There is still a sense that despite all of the progress which has been made under Paul Warne, we are truly yet to see a squad that Derby County’s head coach can truly call his own.
January’s transfer window will present him with another chance to make any changes he sees fit, but that is often a stop-gap to the major work that takes place in the summer.
But this Derby squad and how it evolves will be fascinating and it will be already occupying the minds of his recruitment team and the Sporting Intelligence unit. Succession planning is imperative in football and it does take several windows before a manager is blessed with the squad that reflects their personality from back to front.
But the burning question is what next for a team that is starting to resemble the relentless and energetic pressing machine he has long craved? The midfield department was Warne’s major focus in the summer having subjected it to a major overhaul by packing it with tenacity, creativity and physicality.
But what is a good indication as to what is next on the agenda is often provided by turning our heads to the players approaching the end of their contracts. With James Collins and Conor Washington in the last year of their deals and Jerry Yates on loan until May, the array of strikers at his disposal looks like it will be ripe for remodelling.
A temporary fix could well be on the cards in January particularly after Derby failed to land a forward on deadline day and Warne identified what he is missing in a mobile target man. But having been at the club for two years, and having celebrated his anniversary last Sunday, just how many windows will it take for Warne’s vision to be complete? And it was proven by his answer that he has already given it thought.
“Another couple, ideally,” he told Derbyshire Live. “We inherited a really good squad when we came in. But this is always the case when any manager comes in the same way you could say that at Liverpool someone’s inherited Jurgen Klopp’s team. I’m not saying it’s not a very good team, but there are probably different nuances he (Arne Slot) would want within it and that is similar to me and our coaching staff.
“There’s a certain player that we like and at the moment, I think our front line is sort of how I like it to be. I do like a target man as well, obviously, because you need different ways to play, but he does have to be a mobile targetman, obviously. But I do think another window or two and in fairness, I think if we would have stayed in League One that window in the summer, we might have been able to manoeuvre it to look like, in our opinion, a League One side.
But then when you go up, it feels like you’ve got to do even more work if that makes sense, so I still think it would be two windows away. But then you work to your budgets, your limits and all that.”
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