Derby boss Paul Jewell has warned his team cannot simply assume they will be among the Championship promotion front-runners next season.

County head to Goodison Park for Sunday's Premier League match against Everton still trailing Sunderland's all-time points low of 15 by four points with just six games remaining.

But armed with parachute payments exceeding £20million over two years, the relegated Rams can expect to be installed among the favourites to make an instant return to the top flight next season.

It is a task which has proven to be beyond the likes of Norwich, Southampton, Coventry and Leicester in recent memory. But Sunderland and Birmingham both showed it can be achieved by bouncing back into the top flight at the first attempt last season.

Jewell said: "We will be one of the favourites to get promotion, and I want us to live with that expectation. I don't want it to be a burden; I want us to embrace it.

"This is a great club. I want us to be proud of our club and I want us to have that mentality that we are going to win.

"If we have setbacks we are going to bounce back from them."

Jewell pointed to the fortunes of the Saints, whom County defeated on penalties in last year's play-off semi-finals, as a cause for caution.

"Look at Southampton - arguably unfortunate to get beaten by Derby in the play-offs last year and now they are in the bottom three. We have to be very, very careful," he added.

"As much as we think we're going to do well next season, we've got to guard against the attitude that - just because we're Derby, just because we've got a big crowd and training facility - it's going to happen. We have to make it happen."

One way the Rams boss intends to guard against any potential slip-ups is by carefully targeting the type of player he brings into the club in the close season.

Jewell said: "I know the type of player I want to bring here - one who can handle the pressure of expecting to win matches, because that will be the remit next year.

"We will lose players that don't want to play in the Championship; we will lose players that I don't want to keep.

"That's the nature of any end-of-season team - whether they go up, down or stay in the same division.

"We need to shake things up from top to bottom, make the club great and get everyone moving in the same direction."

Turning his attention to the short term, the County manager hopes his side can end his embarrassing wait for a maiden league victory before the end of the campaign - now that there fate has been sealed.

"I think the year Nottingham Forest went down they had hardly won a game all season - and they won three out of their last three with the pressure off," he said.

"It would be lovely. But it's not about personal pride; it's about the long-term future of the club.

"If my personal pride takes a couple more knocks between now and the end of the season but we bounce back next year I'll take that."

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