Wayne Rooney has claimed that Derby County must focus on bringing in new players before worrying about the club's philosophy.

The Manchester United will be looking forward to his first summer in charge of the club as he looks to put his stamp on the club.

Of course this season has gone anything but smoothly with the Rams struggling at the bottom end of the table for much of the campaign.

The threat of relegation hasn't been completely wiped away yet either, meaning that Rooney still has a lot of work to do before the end of the season.

But when quizzed on the philosophy that he'd like to instill at the club Rooney said that the focus must first be on finding the right players.

As quoted by Derbyshire Live, Rooney said: "A lot of people talk about philosophy, which is fine.

"I think if you are Pep Guardiola you can have a philosophy and get the players in who can execute that way of playing.

"Where we are at, we know we have to take each game as it comes.

"We need time to see what we can bring in this summer and hopefully we can get the players we want to then start thinking about a philosophy.

"I came into this job to try and get us in a stable position and keep us in this league, and that is not going to happen through philosophy, it is going to happen through the players taking each game as it comes.

"If we do that, we will be fine this year and then we can start looking to the summer and how we are going to move this team forward."

The verdict

Derby County have a lot of work to do as they build for the future.

Securing their Championship status has to be the initial priority but moving into the summer there's a real need to upgrade the playing squad.

Rooney will be hoping to push for promotion but those hopes will hinge on any transfer business that the club do over the summer.