I wrote last week that the Forest game was the first of two big home games and rightly so this is labelled as the second, even possibly a bigger game than that a week ago.
To say we came through that first test successfully is something of an understatement. We were magnificent, particularly during a wonderful first half, and were more than worthy 3-1 winners against a Forest side who I feared might be edging right up to us.
Three days before that game they led against a ten man Leicester team and it looked as though they were positioning themselves to go above us. Today we sit eight points ahead of them but the team closest to us now is Derby who beat Bournemouth seven days ago to ensure they remain two points adrift.
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| Danny Ings over the moon with how Sam Vokes partnership is going |
Yes, two points as the team with the second best home record, and the second best defensive record prepare to play host to the team with the second best away record and the best goalscoring record.
We're just ten goals behind Derby but there is no doubt we have goals in us, particularly from our front two of Danny Ings and Sam Vokes.
Vokes it is who is amongst the goals more just now. Having gone eight games without a goal up to and including the home New Year's Day win against Huddersfield, he's since gone on and scored eight goals in nine games.
His partner Ings said of him: "Sam has been fantastic this year. I've said it in numerous interviews that he's a top striker and he's doing very well. It might look that there is competition between us, but it's certainly not the case.
"I thought the brace he got at the weekend was well deserved and I thought it was one of my strongest games personally. Off the ball I worked quite hard for the team and hopefully I showed everyone the other side of my game."
Ings added: "I'm over the moon with how things are going, but obviously there is a long way to go. Every game is really big in this league and at the weekend there is probably none bigger.
"We can get a little bit of breathing space between us and them and I'm sure if we come out like we did against Forest we'll have a chance. We're taking each game as it comes, working hard as a team and that is why we are doing so well."
Ings hasn't scored in any of the last three games, his last goals came in the 3-1 home win against Millwall three weeks ago. Incredibly that's the first time this season he's gone so long between goals and maybe, despite his claim of there being no competition, today could be the day he starts stretching that lead over Vokes again.
For the first half of the season we concerned ourselves with the fact that we had no other striker at the club. Ryan Noble, who was here on a half season contract, was occasionally on the bench but when Ings missed the Watford game it left us having to play Scott Arfield behind Vokes.
In January we rectified that situation with the signing of Ashley Barnes from Brighton. He'd been the number one target in August but, having failed to get him then we continued our pursuit of him and he arrived just in time to take his place on the bench for the game at Yeovil on 11th January.
Three strikers - a luxury! But the truth is we've seen little of the new man because of the form of Ings and Vokes. He's remained on the bench and has been restricted, so far, to substitute appearances.
I'm sure we'd all love Ings and Vokes to continue scoring the goals all the way to the end of the season with Barnes remaining on the bench but, with fourteen games to go, I'm sure he'll have his part to play in claret and blue sometime between now and the final whistle of the season.
Barnes will, almost certainly, be on the bench today. Not only that, with no injuries reported I can't see there being any change from the team that won last week. It's the team that has started the last six games and the team that has started 15 times this season since it first came together for the home game against Blackburn in mid-September.
We should line up: Tom Heaton, Kieran Trippier, Michael Duff, Jason Shackell, Ben Mee, Scott Arfield, Dean Marney, David Jones, Michael Kightly, Danny Ings, Sam Vokes. Subs from: Alex Cisak, Kevin Long, Danny Lafferty, David Edgar, Ross Wallace, Junior Stanislas, Keith Treacy, Ashley Barnes.
Derby's season took a dramatic turn at the end of September when they became the first Championship club this season to decide on a change of manager.
Nigel Clough was the division's longest serving manager; he'd been at Derby since January 2009. They were 14th in the table at the time, had won three times away but had no home wins to boast of.
Even so it was a massive surprise to see him go and they moved very swiftly to bring in Steve McClaren, a former Derby player who had also been assistant to Jim Smith during a successful period at Pride Park in the 1990s.
It was announced that he would have no more than a watching brief for their home game against Ipswich before taking charge the following day. Against Ipswich they found themselves 2-0 down after nine minutes and 3-1 down after 14 minutes.
It was 4-1 at half time and McClaren went into the dressing room, changed things and they got a draw out of the game.
Since then they have recorded more league points than all but one other club. Under McClaren's management they have secured 48 points from 22 games. In the same period Leicester have picked up one point more but to show how well they've done, the third best are us with just 40 points.
That run of form and results has seen them climb steadily up the table and they now sit in third place with 61 points from 32 games, and that's just two less than us.
Their 60 league goals this season have been scored by 14 different players; we've had nine goalscorers.
Chris Martin leads the way for them with 15, followed closely by the 12 scored by Craig Bryson. Jamie Ward, twice sent off against us in successive appearances, has seven while both Johnny Russell and Patrick Bamford, who joined on loan from Chelsea in January, both have five.
There are certainly goals in the team yet their last three games have all been won 1-0. John Eustace scored a first half goal to defeat QPR at Pride Park. They then won at Sheffield Wednesday with a late Patrick Bamford goal and an even later goal from Chris Martin brought last Saturday's home win against Bournemouth.
Leicester have 32 away points. Derby have the next best record with 31 points on the road and ours is the third best, we have 27 points.
Derby's points on the road have come from nine wins, four draws and three defeats. They beat Brighton, Yeovil and Millwall during the time Clough was in charge and have since won at Watford, Bournemouth, Wigan, Charlton, Barnsley and Sheffield Wednesday.
Like us they've lost three away games. Under Clough they were beaten at Forest and McClaren has seen two away defeats at QPR and more recently at Leicester.
McClaren has a stronger hand today in terms of team selection with both Bryson, who missed the Bournemouth win with a knock, and Ward, hamstring, ready to play again and both Connor Sammon and Simon Dawkins will be hoping to start.
They've also added former Wolves and Celtic left-back Lee Naylor to the squad this week. He was without a club and had earlier this season played for Accrington. He's not expected to feature.
One thing for certain is there will be a former Claret in their starting line up. They will come face to face with Jason Shackell and David Jones, both ex-players but will be giving Lee Grant his first Turf Moor appearance since he opted to return to Derby last summer.
Their team for the Bournemouth win was: Lee Grant, Andre Wisdom, Richard Keogh, Jake Buxton, Craig Forsyth, John Eustace (Connor Sammon ht), Will Hughes, Jeff Hendrick, Johnny Russell, Chris Martin, Patrick Bamford (Simon Dawkins ht). Subs not used: Adam Legzdins, Mark O'Brien, James Bailey, George Thorne, Zak Whitbread.
Last Time They Were Here
Boxing Day 2012 saw Derby's last visit to Turf Moor with the game played in front of a very disappointing crowd of under 14,000. We went into the game on the back of four draws and a defeat in the last five games but returned to winning ways with a 2-0 victory against the Rams.
The previous two home games, against Blackburn and Watford, had both ended in 1-1 draws. Against Derby, while deserving the win, we didn't play as well as we'd done in either of those two previous fixtures.
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| A rare Michael Duff goal |
Derby did what Clough's Derby always did; they came with little adventure, content to stifle the game and had only one effort on goal of any note all afternoon.
Dyche made one change from the team that had played so well at Birmingham in the previous game. Ben Mee and Danny Lafferty had both been ruled out of that game with Joseph Mills having a difficult game at left-back; fit again Lafferty was immediately recalled for this game.
Clough parked his bus and it took us until five minutes before half time to get past it and go in front. I wrote at the time that in games like this you need a flash of inspiration or a massive slice of good fortune and we got the latter.
A Kieran Trippier cross was headed out and straight back to him. His second ball in was poor but it deflected off a defender straight into the path of Charlie Austin whose shot was going nowhere until another deflection, off John Brayford, took it into the net. Incredibly, this was yet another own goal credited to Charlie.
With just over quarter of an hour to go they forced Lee Grant into his first save of the afternoon. Was this going to be the start of their comeback? No was the answer, almost immediately it was 2-0 and a rare Michael Duff goal in his 249th league appearance, so rare he hasn't scored since.
Duff headed a Ross Wallace corner towards goal. It was going in but Gareth Roberts helped it on its way and the Clarets were 2-0 winners and up to 13th in the league.
The teams were;
Burnley: Lee Grant, Kieran Trippier, Michael Duff, Jason Shackell, Danny Lafferty, Dean Marney, Chris McCann, Ross Wallace, Danny Ings (Brian Stock 72), Martin Paterson (Keith Treacy 62), Charlie Austin (Sam Vokes 68). Subs not used: Brian Jensen, David Edgar, Joseph Mills, Marvin Bartley.
Derby: Adam Legzdins, John Brayford, Richard Keogh, Mark O'Brien (James O'Connor 83), Gareth Roberts, Paul Coutts, Jeff Hendrick, Will Hughes, Craig Bryson (Nathan Tyson 65), Michael Jacobs, Connor Sammon (Theo Robinson 72). Subs not used: Frank Fielding, Conor Doyle, Kieron Freeman, Ben Davies.
Previous Games against Derby
| Last 20 Years | |||||
| Season | Comp | Ven | Res | Att | Scorers |
| 1994/95 | Division 1 | a | 0-4 | 13,922 | |
| h | 3-1 | 11,534 | Davis, Eyres, Shaw | ||
| 1999/2000 | FA Cup | a | 1-0 | 16,030 | Cooke |
| 2002/03 | Division 1 | a | 2-1 | 22,343 | Blake(pen), Barton(og) |
| h | 2-0 | 15,063 | I Moore, Taylor | ||
| 2003/04 | Division 1 | a | 0-2 | 21,960 | |
| h | 1-0 | 16,189 | Branch | ||
| 2004/05 | Championship | h | 0-2 | 13,703 | |
| a | 1-1 | 23,701 | Valois | ||
| 2005/06 | Championship | h | 2-2 | 12,243 | Akinbiyi, Noel-Williams |
| FA Cup | a | 1-2 | 12,713 | G O'Connor | |
| Championship | a | 0-3 | 23,292 | ||
| 2006/07 | Championship | h | 0-0 | 12,825 | |
| a | 0-1 | 23,122 | |||
| 2008/09 | Championship | h | 3-0 | 11,552 | McDonald, Paterson(2) |
| a | 1-1 | 33,010 | McCann | ||
| 2010/11 | Championship | h | 2-1 | 13,790 | Mears, Cork |
| a | 4-2 | 25,187 | Eagles(2), Elliott, McCann | ||
| 2011/12 | Championship | a | 2-1 | 23,913 | Austin(2) |
| h | 0-0 | 14,302 | |||
| 2012/13 | Championship | a | 2-1 | 21,347 | Austin(2) |
| h | 2-0 | 13,779 | Austin, Duff | ||
| 2013/14 | Championship | a | 3-0 | 23,514 | Ings, Vokes, Shackell |
Click HERE to see all previous results against Derby