Paul Warne is looking forward to seeing Derby County return to the cut and thrust of competitive action in the Sky Bet Championship following the first international break of the 2024/25 season.

Derby went into the two-week break in impressive fashion at the end of August with a 3-0 victory over Bristol City at Pride Park Stadium.

The win was the Rams’ second from four outings back in the second tier this term, after also seeing off Middlesbrough 1-0 earlier in the month on home turf.

With five matches to play ahead of the October international break, with three of them in front of the home faithful, Derby’s Head Coach is relishing getting back into the groove once again.

First up is the visit of Cardiff City on Saturday (3pm kick-off) and Warne sat down with RamsTV on Thursday morning to discuss a variety of topics ahead of the clash with the Bluebirds.

On the international players reporting back after their matches around the world…

Everyone has come back from their international games fine apart from Tawanda Chirewa. He has concussion, so he will probably miss the next two games. Nathaniel Mendez-Laing, Jacob Zetterstrom and Ebou Adams have all come back with no issues.

When the lads are away you do miss them, and the chemistry is different. Nat is a big personality in the group, so you miss that and you’re also training without a game at the end of the week. The place feels different, that is for sure.

On the international breaks being useful…

They are useful from a football club perspective. We’ve got most players back now from injury and it is also an opportunity to reset and review the first few games of the season. You can look at what you didn’t get right and what can be improved.

For us as coaches, it is nice to get some work into the lads without worrying about fatigue. It was also good to get away and have a break; it is a long season and once you get into the winter with three games a week it is important to make sure you have plenty of energy.

It can be an exhausting time, so it is important to recharge when you can and a rest is good. As everyone knows, I can talk. So, on that basis, it was probably nice to give everyone’s ears a rest and get ready for the next set of matches.