Curtis Davies believes Derby County have made a good start towards stabilising in the Championship and insists they are right to be patient in their pursuit of a return to the Premier League.
The former Rams centre-back who spent six seasons at Pride Park and played 175 times for the club has seen both the good and the bad times in recent years.
The 39-year-old was part of the ambitious squad that saw Frank Lampard take his team to Wembley , albeit from the sideline after a suffering an Achilles injury in December 2018. He was also part of the embattled squad that suffered the consequence of over-reaching and ultimately ended up in League One.
Owner David Clowes and manager Paul Warne have restored the Rams to the second tier – and Davies has been impressed with the way in which they have settled.
“It’s been good,” he told DerbyshireLive. “If you look at the other two [promoted sides] and look at Portsmouth, who won the league and had in a lot of people’s opinions the right style of football to translate to the Championship, they’ve struggled.
“Oxford, I think everybody maybe had them down as the relegation favourites both budget wise and with the players in the team, their Championship experience and stuff like that. But they’ve put together a decent enough squad and Des Buckingham’s done a good job.
“Derby sitting in 12th, I think it’s a really good start to the season. I think the struggle was going to be after that League One season tempering the expectancy of the Derby fans, which I think has been OK. I think they’ve been all right, I don’t think they’ve been over expectant of the team.
“They’ve done really well at home, and then away they struggled a bit. They got their first away win the other day, which will go a long way towards just giving them that confidence they could stay in the league.
“As a Derby man, this season was always about stabilising, making sure the club stays in the league, allowing David Clowes to get the fresh investment in – or a buy-out – and then the club can start to rebuild towards if they want to be that team that is going to be fighting for the Premier League again every year, which every club does want to have.
“But I think with Derby it’s a little bit different in the fact that it needs to be a bit more organic and a bit more, let’s say ‘timed’, rather than just the way [former owner] Mel Morris did it, buying all the best players in the Championship, putting them all on great money.
“That can’t happen anymore. I think it’s just about making sure they can stay safe and the next season it’s about building on from there if they’re able to get investors in.”
However, Davies is not entirely discounting an early bid for the top six and an unlikely tilt at back-to-back promotions. He continued: “At the moment, they’re six points off the play-offs and four points off relegation, so it’s a weird position to be in. I don’t think the league is that strong this year, if I’m being totally honest, compared to last year.
“I think it’s one of those that if they’re in and around it and they have a purple patch of form, there’s nothing to say that, along with about 10 other teams, they couldn’t sneak into the play-offs.
“It’s about keeping their home form up, as they’ve been doing, and trying to nick a few more away from home. I think they’ve looked a bit accepting of ‘You have it your way’ away from home too often. They haven’t really taken the game to the opposition a lot, almost tried to play on transition.
“But ultimately sometimes you need to go out there and play teams at their own game. But so far I’ve been I’ve been impressed with this start.”
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