The Championship is a tough, tough league. 46 games does a good job of separating the men from the boys, but only just.

At the end of the year it’s rare for there to be much of a gap separating the top six, at least compared to the relatively staid finishes in the Premier League, where the top four are never really that close together, and most matters of great importance are usually settled before the final day.

Not so in the second tier, where the previous two seasons have both seen final day (actually, make that final-minute) episodes of drama that could come straight out of a Hollywood screenplay. One of the teams that could well be involved in that last-day action this year is Derby County, with the Rams having gone extremely close over the last two seasons to going up, but not quite managing to get over the line on either occasion. There’s no question they have the ability, but do they have the mental strength?

Under Steve McLaren in 2014, the Rams were one of the best sides in the division, and were extremely unfortunate with the events of the playoff final against QPR. Bobby Zamora’s cruel, cruel last minute winner that gave Harry Redknapp the chance to manage his QPR side in the Premier League also consigned Derby to another season in the Championship, with their fans no doubt slowly beginning to wonder if they’d ever get out of this infernal league.

Last year was an even harder one to take, bearing in mind McClaren had taken the Rams to the top of the table in the autumn and had then kept them there through the winter and into the New Year. What happened then was truly remarkable, with a miserable run of form, (mostly down to suicidal defending in key games and injuries to big players like Chris Martin) leading to them slowly dropping out of the automatic promotion spots and into the playoff places.

Things got even worse through the last few weeks of the season, but they still went into the last game of the campaign, at home to mid-table Reading, only needing a point to guarantee a place in the four-team-shake-up. They didn’t make it, with an abject 3-0 loss meaning they finished the season in 8th, and no doubt contributing to McClaren’s decision to leave the club and join Newcastle over the summer.

This is why I believe the greatest barrier Paul Clement will have to overcome between now and the end of this campaign is to make his team truly believe that they can go up. They easily have one of the best squads in the league, and have proved in recent weeks that they can blow teams apart, as well as go toe to toe with the other front runners in the league.

Their strike force is full of pace, trickery and power, their midfield has some of the most explosive yet reliable talents in the league, and their defence is as solid as they come - but until they prove that they can go the extra mile and win the crunch games at crunch times, this question of mental fragility will always be hanging over them.

Solve that, and Paul Clement might as well start planning for the big time now.

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