Michael O'Neill is avoiding any distraction from the Blackburn Rovers and Derby County narrative but wants his team to 'relish' the challenge of Pride Park.
Rovers will once again face against their former head coach, John Eustace, who left a little more than 12 months ago. They'll be captained by Lewis Travis and have Sam Szmodics and Ben Brereton Diaz in attack.
Games between the two have enjoyed a bit of added spice in the last 12 months. O'Neill if firmly focused on the here and now, not the past.
"It might do for them (mean more). It doesn't for me, personally. You know, what's gone on in the past is in the past," O'Neill said.
"I know John Eustace, he was a young player at Coventry when I was there as a player myself. So, and I know his career in coaching.
"He's an experienced championship manager now. Our focus is on Derby as a team and what challenges they bring.
"They've invested well in their team as well and they've had results. Probably recently, a couple of results that have maybe taken them a little bit further away from the top six than they'd like to be.
"We have to try add to that misery on Saturday."
Derby have shown themselves to be a team that prefers less of the ball. They recently beat Swansea City 2-0 with just 28% possession. That will be a challenge for Rovers to overcome.
"We have to put the game to bed from Tuesday night first, which has been our priority. But we know they have physicality in their team. They have speed at the top end of the pitch as well," O'Neill said Derby's strengths.
"They'll present the same challenge that most teams in the Championship do. It'll be keenly fought. That's probably the best way of putting it.
"When you look at the game on Tuesday night and you drill down into the statistics on the game, it's about being the better team in terms of winning the duels, winning second ball, playing forward.
"One of the things we didn't do well in that period in the first half was we turned the ball over quite often, which added to our own pressure and obviously meant that we carried the rest of the threat in that period as well. So those are things that we need to improve on.
"But I expect the game to follow the same format as most championship games."
The Rams' home form hasn't been sparkling whilst Rovers have also been better away. That may offer some encouragement for O'Neill's men.
"We've seen that ourselves. Our own home form hasn't been good this season," he said.
"Teams can find it a little bit more difficult to play at home at times. I've not looked at that particularly closely. The most important thing for me is getting our team right and rolling out of Tuesday and into the game on Saturday.
The time frame to do that is limited. But it's a good place to go and play. That's the most important thing. If you're a player and you've got something about you, you'll relish the type of game that we get on Saturday.
"I'm still learning a lot about this group of players. It's been such a short space of time to play the games and not a lot of training time.
"I'm learning more and more about the squad. I think Saturday will be a really stiff test and we have to be ready for the game."
