Town boss Kieran McKenna is expecting a game of high energy, emotion and passion when the Blues take on Derby County in front of a Portman Road crowd of more than 28,000 in one of League One’s biggest games of the season live on Sky Sports on Friday evening (KO 8pm).
The Blues go into the match second in the table, four points behind Plymouth Argyle, following last week’s surprise 1-0 home defeat to Lincoln City.
Derby are currently ninth in the division, 10 points behind Town having played two fewer matches. Away from home, they have won two, including a 3-0 victory at Accrington last Saturday, drawn two and lost two in League One so far this season.
"It’s a really big fixture,” McKenna said. "Two big football clubs, two passionately and heavily-supported football clubs, two of the biggest attendances outside of the Premier League this season, and beyond some of the clubs in the Premier League, so that in itself signifies the size of both clubs.
"We can’t wait for the game. They’re a good team with lots of good players and kept the majority or most of their key players from their Championship team last year, which actually performed well in difficult circumstances.
"And they’ve added to it very well over the summer as well and have now brought in Paul [Warne], who is a vastly experienced and successful manager at this level.
"So, a big game in terms of the clubs. Of course, our focus is what goes on the pitch and it’s two good teams who are going to battle and fight to get a win, so it makes for a really good night.”
Reflecting on how he sees the match progressing, he added: "I think it’s going to be a game with a lot of energy and a lot of emotion and passion in the game and in the stands, hopefully.
"That’s something that we have to embrace and we know Paul’s teams present a big physical challenge, and there are certain things you need to be ready for and you need to stand up to. And we have to do that, and we know that.
"We also know that we have to maintain our composure and impose ourselves on the game as and when we can do so, and try and hit our levels of performance that we’re capable of.
"There are bits of the game that are going to be a battle and there are bits where the technical and tactical aspects will come in a bit more, and I think, all in all, it makes for a really exciting game.”
The Blues manager, whose team will be looking to overcome a Sky Sports hoodoo which has seen them win only one of their last 22 matches screened by the satellite broadcaster, is anticipating a very different sort of game to the Blues’ last two home matches, the 3-0 League One defeat of Cambridge and the defeat to the Imps.
"I would think so,” he reflected. "We’ve had Cambridge and Lincoln, who are both deep, low blocks and came to frustrate and slow the game down.
"You never a know, of course, they have a right to do whatever they want to do. But you can be largely confident usually that with a Paul Warne side that they’re going to come and try and be aggressive and play with a lot of energy and lot of running and a lot of endeavour and he does a really good job of getting that out of his team.
"We think it’s going to be a much more open and there’ll be a much more end-to-end elements to the game, more transitions.
"It will hopefully be an exciting game and a good game and most importantly a game from which we pick up the three points.”
Warne took over as manager at Pride Park just under a month ago and McKenna believes the former Rotherham boss is already having an impact on the Rams.
"I think he’s managed to put his stamp on it straight away and you can see that from the first game they played against Cambridge, both in terms of system and style,” he said. "It was instantly different and he’s in the process of putting his mark on that team.
"So I think he’s got very good ingredients for it. To be fair, he has lots of good players there, players who are good enough to play in different ways and I’m sure he will be working very with them to adapt to what he wants as is normal.
"We need to be ready for that, but of course, the focus is primarily on ourselves and making sure we can deliver the performance that we can.”
Town were beaten 1-0 by Warne’s Rotherham side at the New York Stadium in April. Is there anything he can take from that game which might prove useful on Friday?
"There are elements that I think will be similar,” he said. "Of course, it’s a different squad, different players and players impact games much more so than the coaches plans do.
"But I think in terms of the strategy of Derby, of course there are going to be similarities to what Paul wanted from his team at Rotherham and they’ll try and do similar things to those his Rotherham team did because they’ve been successful in this division and I’m sure he’ll believe he’s got a good way of working to get results.
"So I think there are some similarities that we can probably take but there are so many different players on the pitch that it would be wrong to look into that match too much.”
Christian Walton will return in goal with McKenna having a decision to make at the back with former Rams skipper Richard Keogh perhaps in line to start against his old club, maybe for Luke Woolfenden, with one-time Derby loanee George Edmundson on the left.
Janoi Donacien will continue in his right-sided position with Leif Davis the left wing-back and Wes Burns the right.
Skipper Sam Morsy and Lee Evans will be in central midfield with Conor Chaplin and Marcus Harness likely to be the number 10s behind lone central striker Freddie Ladapo.
Derby boss Warne, a Norwich-born Canaries supporter, says the game will be an indication of his team’s progress.
"We’re playing one of the best teams in the league,” he told his club’s official website. "When we looked at Ipswich and how they play, they are full of confidence.
"They’ve got a really strong squad and have really prepared themselves for this League One fight. They are at the top of around 10 statistics we look at.
"They actually beat us in nine of the 10, so that’s where we’ve got to get to if we want to be in their position in the league. It is a case of little steps but it will be a good indication of where we are.
"They keep the ball really well. They don’t just keep it, but for a reason and try to manipulate an opportunity.
"At times they leave virtually a front five against your five - similar to Manchester City. Their pressing per defensive action is the best in the league so as soon as they lose it they are coming after you to get it back, which is impressive.
"You can be an attacking side when you have the ball and that gets you so much but if you’re an attacking side that scores loads of goals and when you don’t have it you work really hard to get it back - you have utopia really.
"The fact that it’s virtually a sell-out at Portman Road, it will be a really good atmosphere. The lads go into it with a real belief.
"We’ll go there as always and try and take the game to them and try and win but we have to be respectful of their strengths. Especially at home, they have a plethora of strengths that we need to stop.”
Warne believes the Blues will win automatic promotion: "I think they’ll finish in the top two because of their strength in depth and the start they’ve had — so anyone that finishes above them is up.
"At the moment, we’re trying to work out where we see their weaknesses and every team has weaknesses.
"If we lose 3-0 it’s not the end of the world; we’ve got another game three days later. That’s the joy of football. If we win 3-0 it doesn’t mean we’re going to get automatically promoted and we’ve got everything sussed because we haven’t - it’s a constant evolving thing. It’s a constant learning curve.
"The more time we’ve been in the building, the more we are learning about individuals and with January coming up it makes you think about things and where you need to move things around.”
Former Blues reserves midfielder Conor Hourihane could miss out with a calf problem with the Rams set to make a late decision on his fitness, while fellow schemer Jason Knight is expected to be fine despite having been substituted during Tuesday’s 3-1 home defeat to Manchester City’s U21s in the Papa Johns Trophy.
Striker James Collins will be serving the second game of a three-match ban for a red card, while keeper Joseph Anang remains sidelined with an arm injury.
Ex-Town forward David McGoldrick and midfielder Korey Smith returned to action after injuries in midweek.
Historically, Town have had the better of Derby, winning 36 games (34 in the league), drawing 22 (20) and losing 29 (28), although they last beat the Rams at Portman Road back in March 2014 when goals from Jonny Williams and in the final minute Christophe Berra saw the Blues come from a goal down to win 1-0.
The teams last met in February 2019 in Suffolk when sub Jon Nolan’s second goal of the season saw the relegation-bound Blues to a 1-1 home draw with the Rams, former Town loanee Tom Lawrence having given the Rams an early lead.
Lawrence netted in the second minute but the Blues were the better side throughout and deserved more than Nolan’s equaliser in the 55th minute.
In the previous August, second-half goals from sub Joe Ledley and Lawrence saw Derby to a 2-0 home victory over Town, their first win against the Blues at Pride Park since November 2006.
Ledley put the Rams in front on 59 and Lawrence sealed the three points with a free-kick in the 68th minute with Town never looking likely to get back into the game.
Recently-signed Town centre-half Keogh was with the Rams between July 2012 and October 2019 and wore the captain’s armband for much of that time. In total, he made 356 starts and scored 12 times.
Edmundson spent the second half of 2020/21 on loan at Pride Park making eight starts and two sub appearances, scoring once.
Blues first-team coach Lee Grant was a keeper at Derby between 2000 and 2007 having come through their youth system, then spent another stint at Pride Park from 2013 to 2017. Overall, he made 181 starts and five sub appearances for the Rams.
Derby forward McGoldrick was with the Blues between January 2013, initially on loan from Nottingham Forest, and July 2018. In total, the former Republic of Ireland international scored 45 goals in 126 starts and 33 sub appearances.
Keeper Scott Loach, who moved to Pride Park from Chesterfield in the summer, was an academy player with Town and supported the club as a boy. He returned in the summer of 2012 and made 32 starts and one sub appearance in a two-year spell.
Defender Richard Stearman was on loan at Town in the second half of 2012/13, making 15 starts.
Midfielder Hourihane followed his former Sunderland boss Roy Keane to Portman Road in July 2010 and left the following summer for Plymouth without making a senior appearance.
Friday’s referee is Lee Swabey from Devon, who has shown 45 yellow cards and two red in 13 games so far this season.
Swabey’s last Town game was the 2-0 win at AFC Wimbledon in January in which Edmundson was yellow-carded and Kane Vincent-Young was sent off for two bookable offences in the final minute.
Before that, he was in charge of the 4-1 win at Wycombe in November last year in which he booked Toto Nsiala, Bersant Celina, for taking his shirt off while celebrating his final-seconds goal, and two home players.
He was also in control of the 0-0 draw at Shrewsbury in April in which he booked Norwood, Woolfenden and one home player.
Prior to that he was in the man in the middle for the 3-0 home defeat to Hull City in November 2020 in which he booked only Kayden Jackson.
His was also in the middle for the 1-0 victory over Lincoln at Portman Road in February 2020 in which he yellow-carded Woolfenden, Flynn Downes, Emyr Huw and two Imps.
Swabey's only other Blues game was another 1-0 win, away against the MK Dons in September 2019, in which he again booked Downes and Huws, and one home player.
Squad from: Walton, Hladky, Donacien, Woolfenden, Edmundson, Keogh, Burns, Vincent-Young, Davis, Morsy (c), Evans, Ball, Harness, Edwards, Humphreys, Chaplin, John-Jules, Ladapo, Jackson.