Not many outside of Pride Park will give Derby County a prayer of securing a result at Leeds United in what is undoubtedly one of the toughest assignments this season.

Under Daniel Farke, the Whites have lost just once at home in the league this season and having lost to Blackburn at the weekend, will be eager to get their promotion push up and running.

Derby will have to adopt a siege mentality for the trip to Elland Road, a task that has been made much more complex given the absence of Ebou Adams through suspension.

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The absence of his athleticism, tenacity and aggression will be acutely felt leaving Warne to conjure up a plan to deal with Leeds' quality knowing he is unlikely to have David Ozoh unavailable with Derby's head coach unsure as to whether he will be involved.

Although Derby have lost home games to Swansea and Sheffield Wednesday, Derby's defensive record has actually been largely solid. They can probably count themselves unfortunate in the four shots on target they have faced across both of those games, resulted in four goals.

That means Warne is unlikely to make any drastic changes to his back four for the trip to Elland Road unless he decides to bring Nat Phillips back into the fold.

But Eiran Cashin and Curtis Nelson have performed well with the former in particularly good form. Kane Wilson looks certain to keep his place in the team and there can be no dispute that he does offer a decent threat from full-back.

Craig Forsyth continues to defy father time and he too is likely to retain his place at left-back. In midfield, however, this is where it gets interesting. The loss of Adams is a considerable blow given his physicality and is allied to the fact he is top of the Championship charts for the most successful number of tackles.

How Derby deal with his absence will be fascinating. It's highly unlikely Ozoh will be risked from the start which means Warne will have the choice of Ben Osborn, Kenzo Goudmijn, Liam Thompson for the trip Elland Road. On-loan Wolves midfielder Tawanda Chirewa can play in the middle and has been training which means he could take his place on the bench.

What Warne could do would be to play Thompson and Osborn in front of the back four, deploy Kenzo Goudmijn as a number 10 and play Marcus Harness and Nathaniel Mendez-Laing out wide with Jerry Yates carrying the torch up front.

The only way it could change is if by some miracle that Ozoh is cleared to play, but having not played since the win over Cardiff earlier in the season, that scenario does seem unlikely.

Predicted Derby XI (4-2-3-1): Zetterstrom; Wilson, Nelson, Cashin, Forsyth; Osborn, Thompson; Harness, Goudmijn, Mendez-Laing; Yates

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