duncanjwitham

Personally, I think they’re useful tools, just don’t read stuff into them that they’re not claiming to say. For example, xG is IMO a “better” indicator of who had the best chances in a game than raw shot counts, or shots on target or whatever. But it’s not some magic stat that says absolutely who should have won a game. The Cashin rating is interesting because quite a few people seem to be absolutely slating him based off getting done for pace a handful of times. That stat is saying that while that might have happened, the rest of the time he was probably as good as he always is. So then you can make a judgement about how you value overall performance levels vs a few specific issues/mistakes.

Honestly, I mostly posted it for arguments sake - I think whoscored ratings are pretty ropey at the best of times. The more "stuff" you do, the higher your rating. So if you get caught out of position all the time and end up making a load of last ditch recovery tackles, you get a high rating. If you mark a guy out of the game, to the extent he never gets the ball passed to him, you get nothing.

Oooh look, it's Eiran "Horror Show" Cashin, in the team of the week...

Looks like it's amortized in a straight-line to me... 🤔

Yet he's been completely wrong about multiple things related to us. At one stage he was confidently insisting that the new rules meant we would have to pay HMRC 100% of what we owed them, for example.

He was only on loan last year, the actual sale occurred in July 2023, which is well after the year-end date in these accounts. So I assume that accounts for the lack of disposal. And I can't see what else it could have been anyway, of the only guys we've paid real money for in the last few years (Lawrence, Jozwiak and Bielik), he was the only one left when we were sold.

Knight (and any other youth players that were in the books) would have been valued at £0, as we never paid anything to acquire him. That £3.3m would have been almost entirely the remainder of Bielik’s value.

I'm in the same boat - probably seen him play but don't really recall anything about him. He's another right-footed winger though (on top of the 4! we have already). It looks like he's been playing wide left for Charlton, but cutting in and shooting a lot. He's barely averaging 1 cross per game for them. So I'm not totally sure where he fits if we're still set on getting it wide and crossing it.

I was certainly discussing it at half time with the guys I sit with - maybe get Sibley or Thompson on for TJJ because he was barely contributing, and we needed an extra body in midfield. I can understand why you wouldn't make that change then though. What I don't understand is how they go from 2-0 down to 2-2 without us changing anything. In fact, it's another 7 minutes before we make our first sub, and that's basically a like-for-like change getting Sibley on for Elder. What they did was push Hugill up much higher than Bennett was playing, so he was almost a second striker. It wasn't a massive change of formation or anything, but it was enough to start causing us problems.

They don't even need to be running, just having a couple of guys stand in the middle of the pitch about 25 yards from our goal causes us problems. That's basically what Bradford did, and what Burton started doing after they made the double sub. This is the moment that NML loses the ball: You can see Bird and Hourihane are both starting to bomb forwards, and they've got 2 guys completely free between our midfield and backline causing havoc. Even if Seddon doesn't take the ball on himself, they're basically 3 on 2 from one simple loss of possession.

Per whoscored, Bird played 27 passes forward last night, 16 backwards...

The obvious one last night is completely failing to react to them making a double-sub and changing shape.

I think it's reasonable to ask why players who have shown they are capable of playing at this level (or even higher), don't look capable of it here and now. Obviously for someone like Bradley it's probably just his legs have gone (and they've probably gone more than we were expecting them to, if you know what I mean). But for the others you have to wonder about how they are being used, and whether they were signed for the right reasons. Joe Ward is probably a decent League One winger (as he showed at Peterborough), but he looks a dodgy-as-hell League One fullback. Callum Elder is probably a reasonable Championship fullback, but he's not a flying wingback who you can just plug into your "get it wide quickly and cross it" philosophy. And its the same with people like Max Bird. He's looked more than comfortable here in a possession-heavy Championship team, but much less effective in a "get it forward quickly" League One team. You can't just go around putting ability-labels on players without considering how they are being used. Get players doing what they're good at, they'll look better than they are. Get them doing stuff they're bad at, they'll look worse than they are.

And you've got to bear in mind, we could have easily still had the likes of Buchanan, Ebsosele, Ebiowei, Plange, Kellyman etc. The academy setup we have is more than capable of producing a bunch of League One squad-depth players, given time to recover.

The bold bit is the root of it really. He's been coached for years to play Guardiola-style football, which I think is exactly why Rosenior signed him. But Warne-style football is about as far away from that as it's possible to be. There may well be a player in there, but I suspect we won't ever see it here.

Putting aside any issues of whether he's good enough, I don't think Odurah is the kind of fullback Warne wants anyway. I reckon he was signed by Rosenior to do the kind of job he had Hayden Roberts doing (and what John Stones does for Man City, for example), where he drifts into central midfield to give extra passing options from the back. From what we've seen of him (which isn't much of course), he certainly doesn't look like the kind of fullback that's going to bomb up and down the touchline and whip crosses in.

I'm still far from convinced that anything has significantly changed. When teams have stood off us and we've been able to play out from the back, we've looked OK. When we've been significantly ahead in player-quality terms, we've mostly looked OK. When teams have sat deep against us, we've huffed and puffed, struggled to create chances, but quite often got away with it (because NML pulls a goal out of nowhere or something). When teams have pressed us aggressively, we've struggled. When team are bigger and stronger than us, we've struggled. When teams have been better than us player-quality wise, we've struggled. That's been pretty consistent over the whole season IMO. We've just had a run of games against opposition that played in ways that suited us. Last night they were bigger and stronger than us, pressed us aggressively, plus had 2 guys in and around our DM area, and we never got to grips with it. First half, when we tried to play through Fornah, they closed him down quickly and he couldn't deal with it. Then when they won the ball back, they always had spare men in that area to play to. Both Sibley and Thompson were pushed too far forward (and too wide at times) to help him out too. So we ended up resorting to long balls forward that we never really competed for. Second half, with Bird and Hourihane in there, we looked a (little) bit better. We managed to play out a bit more, and certainly got more balls and bodies into their final third, but never really managed to create many actual chances. At least in part because our final ball was dreadful.

Warne’s all about players he can trust. Fornah made 2 mistakes that cost us a goal in back-to-back games and he’s barely played since, so it looks very much like he’s stuck on the “does not trust” list. It will be interesting to see if Ward gets the same treatment after conceding 2 penalties in 2 games.

6-0 now. Have Forest put their first team out or something?

I actually think that can be ok, at least at Championship level anyway. Max Lowe is an obvious example - that Lampard season, he clearly wasn't ready for a full season at Championship level (he got absolutely torn apart by Leeds on opening day), and our only other option was Fozzy who was just back from one of his ACL injuries. So you don't want to be in the position where Fozzy re-injures himself and you're forced to play Lowe all season, even if he starts really struggling. So the idea of sending Lowe out on loan to play at a lower level is fine, but we should have gone and got a prem youngster on loan for a season, or a 30+ year old on a one year contract. What we shouldn't have done, is spent big money and wages on giving Scott Malone a 3 year contract, where he just acts as a blocker to Lowe. Especially since we also had Buchanan who was just on the verge of breaking through too.

There seems to be this attitude amongst certain posters that you shouldn't ever play youth players if they aren't already better than the first teamers they're coming in for. I saw another poster pretty much saying we should give up on Darren Robinson because his performances haven't been "stunning" so far. If that's the attitude you have to youth development, we'll never produce anyone. How many of the youngsters that have gone on to play for us (or other clubs) at championship level or higher, were better than the guys they were replacing on day one? Or even during season one? Maybe Will Hughes. Maybe Cashin (but only because we had nobody else in the admin season). Certainly the likes of Bird, Knight, Hendrick weren't when they first broke through. Bird, for example, really struggled with the physicality of senior football early on. But those experiences improved them and they all kicked on to be excellent players. If we'd taken that attitude, and never given these guys the minutes they needed, they would have never become the players they are. Nobody is saying youth development is easy, but if you put insane requirements on those youth players abilities before you even give them a chance, you're just making it harder for yourself. The other point is, while everybody loves a superstar wonderkid, that's not really the best way to judge an academy. If you get the next Bellingham, or Brennan Johnson, or whoever then great. What really matters is churning out solid players for the level you're at. Every academy player that is making your squad on a regular basis, is one less player you have to pay money to acquire (be that transfer fees/ signing on fees/whatever). You don't need to spend money on a Scott Malone if you have a Lee Buchanan or a Max Lowe, you don't need to spend money on a Jacob Butterfield if you have a Max Bird. You can then spend that money where it really matters, on a player or 2 that will really make a difference.

To be fair, I never meant the club is sitting around twiddling their thumbs - that was specifically in reference to another poster effectively saying the only way we ever get to the Prem is if a rich owner throws money at us. My comment was more of a "what else do you expect us to do, twiddle our thumbs while we wait for that?" I have no doubt that there is good work being done on the academy side of things, but I think the first team management are effectively working counter to that good work, and until the entire club is pulling in the same direction, it's mostly wasted effort. I really don't think you can count Bird, Knight and Sibley as youngsters when they've played 100+ games already. And Cashin had already established himself in the first team before Warne got here. Thompson and Rooney have only ever really been used as last ditch replacements when there's literally nobody else available. The thing that really winds me up, is that it's not even difficult opportunities that we're missing. Warne hasn't even had to go out of his way to give minutes to youngsters, there have been opportunities right there in front of him (3-0 up with unused subs, for example) that he hasn't taken. It's very clear from both what he does and what he says in interviews that he has no intention of really using the academy.

I refer you to my previous comments...

At the sake of repeating the massive post I made only a page or 2 ago... If you don't give chances to the lads that are ready to break through, then you're basically writing off that bunch of players. They won't break through if you don't give them chance to. And you're also sending the message out to potential academy recruits (and current academy lads who are being linked with moves away) that there's no point being a youth player at Derby, as they don't give youngsters a chance. We had a fantastic reputation for bringing players into the first team, to the extent that young players were picking us over premier league academies, and we're systematically shredding that reputation. So it really doesn't matter what Hale and co are actually doing to the academy, if the manager doesn't have the same vision.

I'm not saying that a 30k stadium gives us a divine right to be in the prem or anything, just that we have the capability and facilities to be one. So what do we have to do to make that happen? We can't just sit around twiddling our thumbs hoping a rich owner comes along, because what happens if one never does? The onus is on the club to do everything it can to make the most of the stuff that we can control. Academy-wise, we are in an excellent position - we're a one-club city, with only 2 other major clubs within any kind of distance, so we should be in a strong position to compete for the best youngsters across the whole East Midlands. That is a massive in-built advantage that we should be chasing, not binning off because the current management don't seem interested in anything beyond the next 5 minutes. If we can't compete with the rich clubs for for buying players, then we should be focussing on developing our own. You don't get to be "5-10 managers away from the prem" if your current manager isn't actually building anything. And beyond anything else, a strong academy system is an attractive feature to a potential rich owner. Who would you rather buy, a club with a squad full of 30 year olds who are all out of contract in the summer, or a team with a load of promising 18-23 year olds in the team, and a bunch more ready to come in if they move on.