David Prutton: Leeds United can learn from Rowett's blueprint at Derby

Football players, or most of them, are optimistic animals. You have to be to survive the ups and downs that come in a season.

I heard Pablo Hernandez say on Tuesday that 10 wins from 14 games would get Leeds United into the play-offs and it reminded me that in a player’s head, it’s never over until it’s over.

You owe your club that attitude and if negativity seeps into a dressing room then you really are going nowhere, but from the outside it’s easier to apply some realism.

In looking for a run like that you’re calling on reserves of performance and strength which you haven’t been showing, or not recently. It’s a problem for sides in a relegation fight too. To put it plainly, if Leeds were capable of winning 10 games in 14 then they wouldn’t need a streak like that in the first place.

Without being defeatist – because unlikely things do happen and many of us thought Leeds were locked into the play-offs this time last year – I see the next couple of months as a prime opportunity for Paul Heckingbottom to find his feet at Elland Road.

There was a manager in the opposite dug-out to him at Pride Park on Wednesday who had the same opportunity last season. Gary Rowett got the Derby County job in March, at a time when Derby were off the pace, and I’d imagine that the chance to get inside the door and have a look around without results weighing too heavily on him was an absolute godsend.

Gary’s a talented manager, that’s the first thing to say, but Derby’s position in the league suggests he went into last summer with a very clear idea of what needed to happen.