When asked if he could see why people would view his move as a “huge risk”, Eustace replied: “Yeah, [and] they are probably right. But the reason I have done it is that this is something I want to be part of.”
Eustace’s first match in charge of Derby will be Friday night at Queens Park Rangers, a club where he worked as an assistant coach for four years and had a spell as interim boss.
Throughout his first press conference as Derby boss at Moor Farm, Eustace spoke about how Rams owner David Clowes had been instrumental in convincing him to make the move back to a club where he ended his playing career a decade ago.
Clowes – a property developer who lives and works in Derbyshire and brought the Rams out of administration in 2022 – was among the club chiefs involved in the negotiations to bring Eustace in.
When asked by BBC Sport if he had already had more conversations with Clowes in the past week than he did with Blackburn’s owners Venky’s – the Indian poultry firm run by the Rao family – in a year, Eustace replied: “Yeah, I have.
“But I don’t want to make a big thing out of it,” he continued.
“I have met David, and what an absolute gentleman he is. He is a huge fan of Derby County, and when I spoke to him, he sold me the project.
“It’s not all about the owners, of course. It’s a previous club [for me], I’ve had two really good spells there, and I enjoyed it, and this now gives me the stability to grow with people that obviously care about the club and care about the fans.”
And while Eustace acknowledges Derby’s fight to avoid relegation will “go down to the wire” – with the Rams just above the drop zone on goals scored – he is convinced he is at a club capable of getting back to the Premier League in the future.
They last featured in the top flight 17 years ago, and during his second spell at Derby as a player, he helped to get them to within one win of a Premier League return – losing to Queens Park Rangers in the play-off final in 2014.
“When I spoke to David, just the long-term vision of the football club was very exciting,” Eustace said.
“I know Derby very well. I had a couple of years as a player here and the support is excellent. The opportunity to build over a number of years and to grow the squad of players was a really exciting challenge for me.”
