Cambridge United head coach Mark Bonner expecting Derby County players to be looking to impress new manager Paul Warne
Head coach Mark Bonner has warned his Cambridge United players that Derby County will be ‘right at it from the start’ when the two sides clash at the Abbey Stadium on Saturday.
The match will mark a first in charge of the Rams for Paul Warne, who last week left his role as boss of Championship outfit Rotherham United to take up the challenge of getting Derby out of Sky Bet League One at the first attempt.
Bonner confirmed this morning that he had held a conversation with Rotherham with regards to potentially replacing Warne in the AESSEAL New York Stadium hotseat, but he has since opted to remain in Cambridgeshire.
The focus now is very much on this weekend's assignment and having been unable to mastermind a victory over Warne's Rotherham on three occasions in all competitions last term, Bonner is expecting another stern test despite it being very early days into his opposite number's tenure.
Bonner said: “They’ve got so many top players that they’ve signed, but they’ve got the bounce of the new manager this week in Paul Warne so that makes it doubly difficult potentially.
“They’ll come wanting to get off to a good start in his reign and we know how tough his teams can be.
“Let’s hope we can go one better than last year. We played excellently three times (against Rotherham) and didn’t get a result – hopefully we can be on the right side of the result this time.
“It will be a tough afternoon for us but the boys are in good shape going into the game.
“Liam Rosenior (caretaker boss) had them playing in one way, (but) we know that Paul Warne’s Rotherham team played in a different way to that.
“I don’t think we’ll see either of those teams this weekend, we’ll probably see something in the middle.
“They’ve been in a week (and) it will take time for him and his staff to get their way of thinking (across) but I know the energy he has and the enthusiasm he has and the reaction that will get from the players. They’ll be right at it from the start.”
The U's go into the encounter on the back of picking up their first league victory away from home this term – a 2-1 win at Morecambe.
That made it five victories from 10 outings this term and Bonner has revealed that the mood is positive within the camp.
“We had a couple of days off after the Morecambe game,” he added. “It feels like we haven’t played at home for ages, but I think it’s because we played so many at home in the first month of the season.
“We’ve had three away games and it was a long trip up and back from Morecambe. Everyone was tired to be fair, it was a tough couple of days and Monday seemed to come around very, very quickly so it was good to not be in on Monday.
“The players trained brilliantly on Tuesday, I thought they were excellent. (They had) a really good mentality, a really good work ethic but also a nice confidence and bounce around the place that you get after good results.
“It was an important result for us. It puts us five wins out of 10, which is pretty impressive for us. I’ve said this before, top half for us, anytime we’re in that is a pretty good thing. We want to fight to try to stay there, but I think we know how difficult Derby County will be in any season.”
