehabs right now. Birdy is a couple of weeks away and Chezzy is even less than that.
We've got a lot of games in a very short period of time coming up. I've made mistakes in recent weeks of maybe not freshening up enough or too much, so it's a balancing act and it's going to take everyone - including those two.
On Derby Using Fewer Players Than Other Teams...
Every fan wants you to have 40 players with unbelievable quality, but it is about quality over quantity.
Realistically, if you don't use a lot of players then it's usually because you're doing well. There's no point changing for changing's sake and in fairness to the senior professionals here, who are outstanding players and humans, they look after themselves really well so we've been fortunate that we haven't been blighted with too many injuries.
I prefer to keep a smaller squad because it's an easier group to motivate, an easier group to get together - a small group but a competent group.
On Set-Pieces...
The delivery is OK. The timing of runs isn't great and the aggression I always think can be improved on.
There are games this year where we could have turned one point into three with one really good set-piece so it is something we work on. Matt Hamshaw and I have been looking at how we attacked them last time against Barnsley, how they defend them and what we need to tweak. We'll be having a longer than usual session on Friday on them.
The run, the fake, the timing - everything has to be perfect for them to work and at the moment we tend to be around 75% perfect and that's not enough to score a goal at this level.
On Eiran Cashin...
The fact that he's played 49 games in a year is incredibly impressive - even more so that he played in the Championship last year.
This year it's been different football. He's had different questions asked of him by a different type of striker, so that's very impressive.
When I first came in on day one I knew that he was popular but I still thought he may have been a way away because for a centre-half he isn't very big, is he? I wasn't sure he could be a centre-half for me but since that day I regret thinking it because he's a powerful player. The way he wraps the ball into midfield on the deck and sees the pass - that isn't easy and he does it with ease. In that respect he's excellent.
He could still score more goals and one day if he plays in the top league then for that he has to score more goals and be a bigger threat at set-pieces. He's trying though, hence why he was buzzing after the goal against Charlton. He takes feedback really well and he wants to get better and, as a kid, he's so level-headed.
On This Weekend's Trip To Barnsley...
It's as big as every other game. Michael and Martin have done a great job there and they've collected more points per game than we have so I appreciate what a difficult opposition they are. They've won five out of their last six and I think they'd won five out of five when we played them in the FA Cup.
They are in really good form, as are we, they've got really good players, as have we, and they are very well coached, as are we. There's really not a lot to pick between us.
We've just got to try and win every game and that's what we'll do.
