Johnson Wants More Of The Same
The competition is different, as are the opposition for The Glovers, but the weekend’s FA Cup game with Southampton should’ve acted as a dress rehearsal for the upcoming SkyBet Championship games.
Derby County are faced tomorrow with their rivals Nottingham Forest to come at the weekend and Gary Johnson has told The Western Morning News that the approach that was taken to the FA Cup defeat to Barclays Premier League side Southampton should be the same for these games, against sides that’ll want to join them at that level.
‘We know that the Derby and Nottingham Forest games are going to be difficult, the same as this one but if you’re in the game you’ve got to take your chances and make sure they don’t any at the other end, keeping them down to as few as possible.
‘We’re going to have the same atmospheres at Derby and Nottingham Forest so this was a dress rehearsal.
‘These three games are going to be very similar. They are all very good football teams, possession teams and they also all close down well.
‘They all play with the extra man in midfield and they’ve all got quality. This week will tell us a lot about our squad but we`ve got to learn from each one as they go. The first half performance from our boys against Southampton was spot on.’
It could be argued that both Derby and Forest are as big, if not bigger than Southampton in fact, so I can fully understand the comparison that Johnson makes so if we approach them in the same way, and perform like we did against Southampton, it’s not impossible that we can’t get some points.
Nothing from the two games wouldn’t be good enough for the manager with his minimum aim being two points from the two games but if we could start with a win against Derby tomorrow that puts us ahead of his target with four points being a brilliant return that he’d be delighted with.
If we can get two points from these games I’d be more than happy, and if we do approach them and treat them the same way as we did against Southampton we could manage that.
