Derby County Head Coach Paul Warne is expecting a 'tough game' when Bristol Rovers come to Pride Park Stadium on Saturday afternoon (3pm kick-off).
The Rams return to Sky Bet League One action on Saturday following the November international break and face a Rovers team unbeaten in their last six under Caretaker Manager Andy Mangan.
Speaking to RamsTV ahead of the weekend, Warne gave his thoughts ahead of the restart.
On how the squad are looking following the International Break...
The lads have trained well this week and the whole week has just been about winning on Saturday and we'll worry about Tuesday's game at Port Vale on Saturday at 5pm.
Conor Washington has injured his ankle. He's got it x-rayed. He hasn't broken anything but we're waiting on ligament damage because he's on crutches, so that's not good.
Tyrese Fornah has come back fine, Ryan Nyambe has come back fine and Darren Robinson has come back fine. We haven't seen them on the grass yet though so we'll see how they are when they train with our group later today.
On Tyreece John-Jules and Liam Thompson...
JJ has trained with the group this week but it's still a very slow process with him. He's training with the squad again today so we'll see how he is after that, but we're being extra cautious.
Tommo is going to be on the grass today. However, he keeps getting fluid in his quad which is problematic and it's taken a lot longer to recover from than we hoped. Unfortunately for him, he probably should be back by now but if he starts on the grass today and everything is perfect then he's still probably three weeks away from training with the squad properly. He's doing everything he can physically but we may or not see him until before Christmas.
On the upcoming hectic schedule...
I would think everyone would want a little more routine. After this next two weeks it becomes a little more stable and especially over Christmas, we'll probably moan a lot less about breaks in schedules!
You're in football for the games and you want them to come thick and fast. It's just about trying to win the next one and we're doing everything we can.
We know Bristol Rovers will be a tough game. We'll put our best eleven out to start a game but we also have to have an eye on what they can do to us.
On Bristol Rovers having a Caretaker Manager...
You don't have the hassles of player contracts and stuff like that. It's just the here and now, so you can just focus on the team and winning games. The team have been performing well under Andy Mangan and in fairness they are only two wins behind us. It's weird, it's a different role. He's done a lot better than I did in the role when I was at Rotherham.
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On whether the Crewe FA Cup loss is out of the system yet...
There's no point sulking over it, it's gone. We had the lads in and showed them things, but you just have to let it go at some stage. You just have to look forward to the next match, try to win that and then try and do the same with the next one. We're disappointed to exit the FA Cup but it's gone now and we just have to move on.
