Blues boss Paul Hurst says he’s not concerned by Town’s lack of goals and currently isn’t considering switching to two strikers.
So far Hurst’s side have scored only three times in their first four Championship matches, just one of those in their last three. In addition, Kayden Jackson, the only striker to score so far this season, netted in the on-penalties Carabao Cup defeat at Exeter.
Asked whether the dearth of goals worries him, Hurst responded: "No, and the reason being Derby scored two goals with two shots, two deflected shots. Are they going to be concerned about their goals? I’d say maybe not.
"We want to score goals, of course we do. It can be misleading but we have had more attempts in the games than the opposition in the last four games [in all competitions]. I’m not sure about the Blackburn game, I think we may have been even in that.
"So that side of it is positive. The negative is converting some of those chances. We could have a million shots but if they’re all hitting the fans in the stand, it counts for nothing.
"But at the same time, in a lot of the games that I’ve watched and when you look at data from games, I’m not sure that there are as many attempts at goal as sometimes people think.
"But if one goes in the net that’s then forgotten about. We need to score a goal to win a game, of course. Hopefully we can do that at Hillsborough on Saturday.”
He says he’s happy with his system which has seen Ellis Harrison, whose only Blues goal came in the pre-season friendly against West Ham, up front on his own in all four Championship matches while Jackson filled that role at Exeter, and isn’t considering a switch to a two-man attack.
"I’m not saying it won’t be the way always and there might be at a time where we do look at that and it might seem that it suits us better,” he added.
"But at the minute I don’t think personally there’s a reason to particularly change. When’s all said and done we’ve only got two real out and out strikers at the club at the minute.
"If you start as 4-4-2, and maybe Freddie Sears would come in as an option to do that and one or two others potentially, but not just simply strikers, and I think a lot of the other play has been pretty good, in all honesty.
"But, as I say, we do need to make sure that we’re getting bodies forward in the box and when we get there we’ve got to try and work the keeper.
"That was the frustration having watched the Derby game back in the cold light of day. A lot of people said there was nothing in the game and on the night I was thinking maybe Derby, although they did have most possession, were more threatening than they actually were.
"Maybe that’s just the nature of being involved in it and hoping that they’re not going to score.
"But we were well in the game. It was some final little passes and really taking care of the ball when situations arose that resulted in us maybe not having an attempt at goal.
"That’s certainly something that can be better rather than particularly just having two strikers on the pitch or things like that.
"We all get obsessed with systems. I’ve done it before, played with two strikers up front and gone through spells when you don’t score.
"What do you do then? Three on? Four on? I think at the minute it’s too early to really start worrying about.”