Paul Warne: Derby County have learned to live with League One pressure, says boss
- Published
Derby County are just three points outside the automatic promotion spots
Derby boss Paul Warne says his players have learned to live with the pressure of expectation on them in League One.
Derby are in their second successive season in the third division - a level they had not played at for 36 years before last term.
A five-game winning run in the league has moved them up to sixth place.
"The problem for big clubs like Derby, Sheffield Wednesday, Ipswich and Sunderland in the past, is a League One defeat feels unacceptable," Warne said.
"That is the pressure we have to play with every week and the lads have to play to.
"And in recent weeks they have lived up to that pressure, but they have to get used to it because it will just get larger and larger as we get closer to the end of the season."
Derby's winning league run - which has coincided with their progress to the last 16 of the EFL Trophy - has them within three points of second-placed Bolton Wanderers, who are the only side that the Rams do not have a game in hand on in the top six.
Defeats away at Shrewsbury and Stevenage in the space of a week in October saw his side receive what Warne called "dog's abuse" at the time, but he went on to say the Rams were "way short" of where they needed to be as they sat ninth in the table after 14 games.
Going into Saturday's match against mid-table Wycombe, Warne spoke about the "massive storm of doom" that can sometimes follow sides with high aspirations.
"The days of doom, I don't feel like are so much here - the training ground is fine, as are the staff and players - but obviously wins are pleasurable and it just gives fans more belief in the group," Warne told BBC Sport.
"But there is always the next game, so the next day of doom could be if we lose.
"There will be dark days ahead, no football manager in the world wouldn't say there isn't, it's just the way you bounce back and the way you try to keep consistent with your messaging - so you get a level of performance each week that gives you a chance to win."
Warne's first season with Derby, having taken the helm in September 2022, was the first time that Warne had managed in League One and failed to get a team promoted - having got Rotherham up from the division on three previous occasions.
Only once in those successful promotion campaigns were Rotherham in a better position than Derby are now, having been top of the league on the way to automatic promotion in the 2021-22 season.
"You can sort of see shoots of positivity within the group," said Warne when asked about the comparison of his Derby side to those successful Millers promotions of the past.
"I can see certain things within the group that are reminiscent of promotion pushes. In all our seasons that we got promoted, we had a run.
"I've said it all along that to get promoted you have to go on good runs and at the moment the lads are on a good run."