PRE-MATCH INTERVIEW: Eustace previews Oxford clash

Head Coach John Eustace said his Derby County side must ‘believe in the process’ as they look forward to making the trip to Oxford United in the Sky Bet Championship on Saturday (12:30pm kick-off).

The Rams come into the weekend's match at the Kassam Stadium having picked up points in four of their last five league matches, registering three draws and a win.

After a 1-1 draw with Southampton at Pride Park Stadium a fortnight ago, the October international break saw four senior players head out on duty to represent their nations while the rest of the group remained at Moor Farm Training Ground.

RamsTV sat down with Eustace after training on Thursday to look ahead to Saturday’s action at Oxford.

On the squad over the international break…

Overall, I don't think there have been that many minutes played with the players that have gone away, which is good for us. Hopefully they'll all be ready and going to go.

We'll sit down with each individual and have a chat with them and see how they feel. If they'd have played a couple of games each, we'd probably be looking at it a little bit differently, but we'll just sit down with them all and see how they feel.

On preparations ahead of playing three matches in eight days against Oxford, Norwich and QPR…

We have just continued the good work that we've been doing up to now. It's important that we keep believing in the process. The performances in our last three or four games have certainly highlighted that. We’ve just got to keep going, because the boys are going to be in a good place. We've got three really challenging games coming up, but we're looking forward to them.

On Saturday's opponents Oxford United…

They're a very solid team. Gary Rowett has managed Derby County, and he's played here, too. He is a manager I have a lot of respect for. His teams are always very hard to play against, very well organised, so we know it's going to be a difficult game.

We want to continue all the good work that we've been doing of late. This match gives us a good opportunity to do that.