LeedsCityRam

Who's having the party now Small Heath? 🤣

Makes our promotion all the sweeter swapping places with those nobbers. Did everything possible to revel in our misery that day both inside & outside the ground. Dreadful support & belong with other tinpot garbage like Reading, Peterborough & Wycombe.

Penny for Bielik & Buchanan's thoughts 😆

I would agree with those who feel the majority of this squad needs to be retained into next season. The biggest mistake promoted teams can make is to destroy the fabric of the side that has achieved success - quality of course needs to be added but the DNA/character of the dressing room is not easily built, its that intangible that can drag out vital results & I feel will be necessary for a tough upcoming season. I also believe Warne will need a big squad to compete given the physical demands he places on players. With that in mind;

Release

Waghorn, Hourihane. I also would not offer John-Jules a contract

1 year deals

Forsyth, Korey Smith, Barkhuizen, Gayle, Collins

2 year deals

Wildsmith, Sibley, Thompson

I've noticed many would release Forsyth, Gayle & Smith but I would retain all 3. Firstly, Forsyth is an extremely useful utility player & makeshift CB - he is not easily replaced at all. I saw enough of Dwight Gayle to realise that he still retains plenty of quality & movement and the way he meshed with Mendez-Laing & Barkhuizen gave me confidence he could be a gamechanger still at Championship level. Given we're likely to be playing on the counter attack against better quality opposition, Gayle seems ideally suited to how we'd be looking to play. Lastly, we have a massive hole in midfield with Bird, Adams & likely Hourihane leaving - Korey Smith is a steady option to keep some continuity there, the lad can play & of course has significant Championship experience.

Keeping this squad would enable us to target resources at the 4/5 quality players we need to improve the overall standard of the first team without wasting time looking for squad depth because we'll already have it. Primary focus for me will be for first team starters down the spine of our team - in central midfield (enforcer & conductor), two centre forwards & one centre half. 

Evolution not revolution.

20 hours ago, Foreveram said:

Last seasons thread seemed fairly popular with over one hundred thousand views so I thought I’d try and find out a bit of what we can expect for next season.

As we know, because they told us so, nobody has more away fans than Leeds so I have looked at their away ticket allocations and prices they were charged for the season now ending.

Interestingly they had a reciprocal agreement with a few clubs to set the price for both sets of fans so I have noted this accordingly.

Obviously we don’t know exactly who we are playing yet but I will try and amend this when we have the final tables.

 I have noted the full allocation and adult and over 65 price.

Leeds I have based on what Southampton fans are paying.

Ipswich. 2,000.  £34/ £27

Leeds. 2.018. £47. Cheaper with clubs with reciprocal deals.

Southampton. 2,825. £30/ £25.

Norwich. 2,022. 36/26 reciprocal.

WBA. 2,009. £28/ £23.

Hull. 2,083. £24/ £16.

Middlesbo. 2,571. £29/ £ 21.

Coventry. 2,529. £37/ £32.

Preston. 5,644. £28/ £20 reciprocal.

Bristol City. 3,000. £30/ £26.

Cardiff. 3,213. £21/ £16 reciprocal.

Swansea. 1,971. £34/ £21.

Watford. 2,104. £20/ £10.

Sunderland. 2,000. £29/ £26. reciprocal.

Millwall. 2,008. £32/ £22.

QPR. 1,816. £31/ £22.

Stoke. 2,604. £25/ £19. reciprocal.

Blackburn. 7,337. £30/ £24.

Sheff Wed. 3,869. £36/ £26.

Plymouth. 1,734. £26/ £21.

Birmingham. 2,227. £30/ £25 reciprocal.

 

Ah yes, good old Leeds - couldn't sell out their away allocation at QPR last Friday (half a stand empty if you see the telly pictures) & definite drop off in parking around mine as they're unlikely to go up today. Their support is the biggest myth in English football.

Am interested to see how we get on with away numbers next season. A combination of new grounds to visit, suppressed supply with tiny away ends & a fantastic away record meant demand was as high as I've ever seen it this season just gone. Now we've got bigger away ends & a better spread of clubs in the North/Midlands but telly moving kick off times everywhere & inevitable drop off of away form against better opposition. To be fair, I won't miss the panic of trying to book tickets at 10am along with hundreds of others!

12 minutes ago, Archied said:

Not really , that thread , that thread ?,

this forum was made pretty much unusable for a fair time , a new Warne out thread every ten minutes , every other thread invaded and turned into a Warne out thread by a very determined few posters ,brow beating , swamping people who just wanted to support and read about derby county and happy to be patient with the manager, eventually people got sick to death with it and started to fight back against this aided by the sterling job it was becoming clearer and clearer Warne was doing ,,,then what ? A rewrite of history and veiled accusations of bullying ,,, really ? 
some really need to take a long hard look at the state this forum was becoming and the behaviour of some posters who were brow beating the hell out of people on virtually every thread🤷🏻‍♂️

 

Lets drop this nonsense that one side were more 'virtuous' than the other. There were a few determined anti-Warne trolls that even I found tiresome but equally some pious, holier than thou Warne obsessives who were incapable of answering honest concerns about Warne without deliberately missing the point and/or attacking the poster in a dishonest attempt to discredit arguments.

Not entirely sure why you're taking the bullying suggestion so personally either.

Leeds away would feel like a nice reintroduction to a proper division

Taking the mickey out of their latest choke would amuse & a mere 15 min stroll from my front door too

Some crackers on Saturday...pics courtesy of @Inverurie Ram

On 25/04/2024 at 10:46, Animal is a Ram said:

Summer window:

Curtis Nelson
Callum Elder
Joe Ward
Sonny Bradley
Josh Vickers
Kane Wilson
Martyn Waghorn
Conor Washington
Tyrese Fornah
Elliot Embleton
Ryan Nyambe
Tyreece John-Jules

Winter:

Ebou Adams
Dwight Gayle
Corey Blackett-Taylor
Max Bird*

*I've included Max, as I feel it was crucial we had him to the end of the season.

Extensions:
Nathaniel Mendez-Laing
Eiran Cashin
Jake Rooney  

 

Ratings out of 10, please. I might do some statistical analysis.

Summer window:

Curtis Nelson 10 - not really sure you could ask for much more. Played every minute & player of the year
Callum Elder 6 - solid enough when fit but suffered from injuries. Also not a LWB
Joe Ward 6.5 - lot of potential there & a stellar display at Portsmouth but conceded some rash penalties. Not a RB
Sonny Bradley 6 - improved later on in the season defensively & offered attacking threat but well below standard first half of season
Josh Vickers 6.5 - solid enough but looked more jittery than I'd have liked when he got his first team chance
Kane Wilson 7 - infectious character & popped up with some crucial game changing moments. Solid at RB. Feel he is capable of more in that final 3rd though
Martyn Waghorn 7 - superb hattrick at Peterborough & won us some crucial points early on. Injury destroyed his season sadly
Conor Washington 6 - another affected by injury but never really settled as a first choice. Bit of a letdown as the marquee signing alongside Bradley
Tyrese Fornah 5 - really disappointed overall as there's definite potential there but seemingly a poor EFL Trophy display convinced Warne not to give him another chance. He could do with observing Ebou as sure that was the role he was earmarked for
Elliot Embleton 0 - his welcome interview looked more like an ISIS hostage video & he left shortly after with a season ending injury. Complete waste of money
Ryan Nyambe 8 - excellent signing. Looked very accomplished at RB & RCB and could definitely make the step up to Championship. Not a RWB though Warne. Sadly missed end of season with injury
Tyreece John-Jules 5.5 - winner at Port Vale & provided a pacey option off the bench but injury meant we saw very little of him. Looked a little lightweight at times when given more minutes

Winter:

Ebou Adams 10 - the difference between us going up & not going up
Dwight Gayle 7.5 - yes injury meant he played very little overall but his arrival gave the side fresh impetus. He was also extremely dangerous in the final 3rd. I wouldn't be averse to offering him another year
Corey Blackett-Taylor 6 - seemingly not trusted by Warne & murmurs he struggled to adapt to training standards. Best display was at Pompey but a shocking miss at Wycombe really shook his confidence
Max Bird* 8 - the edge in class we needed at times. Really sad to lose him now we've gone up, we need someone exactly like him

Extensions:
Nathaniel Mendez-Laing 9 - often our main game changer. Tired towards back end of season but still won us a lot of crucial points
Eiran Cashin 10 - absolute class at the back with Nelson
Jake Rooney  6.5 - started season well & looks a prospect. Do see him as a CB/DCM rather than a RB though

I'd be amazed if Warne ever signed another contract at Derby. Even within his comfort zone of League One, he's looked extremely stressed & whilst expectations will be tempered upon our return to the Championship, the fanbase will be expecting top half finishes after a season of consolidation. I dont think he'd relish that at all.

Warne has 2 years & 5 months left of his contract which gives both sides ample time to work out if this managerial team has the ability to ultimately progress the club to a playoff push by Year 3. I wouldn't even be thinking of discussing a contract this time next year if we finished in midtable (which for me is the absolute best case scenario for us next term). Contracts are usually given to protect clubs from others poaching but I dont see that ever being an issue with Warne & as thibgs stand, his current contract feels like a bit of a millstone with high potential of a big early payout because things have gone wrong.

Really conflicting emotions but the overriding one is Derby should never play third tier football ever again.

From an away day perspective, it was brilliant. I've never been to so many away grounds & travelled all over the country - great days out discovering the decent local boozers, chatting with mostly friendly home fans & of course, packing out every away end. Memories that will last for a long time - going absolutely mental when Osula scored after Accrington missed 2 penalties in 5 minutes, Waggy's hat-trick at Peterborough, sneaking into the home end at Leyton Orient, hungover to hell for a lunchtime KO away at Fleetwood, a fantastic match up away at Pompey in the worse weather imaginable contrasting with a beautiful summer day away at Carlisle last September. Craziest has to be the Tuesday night trip to Exeter - 550 mile round trip & a megabus that didn't turn up at 3am meaning I had to traipse round Derby City Centre in the dead of night in the rain until the first morning train back up North. Just as well we bloody won! All part of football's rich tapestry below the sanitised top level.

By contrast, I increasingly found the home games more & more depressing. I think it properly hit last September when we played Fleetwood - 80 away fans one side & 25,000 Derby fans the other. It just felt wrong & much though I admired the tiny sides of League One coming to mix it, the constant Cup Final feeling started to really jar.

Must echo the sentiments of a few here about the standard of football - surprisingly good overall & a lot of teams were able to play some good stuff. Physicality & gamemanship was no worse than you see in the division above & funnily enough, the worst team for it was Ipswich last season. Also enjoyed the 3pm Saturday routine & that is one thing I will miss when we inevitably get the Sky treatment next season as one of the big boys in the division above. It did however feel like 2 years completely out of the media spotlight & that saddened me ultimately - I want us to be relevant nationally & I want us to be the best version of ourselves. Thank you League One, it was a blast but we got out at just the right time.

David Clowes is the owner I always hoped we'd end up getting one day.

A lot of fans seem utterly fixated on the respective spending power of owners but unless you have materially more wealth than all of your competitors (extremely rare), the differentiator becomes how you manage your club. What culture are you looking for? Do you back your managers when things get tough? Do you have a long term plan? Quite apart from the extraordinary sacrifice David Clowes undertook in grossly overpaying for Derby County, everything since has been an exercise in how to run a club properly. He is an elite level owner & best of all, he cares - he's one of us.

Its no secret I'm a Warne-sceptic but I had to admire Clowes sticking by Warne during his decidedly dodgy autumn. Sitting outside the playoff spots as late as 24th November would have had many chairmen pulling the trigger but there was absolutely no sense Warne was even on his final warning - he was given time & Clowes was utterly vindicated by the subsequent promotion. That is the kind of responsible stewardship successful clubs need & that we have so often lacked in the past.

Tales of his humility elsewhere in this thread endear him even more, as does that open letter on the official site today. A successful businessman, a qualified pilot & now a successful football club owner - that is a bloody rare skillset & all credit to him that he lets his actions do the talking rather than resorting to the egocentric approach of many of his peers. I'm genuinely excited to see how he approaches the challenge of competing with clubs with bigger budgets & more reckless strategies - I strongly suspect this is where the backroom structure he brought in 2 years ago starts to bear fruit - quality recruitment, quality youth progression & a tight, respectful culture that gets the best out of everyone in the building. Progressive ownership is the only sensible game in that snakepit of a division & Clowes is smart enough to realise this.

Most of all, I hope he's enjoying it. I loved seeing him get the limelight on Saturday - the fans singing his name & him picking up the trophy - he deserves every accolade going. I hope David Clowes stays with us for many years, I'm certain he will steer us back to the Prem if he does.

Your stats are indeed correct & proves what we already knew about the respective supporter base of both clubs.

I wanted to expand the idea a little further to the crowd numbers in the third tier for any team matching the 'what on earth are they doing at that level' criteria, beginning with Manchester City who dropped into then Division 1 for 1998-99. It also makes a nice 25 year stint for comparison with the crowds Derby have averaged in our 2 year stint down here. Full table below which shows just how loyal this fanbase have been - only Sunderland & Man City pip us on average crowds and of course, City were only down at this level for one season, we've had two.

I think it also starkly illustrates the gap in support between Derby & our local competition. When the going got really tough, we showed up in far greater numbers - true measure of support, true measure of loyalty.

1 hour ago, BWFCNick said:

Hi all,

I just wanted to pop on and say congrats on a successful season and well deserved promotion. I know there's been some ill feeling between fans, mostly on the toxic social media platforms (not helped by a large number of idiots of which we at Bolton have f****** loads). I've scanned through your forum and a few others to regularly to check in on the thoughts of some of our promotion rivals over the season and as forums go, this one is generally positive and full of good and honest opinions. We have another fan called Wanderlust who often peruses the various forums and I feel he is a good fan for honest opinions too. I hope we can join you, I'm sure there's plenty of you hoping we stumble and end up stuck in L1 for at least another year, mainly for the fans who've been making stupid excuses for us not winning points this season. Reality is, you and Pompey were the most consistent teams over the season and thoroughly deserve your promotion, so well done and good luck in the championship next year. With your stadium and fanbase and what your fans have been through (trust me, I know what it feels like too), you deserve some good times now!

 

All the best gents (and ladies)

Thanks mate, very classy & to be fair, pretty standard from Bolton fans. Don't really recognise this recent suggestion from some that your fans are anymore entitled than any other big club. Really hoping you make it up through the playoffs - good support with lots of history & like us, had a horrible last few years. On the pitch, I also think you're by far the strongest side - Peterborough have a punchers chance in a one off game but lack depth behind that first XI & are prone to collapse, Barnsley have absolutely shot it & Oxford are tidy enough but a bit lightweight in this company.

Bet Championship are looking forward to Pompey, Derby & potentially Bolton back - probably more so than the Prem relegation teams coming down!! All the best 👍

A day i will treasure for the rest of my life. Train down from Leeds was absolutely teeming with West Yorkshire based Rams, plenty of beers & laughs on board. Then a few beers pre-match in the Alex before heading down to PP via that amazing new mural by the underpass courtesy of Popside Fanatics.

Atmosphere was every bit as electric as I'd expected & brilliant to get that early goal. What a way for Max to sign off his career here. Ok Carlisle played some neat stuff thereafter but was never seriously worried. As soon as we scored our second & we heard Bolton were losing, we knew we were up. Pitch invasion was absolute magic, scenes that will stay with me forever.

After the humiliations this club has suffered in recent years, we deserved today. But a massive thank you to Paul Warne, the players & the coaching staff...heroes the lot of you. Biggest thank you though goes to the man who deseevedly got his minutes applause...David Clowes, you took this club from the grip of extinction & restored its pride. You deserve the freedom of this city.

P.s. was brilliant seeing the club's tribute to B4...his legend will always live on. Hope you enjoyed looking down today pal 👍

Absolutely love you Derby County. My club 🖤

Derby 1 Carlisle 1

FRGS Collins

Today watching on RamsTV with my fellow LS12 Ram - couple of beers in hand to get through the tension & a damn sight more afterwards if we win & results go our way elsewhere

Next weekend in my usual spot top of East Stand exchanging pleasantries with Carlisle's best & brightest

Varsity 1 Derby 1

FRGS Collins

Good result, good performance & great to see us on the front foot from first minute. Got into them early & unsettled them, 2 early goals & never let them get back in...such a contrast to Wednesday's insipid effort. Credit to Warne for picking Thompson & having a 3 man midfield..it made a massive difference. Credit also to Sonny Bradley, I'd have happily never seen him in a Derby shirt every again but also do love a good comeback & today was exactly that. Unchanged for Cambridge please.

Had to shoot off for a gig in Manchester straight after the match & was quickly sat in a pub with a few Pompey & Bolton...thanked as many Pompey as I could find & enjoyed the Bolton reaction 🤣

Feels like we're on the cusp. Its the hope that hurts the most 😁

36 minutes ago, Rich84 said:

So, it's easy to make selective stats suit an argument, as others have pointed out in previous posts, but also, 9 games in and lost only 1, the same as Sheff Utd and Burnley who both got promoted at the end of the season, only 4 points above relegation - but had a game in hand, and the fact there were 13 other teams between them and the bottom 3 should be ignored? 

Reality is, Warne leaving Rotherham probably instigated a loss of form, and if it is OK to speculate Rosenior would have done equally as well as Warne at Derby then it's also reasonable to speculate that Warne would have had a decent season woth Rotherham if he'd not left for us.

A league table is not a selective stat & the irony of your post is you are perfectly happy to rely on those exact stats to come to an extrapolated conclusion on Warne maintaining those level of results based on nothing more than a hunch whilst ignoring his previous record at that level, which suggests that would've been highly unlikely.

I didn't mention Rosenior at any point in my initial post - this is nothing to do with him. I also didn't say anything about ignoring the position in the table, how many defeats they had or places between them & the bottom 3 - its all there to look at. I've said the sample size is too small - you've completely missed my point.

23 minutes ago, Comrade 86 said:

Apologies if I've misunderstood your point, but surely a league table encompassing 46 games is THE most accurate measure of success. What other metric is less misleading? it frustrates me that when teams finish above us it's always because they deserved to over the course of the season, but somehow this same rationale does not apply to us. IMO, if we do secure an autos slot, it's absolutely because we deserved it and by the same token, if we don't, then we clearly won't have. 

Totally agree, if we finish 2nd this season then we will have deserved to. My posts weren't aimed at his performance in charge of Derby this season, just the 9 game stint Warne had at Rotherham at the start of the 22/23 season & how a couple of posters were using that small sample to evidence him being successful in the Championship in preference to the two full 46 game seasons where he was in charge & they were relegated.

10 minutes ago, Tamworthram said:

It’s a relatively valid point but if you’re going to highlight how close they were to the relegation zone, in the interests of balance, you can’t ignore the fact that they were only one point off the play off places with a game in hand. 
 

As you say the reality is, same with LR, it was way too early in the season to form an opinion as to whether he/they were doing well or not.

 

As I replied to Foreveram, it is undeniably true they were also close to the top 6 but the point I was making was that the sample size is too small to be considered success/that Warne had definitively shown he could be successful in the Championship. As you quite rightly say, exactly the same applies to Liam Rosenior - you can't say that Derby being in 7th upon his departure meant he was successful here or indeed, likely to continue in that vein. Both were decent starts, nothing more & with particular respect to Warne, his previous 120 games at Championship level have to be the barometer by which his ability to manage at that level must be judged.

34 minutes ago, Crewton said:

You can only judge him on where he left them - 1 point outside the play-offs with a game in hand - which is fairer than counting his first relegation with Rotherham as entirely his fault.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I only really do this stuff because some of the criticisms of Warne are so obtuse, like the one I'm responding to. 

I'm not sure anyone has said his first relegation was entirely his fault. What responsibility do you apportion to Paul Jewell for 2007/08 out of interest?

I've said it was a decent start - what I object to is people using it as evidence that he was or was likely to be a success in the Championship that season as a result of that 9 game sample & using that as a counterweight to the other 120 games he managed at that level.

35 minutes ago, Foreveram said:

Also 4 points from third, with a game in hand.

Also true but the point was that the league table is misleading to qualify as a success. 

12 hours ago, MACKWORTHRAM said:

Personally wouldn't have Hourihane or Waghorn in the line up if I could help it. Hourihane runs like he's pulled both his hamstrings and offers absolutely nothing. Waghorn is just poor.

Surprising people wanting CBT on the bench cos he's had one bad game. Id start him.

Also find it bizarre anyone could possibly want NML up front. 

Id go with a 433. Hopefully Bird is fit. If he is I'd go:-

                 Wildsmith

Wilson, Nelson, Cashin, Sibley,

                    Adams,

              Bird, Thompson.             

Mendez-Laing, Collins, CBT

Smith for Bird if Bird isn't fit. We need energy in midfield.

Exactly how I'd go even if its a bit harsh on Korey Smith, who played well on Wednesday. We need to be on the front foot from minute 1 & Bird and Thompson would give us the platform to win the ball further up the pitch, play through the middle as well as out wide & offer a threat centrally to stretch their defence rather than the predictable doubling up on CBT and NML to neuter us.

Also agree CBT needs to start albeit with a arm round the shoulder - he looked affected by his miss at Wycombe & came off the pitch looking pretty disconsolate. This is where Warne earns his corn as a good man-manager - build him back up & tell him to run at their full backs & shoot early and often.

2 hours ago, G STAR RAM said:

How come they weren't in his final part season at Rotherham?

There seems to be an increasing narrative on here that Warne's last stint in the Championship was a success & somehow negates the 3 relegations he'd previously suffered at that level.

Below is the Championship table as at 17th September 2022 - 5 days before he left Rotherham for Derby. Rotherham were in 8th place & had won 3 out of 9 games - all at home. A decent start sure but reality is they were still only 4 points above the bottom 3 & very far from demonstrating they would have been able to survive that full season under Warne.

To show just how this table is misleading in predicting performance over a full season, Wigan were only one point behind Rotherham at that stage but were ultimately comfortably relegated (even if they hadn't been deducted 6 points). Same situation with Reading who sit in 3rd at this stage with 18 points but only accrued another 32 points on the pitch from the last 36 games. On the flip side, Coventry sit bottom here but ended up in the playoff final.

I would also ponder the question that if Rotherham had looked so strong at that point, why would he have considered dropping a division & not wait for an offer from a bigger fellow Championship club? That's what Steven Schumacher did this year swapping another small yo/yo club in Plymouth for a better resourced gig at Stoke.

Derby 1 East End Massive 1

FRGS Collins

55 minutes ago, S8TY said:

FWIW I thought Wycombe actually tried to play and were not as industrial as we've seen them under Ainsworth, played some neat football at times and could've won.

That miss from CBT was really quite poor, we now move on to the O's who whenever I've seen them this season have played some nice football so won't be easy, we need PP rocking on Saturday I still think 3 wins will get us over the line 

Yes, Wycombe played much better stuff than I'd expected...some of their passges of plays were quite neat & opened us up easily. Also didnt think they resorted much to dark arts, it was a fair contest throughout. Their lad up top (Kone) looked a handful, add a bit of end product & he'll be playing at a much higher level.

It would have been difficult for a neutral to work out who was the team in 2nd & who was the team in 15th. Particularly galling given the difference in rest since last game & what was on the line for us. Was very disappointed with our approach, the ball seemed to be a hot potato at times, sensed a lack of urgency (Wildsmith taking ages over restarts) & the decision making was poor. Corners for instance...I get their keeper had a howler on Sunday but did every corner taker have to try & score directly!? Washington also seemed very ponderous on the break, the only exception being his ball to CBT who could have taken a touch & should have scored.

The side looked disjointed with Washingtoj & Collins up top..the latter was anonymous throughout and think we'd have been better served putting in Thompson as an extra midfielder to dominate territory & inject some creativity. Credit to Adams & Korey Smith who played well all night & stopped us being overrun.

Onto Orient & now needing favours from others. If I see Sonny Bradley in that starting line up, Im going to go spare. Dont even think about it Warne.

20 hours ago, Charlie George said:

I go and watch Cleethorpes Town and Grimsby Borough regularly when Derby are away. Who is your nephew?

19 hours ago, Foreveram said:

Jack Richardson, he doesn’t play for them now.

I went to a few games to support him, the Clee ultras are a small but dedicated bunch 😂

His dad Mark played for Eastwood town and Derby reserves under Roy Mac and his uncle Paul played 1 game for Derby but had to retire and go part time when Derby took the insurance money because of illness.

Small world. One of my good pals is one of the Clee Ultras you describe - 350 mile round trip on a Tuesday night away at Ashington? He's there

Went with him to watch them couple of weeks back v Winterton (they won 2-0) & been to Linden Club a couple of times too - nice little ground. My pal can't stand Grimsby Borough so was obviously outraged on Easter Monday when they got clattered 3-0