Derby County manager Gary Rowett has admitted that his side's current standing of 15th place in the Championship table is "not acceptable".

The Rams have won just three of their first 10 games of the campaign, the most recent of which came against Hull City at Pride Park on September 8.

Derby are tipped to challenge for promotion most seasons and Rowett, who has been at the helm for the past seven months, is hopeful that he will be the right man to bring the club success in the long term after numerous failed promotion bids in recent years.

"The aim for Derby has to be trying to challenge for promotion," he told Sky Sports News. "We know we're not doing that at the moment and I'll be the first to say that's not acceptable for us. We know we've got other challenges and that makes it a bit harder to achieve that straightaway.

"But for five years we haven't got where we needed to be for various reasons, so I didn't just want to do the same thing and hope that worked because I felt that would be arrogant. I needed to try and change things we needed to change. We had a relative amount of success at Burton and Birmingham by trying to build the club how we think [would work], regardless of whether we're allowed to continue that process, and I'll do the same at Derby.

"But of course you want short-term results to back that vision up. I think I'm the third longest-serving manager in Derby's history at the moment and I've only been here six months! As any manager you know you need to time to affect some of the things you want to, but the problem with management is you don't get that time."

Derby have a chance to climb the table on Sunday afternoon when playing host to East Midlands rivals Nottingham Forest.