'Derby County star will be vital at Stoke City and the Rams decision I don't regret'

It's Stoke versus Derby County this weekend, two clubs I know extremely well and, interestingly, a game I am covering for Sky Sports. I've been doing quite a lot of analysis on both teams, and I think the obvious thing at the moment is that Derby's away form has picked up with a couple of draws.

I'm sure that'll boost confidence, but of course, the challenge is to win some of those games away from home. Stoke haven't been fantastic at home, either. They probably surprised most people at the start of the season, as they had a young coach in Steven Schumacher, who had finished the previous season quite well.

Okay, they didn't finish where they wanted to be, but it didn't look like he'd started this season horrendously because, after three or four games, it's very difficult to judge. Suddenly, we're then talking about Stoke going down a different route again. I'm sure that sort of inconsistency gives Derby an opportunity, but again, it's the Championship. It's always difficult to go away from home. If Derby had a full-strength side, I'd actually really fancy them for this game.

But missing the likes of David Ozoh still leaves them a little bit short in a key area. It will be really competitive, but I think Derby have a good chance of going there and getting a result. Stoke will probably say the same thing. They will be hoping that this is the sort of result that kickstarts a run of games and a tilt at the very least the top half of the Championship, but it just doesn't feel like they can get going.

Tactically, Derby play with true out-and-out wingers, and that's a big strength of Paul Warne's sides. You have the likes of Nathaniel Mendez-Laing and Kayden Jackson, while Marcus Harness can also play those positions. Sometimes, that can make you less reliant on the midfield and its numbers. As I said, with the Ozoh injury, Stoke are the sort of team that plays with many bodies centrally, and Narcis Pelach likes to try to play through the middle of the pitch.

I don't think they've done that yet. They've not been particularly high on progressive passing or particularly high on bypassing defenders in terms of their style. But that's what Narcis wants to do. That midfield area will be key because Stoke will have a lot of bodies in there, but Derby have dealt with that pretty well so far this season. They have gone to the likes of Oxford with three midfielders in there. They've gone to leaders Sunderland with lots of midfielders in there and actually coped for large parts of the game. Derby certainly have the tools to do it.

There will be a lot of talk about style, particularly Stoke's, and I just feel that if you're trying to find a way to win lots of football games and play effectively, then I don't think you can have an idealistic style. You must have a style that suits the players you've got available within the squad, particularly in Stoke's case when the new manager is going in three months before the window opens again.

You want to impact your style straight away, but also it has to be achievable. I can only assume that by Stoke making that change, they felt, or they feel, that their squad is more than capable enough of playing, perhaps, a slightly more progressive way like many teams in the division are trying to do.

Time will tell whether that is achievable or not. I'm sure their fans won't really want me reminding them, but the difficulty they've had is that they've had periods where they play in a certain way, with a certain style and a certain manager. If that doesn't work, they'll change and pivot slightly. They've gone from Michael O'Neill to Alex Neil to Steven Schumacher to Narcis Pelach. This is probably the biggest change they've had and will maybe take a bit more time than some others.

But ultimately, as a head coach, you have to win football games to justify your style and coaching. Stoke will be mindful of the threat that Derby pose from set-pieces, and they conceded a very poor set-piece goal against Southampton the other night. That's clearly an area that they'll need to improve on against Derby. It was actually just quite a simple corner, and Taylor Harwood-Bellis, who played at Stoke, was free in the box for a reasonably simple header.

When you start the season, and Paul Warne's been in this division enough times, you want to be able to create goals in every single way. That's always the aim. You want to be able to play through teams, play round teams, go over the top, in transition, and through patient build-up. But the reality is that building a squad that is trying to compete with some of these top teams in the division with parachute payments and other clubs that have spent a lot of money sometimes requires you to shape a team that is a little bit more tilted towards one direction.

At the moment, Paul has done a very good job of building an ultra-competitive, aggressive, athletic team that is good in transition. That's been the big strength this year, and set-pieces are a big part of that. You will always try to find that advantage, and clearly, the coaching staff does a lot of work on the set plays, amongst many other things. Why wouldn't you want to take advantage of that?

You look at the top end of the Premier League, and a team like Arsenal is really innovative in terms of how it uses set pieces. They're competing with Man City, which is why so many clubs are employing set-piece coaches. It is a big factor in the game, and I don't know the stats for this season, but over the years, up to 40 to 45 percent of all goals in the Championship were set pieces.

When it comes down to it, it doesn't make sense to spend just 10 minutes on a Friday working on that and neglect it for the rest of the week. It's a huge weapon, and in the Arsenal v Liverpool game last week, two goals came from deadball situations.

For whatever reason, you mention set-pieces, and there seems to be a stigma attached. As soon as you say, we're good at defending, we're good at counterattacking and we're really good at set pieces, people think you're a pragmatic manager who doesn't value the attacking side of the game. That is absolute nonsense. Listen, if you've got the top budget in the division and you can buy the best players, then you might still look at set pieces, but you might focus more on being a technical team because you probably don't have that size and power.

In terms of the key players this weekend, if you look at Stoke's perspective, you have the likes of Tom Cannon, who is one of those players, particularly when they are at home, that you would imagine they've got to try and press the game a little bit more. Keeping Tom Cannon away from those key scoring zones will be key for Derby. He's the type of player that, of course, you give him one chance, he's that type of striker who will finish.

Conversely, while many players will be important for Derby, I think Marcus Harness is growing in importance to that side. But Eiran Cashin will be vital in dealing with Cannon. At 22 years old, he is starting to build performances and is keeping Nat Phillips out of the team. I've been really impressed with him this season. His reading of the game and work on the ball are very good, which is why I think Brighton have previously looked at him. He's been impressive this year, and I'm looking forward to seeing that battle with Cannon.

I remember being at Derby, and we had Jamie Hanson, who had played in midfield as a kid. You're thinking, is he going to be big enough to play at the back? But sometimes, having the ability to play both positions increases understanding and positional awareness.

I know Eiran was a central midfielder in his youth but when you do play at centre half, then you perhaps don't need the height quite so much because you read the game so well. Also, every club wants that modern-day centre-half who can handle the ball and come out of defence. Cashin is obviously very adept at those sorts of left-to-right diagonals with great accuracy, too. Hopefully, he will take Derby to the Premier League.

Why I left Derby for Stoke

Obviously, I know Stoke and Derby, having managed both clubs, and I have spoken about why I left Pride Park for Bet365. But in life, you must decide where your job currently stands and your position. At Derby, we just missed out on the playoffs. I wanted to try to build on that desperately. I knew that we needed to reduce the side's age, increase its athleticism, and probably reduce the budget. I was fine with all of those things. I had some interesting conversations that didn't perhaps feel as though there was a like-minded plan moving forward.

It was as simple as that: I had to make a decision. I could stay with a plan that I perhaps didn't believe in which would have been very easy for me because I lived locally or I could leave. But I felt as though I had to make that decision, and I went with ambition. I worked long and hard to be at the top of the table, and Stoke offered me that opportunity.

The fact that it didn't work out doesn't change that decision, but I learned a lot from not doing the job that I was brought in to do. I've said that publicly at Stoke. It's always easy to hate on people, but if I had more time, Stoke would have got into the playoffs. I didn't get more time and I needed to win games to get there. I didn't and I've got no one else to blame but myself.

It is what it is. But it wasn't an easy decision, and I've had a lot of conversations with Derby fans because I see them all the time. Most of the time, when you speak to people, they can understand because they're in the same situation at their own jobs. I can categorically state that if there had been a strong plan to, at the very least, get in the top six again, I would have stayed. I had been brought into Derby to try to win a promotion, and in my first full season, we got into the playoffs and lost in the semi-final.

I know Derby had done that previously, but I probably had the least money to spend out of any manager in that era. I wanted to build again, and if you look at where I've been, I've always had sort of two, three, or four years predominantly, and I've built and improved teams. It was not a decision based on money and I don't regret making that decision.

It would be easy to say that because it didn't work out for me at Stoke and hindsight is the greatest gift. But when I look back at my time at Stoke, we got to a point, I think, after about 21/22 games where we were three points off the top six. I liken it to turning around an oil tanker for different reasons I won't go into.

I felt like we'd done that, but there was frustration in that we were working so hard, yet it felt so tough. I'll be honest with you, I let that frustration bubble over. I probably let that frustration bubble over in how I spoke after games. If I had sat back and understood what the club and the fans had been through after relegation from the Premier League, then maybe I'd have shaped it better and created a little more togetherness.

But it was the perfect storm with Stoke. They had come down with the fewest goals scored and the most goals against. They had an old-ageing squad, a lot of players, and a lot of different cultures in the squad, and there were a number of issues. But my job was to get them into the top two, and when they sacked me, I wasn't in the top two. It's my own fault. I think it's quite public that the fans had some players they really liked.

I said some stupid things that, in hindsight, I shouldn't have said. But again, when you're passionate and you want to win, when someone sticks a microphone in your face, minutes after you've just lost the game, it's hard to keep emotions in check.

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