Never before have Derby County been this close to returning to the Championship via promotion. With two games remaining, the Rams need just four points to secure the championship, three points ahead of Bolton Wanderers in third place.
Bolton manager Ian Evatt may have his sights set on the play-offs, but Paul Warne isn’t buying into that mindset because there is still a lot of work at hand.
The former Swansea and Birmingham City manager Garry Monk’s Cambridge United needs one more victory to stay in League One.
It seems that even if Derby are the better team on paper, The U’s need a win just as much as Warne’s team does, which could make for an exciting match at Cledara Abbey Stadium.
Derby County fears explained by Garry Monk
Saturday afternoon’s meeting could be intriguing as Derby is at their best on the counterattack and Monk encourages his team to play out from the back.
Monk understands that in order to upset Derby, who have the third-best away record in the division (behind only Barnsley and Portsmouth), Cambridge will need to bring it all together.
The Rams have also been incredibly reliable against clubs ranked lower than tenth in the league, winning nine of their fourteen games and keeping an amazing nine clean sheets.
Remarkably, the former Swansea defender has chosen to focus on the kind of players the visitors can field rather than pointing to those numbers as causes for concern.
Monk thinks that in order to get a result tomorrow afternoon, his team will need to exert extra effort.
“They are one of the highest quality squads in the league and they are where they are for a reason,” he stated in a statement to the Cambridge official YouTube account.
“I believe that they are really powerful, physically fit, vivacious, and have a great deal of individual quality, therefore we will need to surpass our previous high standards in the excellent games we have created.
“It’s likely that we’ll need to go above and beyond to achieve the desired outcome.”
The distinctive qualities of Derby County will be what separates them.
In the past two games, Warne has deployed a 3-5-2 formation for his team, and last Saturday, they easily defeated Leyton Orient 3-0.
Liam Thompson had free rein to float in behind James Collins and Nathaniel Mendez-Laing, who were playing side by side up top.
The Derby manager will rely on his elite players to make the difference in a match of this magnitude.
With 27 goals between them in all competitions, Mendez-Laing and Collins are capable of overwhelming any club in the division on their best day.
It makes sense that Monk is afraid of the quality of the visitors because the Rams have also scored the second-most goals in League One on their travels (36).
Hopefully, they can fulfill their promise tomorrow afternoon and guarantee Derby’s first-ever trip to the Championship.
GET MORE NEWS HERE