BondJovi

29 minutes ago, Rev said:

Maybe, just maybe, he stands at the shoulder of those he's recruited, those he's bought in from the academy, and those players he's inherited from Cocu?

In short, maybe he's stands with his team, rather than our owner.

 

He has played alongside most of these players at some point in his career.

As a player I don't believe he was someone who ever wanted to let his teammates down.  Right now that is the attitude we need. 

I don't believe he remotely did himself justice as a player last season, not too much better at management. But he strikes me now as man who wants to put that right. He is in the trenches with his players, seems to me they will fight for each other. They sure as hell have to because the man at the top has dropped them in the crap and ran.

Personally, I have decided that last season was not a true reflection of the managers, nor most of the players. They all could have done better. Whilst Mel slowly pulled the plug and checked out, Cocu and now Rooney have represented the club with honour and class. Rooney’s interview pre Stoke was a real sign of anger, care and dignity.

39 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

Are the 'Cocu boys' still giving it large? It's almost like they weren't Derby fans but Cocu fans. ?

Oh you are funny. Those wheels never came off your goal posts.

Bored of it now. 

11 minutes ago, Foreveram said:

You are talking statistics again where I am talking about being at the game, I said ONE of the worst performances not necessarily in terms of the score line. We were actually above Brentford when we played and it was the first game after the 3-0 embarrassing   defeat at forest where we played the kids against our local rivals so that we would be fully prepared for Brentford. We were completely overrun in the first half with a completely isolated Buchanan who was replaced at half time. You say I am overreacting but with better finishing we would have been 8 nil down at half time. All this is from memory but as you like to look at it from a statistical point of view I looked it up, they had 22 shots we didn’t have a shot on target and they were sat in their deckchairs for the second half 

Similar stats to West Brom only on Tuesday...

56 minutes ago, Bris Vegas said:

Worst performances in over 50 years? I'm sorry but talk about overreacting.

We lost 3-0 at a team who won promotion and is now midtable Premier League and it was still in August where we were still playing catch up after an awful pre-season schedule.

The 3-0 defeat at Brentford wasn't even in the top five worst performances of the past year.

The 3-0 defeat at Preston and 4-0 at Cardiff at the back end of last season was worse for starters.

 

 

 

I know we somehow won at Wycombe last season, but that ranks as one of the worst professional games I have witnessed. Last minute win should be joy and relief that was embarrassment.

Roos is a genius. Take the point and never speak of this match again.

2 minutes ago, CBRammette said:

Awful isnt it

Getting flashbacks to the Wycombe game last season...

1 minute ago, RoyMac5 said:

Why not, it's not like Cocu spent the money on a striker!

He wanted to! Might have needed to save that money to try again in January. 

You seriously still believe he chose not to sign a striker?

My view is that Cocu didn't have to pick Rooney, but we would have to pay a larger percentage of his wage if he wasn't playing. 32Red would not put money in for their number to be sat on the bench! I believe we financially had to play him, couldn't afford otherwise. 

3 hours ago, Crewton said:

And yet Rooney is statistically doing better than Cocu was at the start of last season, despite having to deal with even more political/financial crap than Cocu ever had to and operating under even tighter restrictions. And which young players were actually playing well when Cocu left? 

I swear that the idea that another manager would be doing noticeably better is becoming a meme based on very little credible analysis. Rooney currently has a better ppg record than Hughton and Pearson, and Paul Cook is struggling at Ipswich. It's just baseless imo. 

The next three fixtures are tough. Would be perfectly possible to be on 9 games 6 points. 

The best 11 available to Rooney is better than what we had at this point last season. None of the signings we made, maybe except Marshall, had a pre season with us. Lawrence, Waghorn weren't fit to play until game 5 onwards.

Cocu also had to deal with the fact that his job was under immense pressure fairly early on, whether deliberate or not, Rooney and the stories surrounding him were undermining Cocu. 

As for the youngsters last season, Bird found it tough the whole time. Sibley was injured after game 3 and never got another proper go. Buchanan and Knight were the best two players under Cocu. Their form dropped as the season went on. Knight was overplayed.

Rooney is having to deal with a lot. But right now, he has one of the safest jobs in football. The only way he goes is if he walks. The only pressure on him, is from himself.

I see a lot of similarities to last season's start. We are capable of playing good football. But we are also capable of pointing a loaded gun at our feet all too frequently. We lack a goalscorer that would make all the difference.

The main problem last season was not the manager. Just like it isn't now. For 3 seasons we haven't been in a situation which would allow a manager to flourish.

1 minute ago, Ramarena said:

Your lad makes an interesting choice. I really liked johnson exactly the sort of player you need in this division, sadly he was very much overpriced.

He also didn’t pass the fans test, they didn’t approve of his technical limitations despite his other valuable attributes so he was dismissed as just being poo!

He was a vital cog in two spells. The unbeaten run under Mac2. And the late form that got us to Wembley under Lampard.

He also had a knack of making things happen. Not always for the best though.

10 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

You're getting career bests from several of our squad! ?

You were the one saying Baldock is a 20 goal a season striker!

1 hour ago, RoyMac5 said:

Who do you think will score goals from that team last night out of interest?

This was my argument last season. This team lacks goals. And our strongest 11 this season is better than last season. We have less depth now, especially compared to January. But we don't help ourselves. Playing Sibley wide is a waste. As good as it is having Morrison drop deep to start things, we need him further forward.

We need career bests from several players to stand a chance. 

7 hours ago, Ramarena said:

The sad thing is we can play some nice stuff and we are a more technical team than Brum…………sadly we are no where near as effective.

I think the last two matches have really shown our problems. We are basically just trying a new version of what we tried at the start of last season. At times it looks good but you never feel there is someone who will get the goals and ultimately we undo our own work. The last two matches could have been lifted straight from this time last season and our strongest 11 now is better. 

Leaving the full back areas exposed with two veteran cbs is asking for trouble.

7 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

You don't think the players we had made a difference to how he played? 

Team in played in v Blackburn March 2020.

Hamer, Bogle, Wisdom, Clarke, Forsyth, Bird,Shinnie, Waghorn, Sibley, Knight, Martin.

Effectively a free role behind Martin.

1 minute ago, MACKWORTHRAM said:

The ref didn't give us much admittedly.

But the worst decision he made all night was when Morrison lost the ball, handballed it to stop the bloke running through and the ref gave a free kick to us.

Morrison had already been booked and it was about one of the most obvious yellow cards you'll see. 

So we were lucky he was incompetent then too.

 

Agreed. Did us a favour(maybe) not sending Lawrence off also. Either the kick out or elbow...

3 minutes ago, San Fran Van Rams said:

Wrist slashers out in full force again.

Their two goals came from luck. The first a poor back pass, well saved by Roos who then saved the second but it fell to Hogan. The second, a lucky ricochet with a good finish.

We looked the more threatening going forward. Lawrence had two good attempts saved, which I actually think he should have done better with. The first especially as that was a neat passage of play with a poor finish at the end. 

Brum were hard to break down. But so were we. 

Special shout out to the ref who managed to give us 16+ free kicks and still went easy on Brum. Joke officiating again, least it didn't cost us a goal this time.

Maybe it is karma for the 4-0 last season when everything that could, went our way.

This is the third season running we have been operating under some form of restriction. I think our team now is much better than the team we were left with at the end of this window last season. However this is also a short term fix and we again will have a lot to do next summer. 

Whilst I think the team is stronger, it also contains a lot of players who haven't played a full season in a while, when the fixtures pile up this could get very tough. We really need to be picking up as much as we can whilst there is still a freshness.

What I wonder is who is lying here? Rooney expected to be able to sign more players. That didn't happen. Did he know? Was he fed false info? Likewise Cocu in this window last season fully expected a striker, he kept saying hopefully in the next few days. We finished the day with CKR, clearly not what the manager was hoping for.

I said last season I don't feel it can be a fair reflection of either manager. Both could have done better, but I think we should appreciate the mess this is. We have to believe in the players and Rooney and ride the storm.

46 minutes ago, The Scarlet Pimpernel said:

Agree. Wayne has said himself that at the moment we are not managing to play in the second half as we do in the first. He says more bravery needed. Our first half's have been very good. If they can get us playing just a little better in the second half we will be a pretty decent match for most teams which in my opinion is pretty good going from the management team. 

I find this a very familiar pattern from the start of last season. After the Norwich game, up to Bournemouth, we were generally the better team in each first half, in some cases by some way. The comments at the time were about being braver, scoring the second goal. 

This season, we have a better team(though thin), we have had a full pre season to train with this set of players. There are things to be positive about and you can see what Rooney wants the team to do. How good that can be, not even considering it until at least 10 games in.

31 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

We've actually got one, Baldock scored 24 in 2013/14. It's a case of looking for someone who has/had potential and recreating the scenarios for them to score.

8 years ago in League one.

That is a lot of hope there!

41 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

We've got a recruitment team who are more than hindered by the fact that we can't offer a contract for more than a year (depending, maybe only 6 months) and a wage limit that even lower leagues can beat. How do you convince experienced/dependable players to sign for us even if identified by recruitment?!

We were only ever realistically going to be able to sign "mates" of our management team. 

For most of these players signed this season, this is one last hurrah. But equally a real good chance to play a lot of matches. Maybe they hope when the take over happens their contract suddenly goes up. Maybe they just want to play.

We have so far got a team that is better equipped than this time last season. What did us over last season early on was not taking the chances when on top and then poor mistakes. Davies and Jagielka is an excellent pairing for most of what we may face in this league.

My main concern now is that a lot of these players haven't played a full season in a while. Yet I don't see the need for 8 new faces. 4 maybe. Too many bodies and that may damage the team spirit that is starting to show.

3 minutes ago, cosmic said:

Ridiculous thread.

Plenty of them right now!

14 hours ago, RoyMac5 said:

Not quite on topic, but watching Sheff U v Brum and before that Charlton v Wendies.

It made me realise how small our team is and main point how we have no player at the peak of their game. Or do we?

This is my main concern with our squad and those on trial. It is either players starting out, or those approaching the end. 

Lawrence and potentially Morrison are the ones you would expect to be at their peak. But we are not in a position to do otherwise.

1 minute ago, Tombo said:

I'm pretty sure David has quite a detailed writeup which will go through the meeting in full and disclose everything that can be disclosed.

Rather than release their own minutes, in which obvious boardroom bias would dominate, the club is allowing him to convey to the fans his fair judgements and observations from the evening, in as much detail as he possibly can.

I suspect for his own benefit and for the benefit of this forum, he has requested that anything from that writeup that violates the NDA is removed before it goes public. This essentially means that all of his notes and recollections are in there in full gory detail, and only the things that are legally required to be removed will be omitted.

I shouldn't have to tell you this, but that is a good thing. Once again, there's so many valid things you can have a pop at Mel for but this isn't one of them

I think you can have pop at Mel for this because it is not taking leadership. It is putting a select group of fans in a difficult situation.

What we hear will be the information that should have come from Mel/the club directly to the fans. Whatever way, it will be what they want us to hear, so why make it so complicated. Just comes across as amateurish. Whilst the idea might be noble,the execution...

Personally feel the club should have at least put something out to all that if nothing else, acknowledges fan concerns. Communication has been awful.

However, they have chosen this way. For this forum @David the rep. Stop acting like spoilt kids and let the man give his report when he is ready. Doing something in good faith and being abused for it. Sad reflection of modern behaviour.

1 hour ago, LeedsCityRam said:

He's 6' 1" - possibly slightly below average height for Championship CB but not noticeably so. From today's evidence he was brave in aerial battles, decent spring on him, well positioned & got good distance on his headers...all more important than pure height. 

He also looks quite a physical lad & I'd argue strength is as important to deal with the units that play up top in the Championship. His comfort on the ball also suits what looks to be our new style. Whilst we urgently need Jagielka & Davies through the door, I'd really like Cashin to start plenty of games this season. Think he could mature into a good CB at our level especially with one of those two alongside him.

Can't quite believe the legend of Buxton hasn't made it into this discussion. 1.8?