Derby County Assistant Head Coach Richie Barker says the team want to continue their current six-match unbeaten run when they travel to Sky Bet League Two leaders Notts County in EFL Trophy action on Tuesday evening (7pm kick-off).
A win will guarantee the Rams progress into the knockout stages of the competition but away from that, Barker believes there's 'plenty riding on it.'
He spoke to RamsTV ahead of the short trip to Nottingham to preview the clash.
On the approach to the game...
We will be doing the same process in terms of the analysis, the training and the preparation. Obviously we're without a couple of players through international call-ups but it's a game we want to win.
We're unbeaten in this little section between the international breaks so we want to continue that and hopefully a win will put us through to the next stage. Winning is a habit and ensuring we continue on this run is important to us.
On the international break...
It's something we've known about for a while now so we've prepared in how we want to go about in terms of training and the structure of the week. We don't have to go into the match tomorrow having one eye on Saturday, hopefully we can just go and try and win the tie and then reassess it in three or four days time and get ready for the trip to Shrewsbury Town the following week.
On getting minutes into players' legs...
With this little break coming up, it gives us an opportunity to go away probably having every player having 90 minutes in the last 10 days, which isn't a bad place to be.
We've got three or four coming back to training after the break so when we're signing off in a couple of days time we don't have to worry about having players that haven't played. We know when we come back that everyone has 90 minutes in and we're ready to go.
On Notts County...
They've done ever so well off the back of promotion last year but it's also a bit of a local derby and not far for the fans to travel. We want to keep our good away record going and it's a competition that, once you start getting beyond the group stages, people start to take a bit more seriously. It's a good way for us to sign off in this little section between the breaks.
On seeing David McGoldrick again...
He's very popular for what he did last year. He's a real good character, a real football person and it will be nice to see him. He left in the middle of the summer when nobody was about so we didn't get a chance to say a proper goodbye so it will be good to see him again.
On putting a marker down...
We talk to the players all the time about putting runs together. That's what realistically makes a successful season and this is part of that. It gets really good minutes into people, it will hopefully get us into the next round but it also continues the run we're on at the moment and continuing that run to try and get it into double figures. There's plenty riding on it because there's minutes, opportunities to get into the next round and, as we know from two years ago at Rotherham, an opportunity to win a trophy at Wembley.
