Derby County’s Tom Barkhuizen says the side simply ‘must react’ to their Sky Bet League One loss against Port Vale last weekend when they visit Accrington Stanley on Saturday (3pm kick-off).
The Rams were beaten 2-1 in Head Coach Paul Warne’s first home match in charge, despite taking the lead inside five minutes at Pride Park Stadium through James Collins.
But on an afternoon that turned sour, Derby’s goalscorer received his marching orders for violent and he’ll now miss their upcoming three league matches - starting with the trip to the Wham Stadium.
The Rams were victorious the last time they hit the road, running out 2-0 winners at Cambridge United in Warne’s first game in the hotseat and picking up their first away win of the season in the process.
They’ll look to build on that and put the disappointment of the defeat to the Valiants behind them in Lancashire, where they kick off a relentless run of fixtures.
Derby are tasked with a run of nine matches in 28 days so their reaction will be key, as Barkhuizen explained when he spoke to RamsTV on Thursday afternoon.
On reacting to the defeat against Port Vale…
We have to pick ourselves up. It’s not a case of how we do it, we have to pick ourselves up. We’ve trained really well this week and we have a good group of players. We need to be more streetwise because there are a lot of experienced teams in this league and it’s not going to be easy - I said that when I signed and it hasn’t been at all. We’ve had some good and some bad results, but it’s the manner of them that you look at. The Lincoln City defeat last month was an eye-opener and conceding straight away after the red card against Port Vale suggests we need to be a bit calmer and more composed to get ourselves together. We know we have the quality in the group to win games so it’s just the other side of it that probably needs touching up on.
On preparing for the busy run ahead…
Winning makes you feel less tired all the time. If you lose on a Saturday, people always say they can’t wait for the chance to put it right but when you lose it makes you feel every ache and bit of fatigue more. If you can win games consistently and get on a run, playing Saturday-Tuesday will be a breeze. If you’re losing back-to-back matches, that period of games suddenly looks a lot more demanding. Winning is key to everything in football; confidence and how you feel about yourself physically. It sounds simple but, as we’ve seen, it’s not.
On Paul Warne…
He’s a big bundle of energy, which everyone has seen, and he seems like a really good guy. There was always good energy here, but he’s brought a new voice and so have the other staff that have come in and I’ve been impressed. Every time I faced his teams in the Championship, they probably had the smallest budget in the division and had to adapt to that. He’s come here to one of the bigger teams in the league and it is probably a case of adapting just as much as we are. He’s got his basic principles that he sticks with and we need to adapt to them quickly because we need to start picking up the pace and getting more consistent with our all-round game. Hopefully the results will follow.
On changes the Head Coach has made…
We’re not playing out from the back as much, but you go back to perceptions. Mine was that Rotherham were a long ball team that put balls in the box and were horrible to play against, but he doesn’t want us to be booming it forward. That’s maybe where we need to adapt a little bit better because we’ve gone from playing a specific way of football to being told to go a bit more front-to-back, but that doesn’t mean we have to smack the ball as far as we can whenever we have it. That’s where we need to touch up a bit because the Port Vale game became a bit of a basketball match and all about second balls. We were going long at every opportunity and he doesn’t want that. Hopefully over the next few weeks we can adapt to that and get results on the board.
On coping with managerial changes…
It depends on who comes in, but I’ve always worked well with managers that you can have open and honest conversations with. I’ve previously said that Alex Neil was my favourite to date because you could always go and talk to each other and speak honestly. This manager is similar to that; he’s not going to hide away from questions about why you’re not playing or why you’ve been brought off. If he doesn’t like you as a player, he’ll tell you. I prefer that; it’s just the way I go about my life. I prefer someone that doesn’t beat around the bush or says one thing to your face and another thing elsewhere to other people. Liam Rosenior was the same - he’d tell you exactly what he thought and told me I was coming out when he left me out of the side. That works well for me as a person and hopefully that can be taken onto the pitch.
On the test at Accrington…
You know what you’re going to get when you turn up at the Wham Stadium. Their fans will be right at it, as has been the case at every away ground this season. They’re going to be a tough team to play against. The manager has been there a long time - he is the same one I remember playing against years ago - and he has his ways of playing. We know they’re going to be aggressive, so we need to stand up and be strong enough to get through that. We know the quality that we’ve got and if we get it right, we’ll win the game.
