Derby County's veteran midfielder Robbie Savage reckons his playing career has not got long to run, even though the former Wales international is continuing to run and run in a season of fine performances that are belying his 35 years and counting.

"I've probably got 18 months of my career left and I want to enjoy every single minute of it," says Derby's outstanding player of the campaign to date, adding, "It's great running around and sliding into tackles - I love it!"

Savage's opponents tend not to 'love it' as much as does the midfielder himself when those sliding tackles are flying in, but his feisty reputation takes nothing from the wholehearted approach he has shown since he was a trainee at Manchester United.

It's that wholehearted approach that the ex-Crewe Alexandra, Leicester City, Birmingham City and Blackburn Rovers player is now bringing to County's bid to drag themselves away from the lower reaches of the Coca-Cola Championship.

The Rams are 17th in the table and only four points above the relegation zone, their lowly position due to poor away results - only two points from nine games - compared to a home record of six wins and a draw from 10 Pride Park outings.

So as they prepare for trips to Preston North End and Watford this week, Savage will be urging everyone around him to step up their away-day performance levels after Saturday's solid home display in a 2-2 draw with West Bromwich Albion.

The result ended a run of four successive victories for second in the table Albion and showed that Derby, on their day, can compete with the best teams in the division. "It was a very, very good performance," said Savage.

"We set the tempo from the first minute and all over the pitch we were putting tackles in, we never gave them time to settle. We were by far the better team in the first half and we continued in the same vein in the second.

"In the last two home games we have been down twice and come back to win. In this one we've been up, down and come back again, so there's a good spirit and although we are still near the bottom of the table, with performances like that we can climb up.

"We have set a standard for ourselves now - everybody who was at the game could see that when Derby play like that we are a good team. I know it was at home, but you do set standards for yourselves and anything below that is not acceptable.

"We have put in performances away from home as well, and it's hard to put your finger on why we haven't done better. When we get on the team bus it's not like we're going away, it's just another game of football.

"It's easy though, to get yourself up for games like West Brom at home - what makes a good player is putting in 90 minutes in every single game, away as well as at home, and that's what we've got to do - starting at Preston on Tuesday night."

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