Jourdan

3 minutes ago, Wolfie20 said:

Yes we are but hey, don't let it stop you sniping at Rooney at every opportunity.

Are we though?

Moments from magic from Lawrence aside, who is excelling in this team?

Sibley, Jozwiak and Morrison are all going backwards in terms of influence. Baldock has struggled. Kazim too.

It has to be a concern that if Lawrence has an off day, our hopes of winning games disappear with him.

Would a better coach get more out of what we have? I think it’s a fair question, not necessarily a swipe at Rooney.

20 minutes ago, Carnero said:

Any of Austin, Gray or Dykes will do. Shows up our lack of options when QPR's 3rd striker would walk into our team doesn't it.

Austin, Gray or Dykes would indeed all add something to our team.

But they would also need the service to boot. The question is, would they get it in this team and under this manager?

1 minute ago, RoyMac5 said:

Yes. We haven’t one goal scorer.

Well Kazim Richards outscored the now lauded Andre Gray last season. So I think that is an exaggeration to say we have no goalscorer.

We do have players in the squad that can score goals.

But perhaps not the coaching, tactics or style of play that can make it a likely occurrence.

I will freely admit our attacking options have never looked the same since Martin left.

However are we getting the best out of what we have?

4 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

I think it shows what having some good strikers does for you - pick one for us!

Strikers of any description thrive on chances.

Are the tactics right? Is the balance in the team right for us to create enough good chances?

1 minute ago, Jimbo Ram said:

I thought QPR looked a decent side.

I think that’s the benefit of having a good coach with experience and savvy at this level.

QPR do have some good individuals but I think what we saw tonight shows what difference a good Championship manager can make.

Warburton has been at QPR for almost three years and tonight it showed.

On balance, you have to credit Rooney and the players for their response in recent games.

The -21 verdict could have seen the team completely implode. But instead we have seen a lot of bravery and endeavour on display.

Of course, it’s frustrating to throw away another game from a winning position, but sadly that is where our lack of experience shows both on and off the field.

It’s sad because we have shown we can compete, but obviously we are missing something that will see us turn good contests into results.

Derby 1-1 QPR

Lawrence

Derby 0-1 Bournemouth

Solanke

Let’s just win games of football.

That’s the best way we can send a message to the EFL, Mel or anyone else.

Everything will be fine.

Rooney’s at the wheel.

I would like to think once the ownership is settled, the club will start making moves to map out the futures of our current players.

If we can start next season with Bird, Sibley, Williams, Ebosele, Solomon, Cashin, Watson, Hutchinson and Stretton, it would give us something to work with at the very least.

I am also hopeful that as long serving players, the likes of Roos, Davies, Forsyth and Kazim would be keen to extend their stay, be a guiding hand, and help us to bounce back.

Outside of those players, I would expect big changes. Knight, Buchanan, Bielik and Jozwiak will surely all be sold in the coming months. Lawrence, Shinnie, Byrne and Marshall will leave on free transfers. Morrison and the embargo boys will surely go too.

The worry for me is, what does Rooney know about League 1? Does he have any idea what works or a particular aptitude for lower league football? How will his experience of almost exclusively top level, elite football help us going forward?

Personally I would be looking at someone with a proven record in League One and someone who has built a squad in the lower leagues that can reasonably compete when the step up comes along.

We need someone who can do what Mark Robins has done at Coventry, for example.

1 hour ago, Rev said:

@Jourdan, I appreciate your posts, and can see your POV. 

In normal circumstances, I'd agree with your analysis of the bare fact's, statistically he's had a terrible record so far.

However, he started off with one hand tied behind his back (lack of experience), then swiftly had the other hand tied up too (lack of finance) in the January window.

We somehow survived the season, more by others failings than our own efforts I grant you, but just when he'd expected the bounds to be released he's had a blindfold placed over his eyes too!

Then after groping around in the dark to pull together a semblance of a squad with half a chance of competing, he's had cotton balls stuffed in his ears too, exposing him for what he is. 

A rookie manager, dealing with the total implosion of the football club he's employed by, and unable to do anything about the situation other than grit his teeth and fight his way through.

He's done that in spades, and faced a situation that I'm convinced other more experienced managers would have walked away from by now.

That he hasn't is praiseworthy enough in itself in my eyes, he's got little to gain in our situation, and an awful lot to lose, yet he keeps on keeping on, keeps fighting for us and our club.

In those circumstances, I'm happy enough to set aside the stats and critique of his tenure, and appreciate that we've got a manager who'll fight for us now, and is playing his part in our survival.

Whatever happens in the future, and however he happened upon his current position, he's our man right here and right now, and imo he's led the club like a Lion.

 

You make some valid points. Rooney has shown some commendable qualities - fight, enthusiasm, commitment, leadership. But isn’t that the minimum you would expect from someone in his position?

I also disagree that most managers would have walked away. Instead I suspect most managers would have tried, much like Rooney, to rise to the challenge and possibly had more tools to deal with the situation.

I think we all accept that Rooney has had difficult circumstances to deal with. Relying on loans in January? Having to assemble a squad under an embargo? The club hurtling into financial ruin? Very difficult indeed.

But ask yourself, is this job going to get any easier for a manager with his lack of experience and know how? League One will be no cakewalk and I am sure many clubs will be rubbing their hands at the prospect of welcoming us to the division and piling on the pain.

We will need someone switched on and with the knowledge and experience of having what it takes to succeed in that division, surely?

With us currently being on a run of seven games without a win and weeks away from probably our toughest run all season, the suggestion that the appeal is a non starter and our points deduction will total -21 seems a fight-ending blow.

If what is being reported comes to fruition, we would be 18 points from safety. We play five of the current top 6 and six of the current top 10 in November and December. For Rooney and the players, the timing of this news couldn’t be worse and things could get really ugly if the group become particularly disillusioned.

There is still hope when you crunch some numbers. The four teams above us are trending for a finish of 41 points or fewer and one would suspect they are unlikely to improve too dramatically. Other teams could stutter too. We still have 78* points to play for, which always gives us a long shot but evidently it will take something inspired from here on in.

But still there is a sense of what could have been. The first 17 games have been a series of missed opportunities and if only moments. We have squandered winning positions in a third of our games. We have drawn a number of games where on the balance of play we could have won. 

Say we had beaten Peterborough, Preston, Forest and Luton, that alone would negate this incoming points deduction. It does make you wonder.

Hope now rests with the administrators and their ability to secure a positive, timely takeover and for the new owners to enact change.

January to early March represents our best chance of putting a positive run of results together from here on in. So new owners, maybe 1-2 new players, and dare I say a new manager appointed with a view to hitting the ground running come August could give us a chance of at least going out in a blaze of glory.

13 minutes ago, Ratpackram said:

Has any Derby manager had to deal with anything like Rooney has ? 

Judge him on a level playing field surely. 

When all this madness is over and IF Rooney is still in charge then that's when he should be judged in my opinion 

Who gets a level playing field? In every league, there will be those who have more and those who have less.

Blackpool, Luton, Coventry, Peterborough, Preston, Millwall, Hull and a few others could argue that the Championship is not a level playing field for them, couldn’t they?

Yet it hasn’t stopped them from getting on with things and trying to compete the best way they can. Sometimes to improve those efforts, the manager may be replaced.

Even Sheffield Wednesday on a points deduction last season went through two or three managers trying to compete. It is modern football. Winning is the bottom line.

So why should Rooney have allowances made for him?

23 minutes ago, David said:

And where is the context here, doesn't appear to matter.

He's won this out of that, not good enough, get gone.

I just hope the new owner does not view his tenure in such simplistic terms and looks and the whole picture.

OK, which context is missing?

If football was all about context and making allowances, Nigel Clough would have had a job for life here.

No-one has said Rooney has had an easy job. He hasn’t. But the bottom line is that winning football matches is what counts. Winning football matches will improve our position, not sentiment. 

What have you seen from Rooney that suggests he could rebuild the squad and get us winning matches in League One with the regularity needed to win promotion?

It is taking a shot in the dark quite plainly.

18 minutes ago, David said:

It has been earned and no we don't need a circus or distractions, what that has to do with Rooney I don't know.

Any managerial appointment is a risk, there's less risk in sticking with what you have and the players are on board with.

Rooney has instilled a fighting spirit this season, something we will desperately need next season.

Would have been so easy to walk away and hold his head up high, but he stuck with us, incredible really given the circumstances. 

Can't think of anyone I would rather have lead us into next season. Hopefully he still has the hunger for it.

It has been earned? Based on what metric?

1 win in 15 to end last season? Surviving by the skin of our teeth and a late Cardiff intervention? This season, you say? No wins in 7? 3 wins in 17? 20th without deductions?

It is hardly a convincing case. It would be a charitable decision and incredibly sentimental.

Indeed I think there is an element of rose tinted glasses on your part. As I recall, you were fervently pro Rooney from the day he arrived.

Less risk sticking with an inexperienced manager over appointing a more experienced manager? I would say there are pros and cons to both decisions, but logic and evidence suggests going for experience unless Rooney shows great promise, which he hasn’t as yet.

Given the make up of the squad could be drastically different in six or seven months’ time - only 8 players are currently contracted past 2022 - it makes no sense to be wedded to the idea of Rooney being manager or indeed this group of players assembled under Rooney.

Rooney has done some good, we can all agree there. But there are often times when his lack of experience shines through and I think he would have to show much more as a manager for the new owners to stake the club’s future on him.

If we do end up in League One next summer, it would be much more prudent to have a complete reset and let the club be viewed with fresh eyes, both on and off the pitch.

21 minutes ago, David said:

Once the new owner is in place, first job give Rooney a new contract, show him the love, clean slate and bounce back next year.

Right now we need some good news, this would be it. 

The players would appreciate this as well, we don't need the added uncertainty of will he or won't he go leaving them questioning their own futures.

A new contract? Shouldn’t that be earned?

Rooney has a year and a half on his deal. There is no need to offer him a new one, unless he achieves something exceptional. Like survival against the odds, for example.

If we do get relegated to League 1, the owners have to seriously consider if Rooney is capable of moving us forward. Stability for the sake of stability helps no-one.

If there is someone they consider to be better equipped to do that, they would be foolish to put all of their eggs in the Rooney basket.

It is an unforgiving league, one Rooney will likely have little to no knowledge of. We see big clubs struggle to get to grips with it very often. There would be an added incentive for teams too, a target on our backs, of course. Rooney’s Derby and so on.

Do we really need the circus? The distractions? Do we need someone at the helm who has to find his feet and learn quickly? 

It would be a big risk to stick with Rooney.

Millwall 1-0 Derby

4 minutes ago, Tombo said:

Er...those other clubs found those players by not being under an embargo ?

So scouting is forbidden when you are under a transfer embargo?

15 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

But Rooney wanted him to re-sign, he didn't have to want to keep him. That was the point.

I get your point.

But Rooney got the job full time in January, not July. He could have set about making changes.

If he appointed a few new scouts and they subsequently were laid off, what can he do?

But he has kept most of the staff in place by the looks of things, and not always for the better.

The Given case is interesting. Do first team coaches get paid less than scouts? I would imagine not, so perhaps any new scouts would have been more likely to keep their jobs had we employed them.

4 hours ago, S8TY said:

What ?? one scout??? You think one scout will make a difference ….all you do is moan all of the time …I sometimes think you’re just a wum 

It’s all about the intent. Identifying a problem and trying to fix it.

If one player - Bielik - is viewed as enough to make a difference, why can’t one scout with the right kind of knowledge and track record?

People keep saying we need January and we need players who will make a difference. How are we going to find those players if not with good scouts?

5 minutes ago, plymouthram said:

The question is, is he in the position to rehash the recruitment/scouting team due to monies etc. He may have put this to Mel and the CEO and was told NO (we've got no money). I'm sure Rooney Knows like the rest of us, if we had an out and out striker we would be a better team. Lets hope a new owner and January will be good for us

That’s the point.

Will a new owner make a difference? Will January make a difference?

Not much will change if you have the same people in the same roles, not being held to account.

Having money to spend won’t help us if the scouting and recruitment set up is still porous.

11 minutes ago, Ellafella said:

Barnsley won without trying.

How does that suggest tonight was a good performance?

Even Rooney himself described it as ‘a disappointing performance’ and ‘not good enough’.

Sorry that I couldn’t be there tonight. Small issue of a 600-mile round trip and having work in the morning.

But if you saw something in the performance to give you hope, fair play to you.

7 minutes ago, uttoxram75 said:

Sorry mate, you've completely confused me. Who do you think Rooney should throw under a bus. The people who paid his wages, Mel  Morris and the deal with 32Red or the scouting and recruitment team?

My original point was questioning why he didn’t shake up scouting and recruitment upon getting the job permanently...

8 minutes ago, sage said:

We could only sign a limited amount of players, on one year or 6 month contracts, on 4.5k a week. Scouting my arse. What did people expect?  

What part of that do some of you not understand ffs

Perhaps not sit around feeling sorry for ourselves? Perhaps show some imagination? Perhaps rise to the challenge?

We have been under restrictions, yes. But every scouting mission comes with parameters.

It’s not a temp job at Primark we’ve been recruiting for. It’s playing football for one of the most beloved clubs in the country.

We could have still found players if we were willing to try hard enough.