TuffLuff

To be honest though mate I think we’ve all felt like that over one topic on this forum, the unfortunate truth is we’ve all been the person rounding up on someone else too. Although I think it’s got a little worse since the admin year because everyone was more active and living through every twist, I just think it’s part of forum life. You’ll write a throwaway post and it’ll be analysed within an inch of its life, you’ll write five long paragraphs explaining your view in a balanced way and no one will engage except one poster who still hasn’t got the point of what you’ve said. Again, it’s what it is. We are all over precious about what we say, I really try nowerdays to make my point on something and let it go. It might not help debate but it helps not having to explain something over and over. Also I think we sometimes just have to admit we were wrong sometimes. I’ve criticised Warne, Bird, Wilson and a whole load more things at different times this season but I’ve also had to admit on here they’ve all proved me wrong at some point too. We all have a right to an opinion but we also have to put our arms up sometimes too.

Oooo I sense a new summer saga!!!!

Radio Derby pointing out that some players have clauses in their contracts relating to promotion too. Barkhuizen was all but confirmed to be one, Hourihane thought not to be.

Yeah I get that, and I guess there’s things like he’s going to be breaking up the squad now etc. Like I say I’m unsure if it’s good or bad tbh, good in that he doesn’t feel it’s job done and he can achieve more here (let’s be honest that’s where Frank and Jody got things awfully wrong) or is it bad that he just doesn’t have that connection. I think it’s more likely the former really but still just hope he maybe gets that moment of appreciation at the right time.

Plenty of time yet!

I think the one thing that was maybe missing from Saturday was Warne and the staff having their moment with the fans. Thing is I can’t work out whether that’s a good or bad thing either! I think to me, and I don’t want to go too OTT because I get why, but I just found Warne’s interviews very flat and a bit like he’d separated himself away from it all. Whether the celebrations at the end just gave him the chance to keep away from it all I don’t know, but I hope in some way we as fans can show our appreciation to the management at some point.

Cardiff have no players out of contract in Adams position this summer and there are four players currently signed to his position. Looking at Adams’ age and everything else, was he loaned out to gain fitness or to put him in the shop window? Hope it all gets sorted quickly!

Ended flitting between pubs after the game on Saturday but just wanted to say how brilliant it was to be apart of the atmosphere. Five Lamps rammed, the dualling chants between Silk Mill and the Dolphin, The Exeter probably being the best in Derby and The Smithfield’s quite excellent beer range. All pubs full of happy Derby fans. Just wanted to make it to Bustler and Brunswick before the train but think it would have tipped me over the edge, but it sounded like Bustler had a fantastic night. You can say what you want about Derby, but not many cities have the amount of decent pubs in walking distance that we do. Also helped spread everyone out rather than having thousands in one spot. All the credit to the staff in all establishments I went to who got everyone served and kept their bar queues down too, not easy but should be appreciated.

Dom Dietrich made a good point some weeks ago about seeing the league outside of a Derby bubble. In that, it becomes very easy to catastrophise everything and put more pressure on situations than what’s needed, it’s fairs to say we’ve been guilty of that in recent seasons. Like now, we think Bolton could go for it on Saturday but realistically can they afford to do it over 90 minutes risking injury to players? If they need 2-3 goals they can’t see what’s happening in our game and try and manage from that perspective either. Weirdly Ferguson has put Evatt in a more awkward situation than if they tried to win last night in my opinion too.

To make a somewhat semi serious point though, the stupidity of all this is that on Sunday and yesterday Coventry deserved all the plaudits for the game they made of it at Wembley. Also Leeds vs Boro was another very good game of football last night and deserves credit (with a bit of damnation over both sides defending as well)! But what are the top of football discussions at the minute? Antony celebrations, VAR decisions, pep moaning of fixture congestion’s and Forest losing the plot. If you want to know what is wrong with the premier league, it’s that they all live in a microcosm where they think we should all care about all these little things that shouldn’t matter over actual games of football.

I know someone every few weeks will bring up the Moment of Truth podcast up, but I started listening to it again Saturday morning after only listening to the first couple episodes when Warne joined us, and it’s maybe a really good moment in time to listen to it because there’s plenty to be taken from it about Warne and our coaching staff.

Percy showing his arse

John-Jules was in and around a promotion winning Ipswich side last year. More players we have around who’ve been in these situations before the better. He’s unlikely to play but can’t really see a negative as to having him around the place for a few weeks.

Just had a thought with this, but I presume the 1000 games includes the ‘red button’ midweek games for the championship? Id presume for UK watchers, if we were in League 1 we might still be able to watch on RamsTV in the week, but if we got promoted then Sky have the rights to those games? Can’t remember if this was the case a couple of seasons back or whether you could choose between sky and RamsTV, but yeah I don’t think you’ll see too many changes to what there is now tbh.

One thing I thought on Saturday, but when you have Bradley in you essentially have a leaders with experience in every part of your spine when you consider Smith and Collins. It makes a huge difference especially when NML is your team captain.

Some fans will always find it impossible to enjoy the moment, im annoyed about last night but you’ve got to embrace the ups and downs because it’ll be gone in a couple of weeks. As well unfortunately the hangover of Mel’s tenure still has its implications. We got into a decent position and everyone gets twitchy that it’ll be bottled because it’s not perfect. I find it quite funny that I see people whinging about Warne in a league we haven’t even got to. What makes you think about that and then think it’s worth posting on here or Twitter or whatever?

Sorry would usually agree, but that performance with three games to go…they deserve a bit of a kicking because there’s no excuses. It’s not about the result, it’s the performance.

I’m usually one trying to be rational about these things, but that performance at this time of the season bordered disgusting for me. Lazy passing, headless running, poor touches…and that was just Kane Wilson who gave one of the worst performances I’ve seen in a derby shirt this season. Don’t like singling out players for criticism, rarely do it, but for all his ‘Jack the lad’ persona not enough quality shines through when it matters. Within the context of the season and where we are, it was shockingly bad. I could have wax lyrical for hours about how good Derby were last week and every inch of praise was deserved. They lost all that goodwill tonight. I’ve got very little more I can say, it’s not that they haven’t won but the attitude/performance for where we are in the season was so below par.

Whilst it’s not worth going back and listening to a whole day worth of audio, it was a very impressive stint from Radio Derby and I really enjoyed it as something different. Lots of interesting bits with Eric Steele with the kit man etc, but also a pretty interesting kind of round table with Colin Gibson, Tom Loakes and Ed Dawes about the media side of things (including having to hide Marriott in the back of Gibbo’s car when he signed). Owen Bradley spoke well about RamsTV, a few interviews on the academy etc etc. It was just good radio tbh, and I hope people didn’t purposefully miss out because they talked themselves into thinking it was a distraction or whatever they were whinging about beforehand. I do find it quite funny that there were 9 pages on here before Monday and just after a page since it was broadcast. FWIW, the most important thing to come out of it is that it’s sured up the club’s relationship with Radio Derby. I might be wrong but I did sense it was all quite frosty under Mel’s tenure and there has probably been a bit of hangover in the 2-3 years since. I’m sure it’s not that any bridge mending was needed, but things like Warne doing a couple of interviews with presenters away from Dom and Ed are good because it brings a different perspective to Warne. Hopefully it means there will be more stuff like this was in the future. Great job by everyone involved!

Think this is a good point by Punjabi rams. It’s not necessarily the point we should be happy about it’s the level of confidence we played with. We looked like a promotion side against the best side in the league. We kept our shape and had a focus and a bit of swagger without it looking like we were playing above ourselves. We were willing ourselves to get a result. Although we’ve been consistent I don’t think we’ve looked assured, and that’s why we’ve had our Warne out/in debates and so much fluff surrounding the club this season. Last night was a step up for me, we looked a top side and I dare say even under Mac1 we didn’t look like ‘top 2’. There’s still a long way to go, and it’s not all wrapped up, but it’s been a long while since I could sense that confidence from a derby side on the pitch. That’s not me saying promotion is secured or anything like that, I just thought last night was a big step forward in the right direction performance wise.

Firstly, what an enjoyable game of football. Was a pleasure to see Derby as a part of that and matched a very good team at the top. Pompey will win this league, we can take confidence from our performance tonight into the last four matches. My only gripe, with my derby bias, is that I felt they got a few favourable decisions in that 10-15 minutes before they scored which helped peg us back into our own half and made us get deeper and deeper. But also, we didn’t help ourselves and seemed less and less comfortable. You didn’t think with 30 mins to go we could defend like we were and hold out because we were loosing shape too often and not getting the ball into their half for any length of time. Aside that, I can’t tell you one player who I thought played poorly and Warne got his tactics spot on. I can’t put it simpler. I’ve said a few times, one thing Warne has done really well this season is that every player has contributed to a key moment this season. Tonight was Joe Ward’s turn, he’s a big game player and he showed it tonight. Still think Blackett-Taylor may yet still get his before the season is out. Thought it was Adams best game, another who thrives to the occasion. Smith is maybe our most underrated player. Finally, four great goals. I don’t think we can analyse the ones we conceaded too much and neither can pompey with ours. Both sides have a bit of a weakness at full back and both sides were able to take advantage.

You can question, as a head of a supporters group, why you’ve been invited to a LIV-Pro event by him in the first place and whether it’s appropriate to accept that offer. Presumably this is the same LIV-Pro event where Kirchner was stepped by Dan Roan for not yet producing the funds for the takeover?

What I think its a different debate for a different day, but I think many legitimised Kirchner for their own means rather than the long term health of DCFC, whether out of desperation or incompetency. I don’t think it’s a case of going OTT against anyone involved, but there’s probably lessons to be learnt that there is maybe a bit more due diligence needed over someone who has no paper trail and says he made his money through crypto. That’s the issue with the article, it’s alright saying ‘look at this wrongun’ and MM or Preston saying ‘we knew he was a wrongun’ but they didn’t raise any concerns at a time when they could. Yes there is an issue of football clubs that are going into the wrong persons hands, but part of that is those that help legitimise those people and push them through in the first place. Saying they didn’t know absolves the EFL, Cook, Stretford, Quantama and a whole lot of others who caused a lot more mess for Derby County.

I don’t think it’s about taking the blame because that indicates that someone wasn’t working with good intentions, and I think at that point almost everyone was. It wasn’t one person/organisations fault what was happening with Kirchner, but you have to accept some responsibility for how it went wrong. That’s what becomes apparent to me when reading that article, they have spoken to a lot of people and none seemingly took any responsibility, the writers didnt question them on it and they didn’t cotton on to the idea that they all played a part in getting Kirchner so far down the line. The people don’t take responsibility and the writers don’t make them take responsibility when it’s obvious when reading that they should. My point about Preston isn’t that they did anything wrong particularly, but more that its similar to what is being said by @therealhantsram about MM, it’s ok for people to say they smelt a rat with Kirchner but at the time they didn’t raise any alarm bells with the EFL. It should be in Preston’s interest as much as Morris’ interest to declare to the EFL that they had doubts over Kirchner’s suitability. A Preston source calls Kirchner a tyre kicker in the article, well again they contributed to that tyre kicking when it came to Derby County! The article again, in my opinion, kinda shows an issue that helped Kirchner get further down the line but doesn’t delve further into the significance of it. Or both the Preston source and MM’s source are saving face which should be rebutted in print, because they were both willing to try and sell to him! The article brings up a lot of issues but doesn’t give them any significance essentially.