This Saturday, Cardiff take on Bristol City in the severnside derby in front of a packed Cardiff City Stadium.
With City flying at the summit of the table, Aron Gunnarson spoke this morning at the Vale Resort and expressed his desire to give the fans bragging rights come 2.45pm on Saturday.
He said: “It’s always great to be a part of these types of games. Last time we played them we lost 4-2 and we are very eager to put that right.
“The fans obviously look forward to these games and have a lot of pride when it comes to a derby but as players we don’t really think about it in that way.
“We want to keep on winning and continue collecting the points as they are so important.”
25,000 supporters will flood to the Cardiff City stadium for the highly anticipated derby and Gunnarsson is looking forward to playing in front of the passionate crowd and on an immaculate playing surface.
Gunnar added: “It great to have such a good fan base behind us who want us to win as much as the players do.
“Hopefully there will be a fantastic atmosphere as we know how tough a game it will be as Bristol will be eager to win for their fans as well.
“The surface at the stadium will be excellent as rugby hasn’t been played on it for a while so hopefully we utilise it fully.”
Despite their low league position Bristol come into the game on a high having won 3 of their last 4 games and the Cardiff midfielder is all too aware of the impact a new manager can have on a team.
“Sometimes a new manager can have a negative impact but it’s obviously had a positive effect on them. The players will be keen to impress the new boss and their recent results have demonstrated that.
“They are on fire at the moment but we are on form as well so it’ll be an interesting match."
Cardiff lie 8 points clear at the top of the table but the 23 year old is wary of their opponents desire to beat the league leaders with the thought of promotion far from his mind.
He said: “Teams always want to beat us. They make it hard by sitting back and trying to counter attack but we have been fighting hard and have only lost 1 game in 15 league matches.
“We are doing well and need to continue to grind out results as we weren’t able to do that in some games last season. We are all so focussed throughout the 90 minutes and the rewards are coming.
“There are still 16 games to go and we need to keep doing what we’ve been doing recently. We’ve only conceded 2 goals in the last 8 games which is a good record for us to have.
“No one has started thinking about how many points we need to seal the title as there are still 16 games to go and anything can happen in this league as Reading proved last year when they went on a miraculous run.
6 of Cardiff’s last 8 games have been decided by one solitary City goal but Gunnarson isn’t worried Malky’s men aren’t romping home every week.
“We can win games in style as we showed earlier in the season, but all that matters now is grinding out results.
“You don’t really want to be known as a scrappy team which we're not, but if it gets us the points then 'happy days'.”