NOTSA74

Terrible interception and pass from that passenger Bird 

That 1993 Benson and Hedges Final at Lord's was a bit special.
One of my top three Cricket matches along with seeing England win a Test at the SCG (2003) and seeing England draw at Cardiff in 2009.

Having 5,000 less season tickets sold won’t be in the budget either and I bet there will be that many questioning a purchase based on the absolute rubbish served up at home this season 

Or our own youngsters want to stay here?

So frustrating reading some 'fans' opinions on Birds move,

The bloke stayed with us throughout everything whilst others jumped ship, he's moved on to a solid championship club, something that we can't offer at the moment,

Short memories on here, the unbeaten run of last season ended when he got injured - we're a worse team without him in it.

Problem is with our current manager it doesn’t matter how good the academy players are he will not use them to improve. The efl trophy was a great time to get them some competitive football yet we still constantly use the older generation. Like with previous recruitment I have no idea what the actual plan is 

The process used for this season will need to be overhaulled. 12 summer signings and a further 2 in January, of which only 3 are likely to be regular starters is absolutely shocking (Nelson, Nyambe, Blackett-Taylor). This is also after the squad failed to place top last season, losing 3 of our first 11 (Roberts, Knight and McGoldrick) and not even having a right back in the entire squad.
It's summarised by having no long term vision. That's in terms of: a) bringing in younger players who will either maintain their current standards for longer, or have room for improvement; or b) planning how the players will fit into the team.
Warne put a clear focus on older and more experience players, based on the rationale of higher wages equates to better players. If more budget is put towards the wages, we'll end up with a stronger squad of players.
Warne also had no plan on how to fit the players into the team. This is demonstrated by early summer recruitment being with 3421 in mind, which quickly changed to 352, and then alternating between 442 and 4231 during the season so far. We signed a LB (Elder) to play as a wing back, but also signed Nyambe (RB) after already signing 2 wing backs. He also signed a slow CB who cannot play in a high line and is uncomfortable on the ball under pressure. We've basically got through from October with only 1 fully fit forward whowas 2nd choice last season and failed to improve on in the summer AND January.
The style of play our CF targets prefer also varied. Summer targets like Harris, Rhodes and Sharp all have different strengths and weaknesses. Similar with January targets such as Smith, Gregory, Mubama, Ennis. It's just a scattergun approach all round. Most of these targets compromise on the high intensity press Warne wants to implement too.

Lampard and Morris - not doing anything these days.
Or, if you prefer, how about McClaren and Simpson - Schteve won't be at United much longer.
Come on, it would be more fun than what we're going through, eh?

People saying we're stronger now at the end of the window, but before it opened we said we needed a striker, we've since lost our only two backups in TJJ and Brown, and only have one fit centre forward at the club.
People joked as we went along that we'd reach this point and say "we tried but couldn't get it over the line", but I didn't think anyone was serious. For that to be the eventual outcome smacks of a remarkable level of incompetence. Is the recruitment guy still in his probationary period? Surely not worth keeping on. And such a shame Warne has no ability of his own, or contacts in the game, to attract players. 

Starting to think players don’t want to come to Derby due to our manager pull and style of football tbh 

Turns out we should have re-signed Chris Martin after all.

I'm a little surprised that Max couldn't share Warne's vision of the future.

That 1993 Benson and Hedges Final at Lord's was a bit special.
One of my top three Cricket matches along with seeing England win a Test at the SCG (2003) and seeing England draw at Cardiff in 2009.

That 1993 Benson and Hedges Final at Lord's was a bit special.
One of my top three Cricket matches along with seeing England win a Test at the SCG (2003) and seeing England draw at Cardiff in 2009.

They haven’t spent anymore than most teams. He is doing very well.

But Hull weren’t favourites for promotion and he has taken them from a relegation battle to be play off contenders. Not doing bad young ‘Caretaker’ Liam 😉

Just finished watching it (the beauty of a TIVO box).
One of the greatest England wins I've ever seen - up there with Edgbaston 2005. Perhaps not quite the drama of The Oval 1968 (Underwood snagging Inverarity with just 3 balls to go, after most of the last day had been washed out) or Headingley 2019 (Stokes 135*, Leach the best 1* I've ever seen) - but a tremendous win against all the odds.

So much better fare watching that match develop and the thrilling ending than the bish bash of franchise cricket.

Memories.....cocu season 1 I think correlated with the arrival of Rooney who lifted us in terms of performances after December.
Then in season 2 of cocu, Rooney turned up after holidays about 2 stone overweight and cocu started him every game leading to febrile speculation on here that.....
- Rooney had a clause in his contract saying he must play
- Rooney was angling for the managers job.
That's how I recall things....

Yesterday proved to me that I don't think Warne will cut it in the Championship. I am confident he will get us out of this division. Regardless of how terrible the performances have been recently, he is still accumulating points and we can't argue it. I don't think it takes a tactical genius to get this team out of League One. Big budgets matter and DC clearly told Radio Derby we have a competitive budget for promotion. Warne has had money to spend and if he doesn't get promoted then I think he knows where the door is.
The big elephant in the room is I have never seen a fan base so divided over a manager when we're clearly challenging for promotion. This has to ring alarm bells. The South Stand is a big indicator for me how the fan base is feeling and there's not many chant for the manager. It's been very flat in the noisy stand. A feeling of fear challenging in the league above. Ipswich and Plymouth last season showed they could win matches in League One and continued to play well in Championship. 
Call me Captain Doom, if we continue to bundling along winning games, I don't see Derby landing any blows in the Championship.

Him and Fozzy are my man crushes, two players who for me epitomise everything that is great about our club. Forget about Rooney, let's give Curtis the keys instead! Oh and a coaching position. A man of his intelligence, passion and professionalism and one who instantly commands respect without ever demanding it, he's tailor made I reckon.
Anyway, thanks for the memories Curtis. There'll be plenty of Rams fans who'll be delighted to stand you a pint or two when you do hang up your boots, indeed I doubt you'll ever pay for a beer again in Derby.

There's no buzz on the way in... or on the way out. Not even yesterday, after a win!
The vast majority appear to be slumped-of-the-shoulder.  Smile-less even.
Any hint of smiles/laughter can soon be determined to be on a personal level, not DCFC related (I eavesdrop a lot as I hang around outside before going in!)
There's a distinct aroma of "Doing the chores" around the ground pre-match, as if most of us are there out of duty.
I could be reading the signs wrong of course, and I'm sure some on here will argue with my observations, but they are my observations nonetheless, and I'm comfortable with airing them.
Maybe it's the weather?  Post-Christmas blues? 🤷‍♂️
Fire away!

Bad performances, over a stretch, guarantee that results drop off. We're in a period of awful form, and average results. One thing or the other will turn.

Far too many people here confuse the two. I really like Warne as a man, for what it's worth. Absolutely huge respect for the charity work him and his coaching staff too.
Imagine thinking that disagreeing with how a manager sets up a football team is somehow vitriolic. Madness.

What?
Let's get this straight. We've got one of the best squads, best support, best resources in a tin pot league - we're near the top because of that, not because of Warne's management and style of play.
With decent management, we'd be cruising, getting results while still playing decent, entertaining football.
Would you feel better about watching this dross just because of us getting enough results that put us in with a good chance of the play offs?