Paul Warne is looking for an instant reaction to Derby County’s first league defeat in almost four months when they host Lincoln City on Tuesday night.
The Rams went down 3-2 at Wycombe Wanderers on Saturday to come away from a Sky Bet League One fixture pointless for the first time since the 1-0 reverse at Ipswich Town in mid-October.
A run of four of their next five matches coming on home turf at Pride Park Stadium starts on Tuesday night against the Imps (7:45pm kick-off), and Warne knows his side are in for a tricky test.
Lincoln, who have won their last two matches against Accrington Stanley and Bristol Rovers, have proved to be a tough nut to crack this term with just seven losses from 28 league outings and were 2-0 winners over Derby back in September, prior to Warne’s appointment.
Warne sat down with RamsTV on Monday afternoon to give a considered verdict on the loss at Adams Park, to discuss potential changes to the side and explain why he has confidence in the Rams no matter who they come up against.
His considered thoughts on the loss at Wycombe…
I thought in the first half we limited them to just the two chances; one of them was a deflected effort up in the air which fell to Sam Vokes and he scored. Should we have done better? Yes. We had chances to score ourselves and should have made the most of those moments. In the second half, I thought we were pretty good and got ourselves back level. I can’t really criticise the lads for their goal from a corner; it was just well-worked from Wycombe. They went and got the third, where we should have retained the ball better, and although we got one back it just wasn’t enough. There were some really good parts of our play and I’ve shown the lads those today. We are a group that strives to drive performance and while there’s always room for improvement, I thought we played well. We never gave up and kept going. We lost the game, but I was pleased with how we performed and I know people would expect me to sit here and criticise things – although I think in individual moments we could have been that little bit better. We’ve been on a great run of form and that performance on Saturday would have been good enough to beat a lot of teams, but Wycombe are one of the best sides at home in the league for a reason. We still expected to win, but we didn’t, and we’ll try to bounce back tomorrow against Lincoln.
On taking emotion out of the results when speaking to the players…
I told the lads afterwards to sulk for 30 minutes or so and then move on. I wanted them to travel back, enjoy their Sunday and go again today. We try not to give feedback emotionally; I don’t think it’s right. I have watched the game back, objectively and without bias, and then spoken with the lads today. We’ve watched some of the great stuff and the areas where we need to improve and help the lads. We always ask for their feedback too. I can detract the performance from the result, although we know we get judged on results. I don’t think we deserved to win it, but I don’t think we should have lost it either.
On having food for thought to make changes to the team…
Every game offers food for thought. We want to get back to winning ways. I have a couple of ways I could go with the team; I could change the wide players and even play with a sitting midfielder and not two ‘nines’. There are different ways to play and with two games this week I could change it for either or both of them. I’ll have to see. One of my jobs is to motivate the group and not just the eleven that start because everyone will get minutes in the next few weeks. You want to keep those on the periphery motivated and those in the team happy if they’re performing well.
On wanting to maintain the side’s impressive home form…
We just want to follow the same processes; nothing changes because we’ve lost one game. The processes have been successful in recent months and we will keep our messaging consistent. We always try to keep the lads informed on the opposition and it’s always down to the eleven that step onto the pitch. I can’t assure the fans we will be great every time we play; that’s something I cannot do. All I do know is that the lads will give their everything and when we need to make changes, we will. I fancy us against any team in this league, home or away. We’ve been good at home, but what’s gone before doesn’t count for anything when we step onto the pitch against Lincoln. They’ve won two on the spin, want to play and I am sure they’ll enjoy playing on our pitch. We’ll have to be at our very best.
