Conor Washington name-checked as Derby County urged to be "really careful" this January | OneFootball

We spoke to our resident Derby County pundit about one transfer mistake his club should not repeat this window.

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

Derby County's FLW fan pundit admitted the club has to steer away from players with poor injury records in the final few weeks of the window.

The Rams have endured a difficult few weeks in the Championship and three defeats on the spin has left them hanging just four points above the drop zone.

To attempt to resurrect some of these issues, the Rams have brought in Lars-Jorgen Salvesen from Norway, who netted 12 goals in 27 games in his last Eliteserien campaign.

Meanwhile, Sonny Bradley has made a temporary switch to Wycombe Wanderers, while Tawanda Chirewa's loan spell has been cut short as he headed back to Wolves earlier this week.

With just over two weeks until the window closes, Paul Warne will surely be looking to make some more deals and address some other key areas on the pitch.

However, he has to get these transfers right with the Rams' second-tier status on the line.

Derby urged to not sign injury-prone players

To get a Pride Park point of view on what January window mistake they don't want to see replicated, Football League World spoke to their resident Rams pundit, Shaun Woodward, who disclosed that he would be disappointed if they added another injury-prone player to their squad.

"Derby need to be really careful with signing players who have got a bad injury record," said Woodward.

"We have done that in the past, we have gone for players that have had bad injuries, and they break down at Derby.

"We have quite a lot of injuries as it is, so we don't want to be bringing in someone who has potentially got more chance of getting another injury while they are with us.

"Conor Washington is a prime example. We brought him in, and he has barely featured.

"I could probably name a few others as well, but we need to be looking at their injury record and ensure they're coming in fit and giving us the best chance of getting minutes out of them in the remaining months of the season."

Derby's January striker outage

With an ageing squad, Derby seem to have prioritised moving on some of their more experienced options up front.

At the start of the season, two of their strikers were James Collins, 34, and Conor Washington, 32.

This raised the question of whether Derby would refresh their attacking options, and the summer signings of Jerry Yates and Kayden Jackson made significant strides in that direction. However, the arrival of Salvesen now seems to have fully revitalised their forward line, giving the club the chance to move on from Collins and Washington.

According to Pete O'Rourke, the former is on the radar of Rotherham and Leyton Orient and with both out of contract in the summer, it seems best to secure a fee for them now.

Washington has struggled for game time and has made just 19 league appearances since joining the Rams in 2023.

While Collins has been a loyal servant, Championship football is now beyond him and a drop to League One seems like the best move for all parties.