duncanjwitham

15 minutes ago, LeedsCityRam said:

That doesn't really come across as a serious pathway for what are clearly some talented players & as you rightly say, investment this season could accelerate their development in time for next summer.

And it’s not just those guys, it’s a selling point for other academy players that we might try and recruit.  I’m sure I’ve seen things from the likes of Plange and Ebiowei, saying that the clear path to the first team was a big reason they chose us over other higher profile clubs.

3 minutes ago, Tamworthram said:

That’s a very valid and fair response. I guess, where I was coming from is based on my observations from earlier games (as I wasn’t there last night) when players have, on occasion but far to often, got some of the basics wrong which I’m not sure they can put down to playing a position/style that doesn’t suit them.

Not remotely scientific but I would put the blame at something like 80% Warne and the coaching staff, 20% the players. 

I suspect the playing out of position thing has the effect of magnifying any other mistakes. If a player is clearly struggling to do his job, and he makes a few sloppy mistakes on top of that, it's going to look a lot worse than a few sloppy mistakes in an other-wise accomplished performance, because you've already got your finger pointed in his direction.

I do think the tactical setup isn't helping either.  If you look at Hourihane's mistake for their second, in the highlights posted previously, he picks the ball up, and there's basically no other Derby player in shot for the entire duration he holds it, and he ends up trying to thread a difficult pass that he fails to make.  If he's got a simple pass on there, we probably don't concede that goal.

Their first goal, both Smith and Hourihane appear to have got caught up field, and struggle to get back quickly enough to influence the game.  But if you set up with a pair of 30+ year olds in midfield and have them both constantly getting forwards and chasing back, that sort of stuff is going to happen at times.

1 minute ago, Tamworthram said:

Fair point about substituting players that aren’t performing (although there is of course a limit to how many substitutions can be made) but does that mean you finally concede that players may actually be partially responsible? No, I thought not. “I’m playing crap but it’s not my fault, you shouldn’t have picked me or you should have replaced me”.

The biggest issue is that a lot of the players we have are just not capable of doing the job that Warne wants them doing, they were mostly signed to do different jobs in a completely different setup.  Hourihane is not a mobile midfield enforcer, Sibley and Barkhuizen are not flying wingers that can cross, Collins is not a big physical target-man that you can play off, Bird and Smith are not a box-to-box midfielders etc etc etc.  A fair few of the players we've signed this summer seem to fall into this category too, which is even more worrying.

If we keep setting up in ways that require Sibley to hit the byline and cross, or Hourihane to dominate midfield on his own, or Smith to make runs into the box to support the striker etc, then both the team are going to struggle and the players themselves are going to look bad.  Those players are never going to be able to do those things.

So there are 3 options - we replace most of the squad with different players, the manager has a change of heart and completely changes tack, or we get a new manager.  I don't see anything improving until one of those things happens.

28 minutes ago, alram said:

its the inconsistency, when it looks like hes lost the plot we pull out a timely win and when it looks like hes cracked it, we perform terribly leaving us in this no-mans zone of achieving the bare minimum we should.

I actually think we're incredibly consistent - there are certain types of games we do well in, and certain types of games we do badly in.  There's obviously been a bit of up and down with form etc - the good run last season vs the slow start this season - but by and large, you can tell how well we're going to do in a given game by how the opposition set up against us.

7 minutes ago, DerbysLane said:

Whilst most posters have focused on b4's positivity, he could at times develop a pathological dislike to certain players.

Whenever Stephen Warnock appears on the TV or radio I'm reminded of b4 because he was one such player.  Being sent off in an FA cup game was an unforgivable offence.  Chris Baird was another, but I can't remember if there was a trigger incident.  Nick Blackman has already been mentioned by other posters.

Is it possible to name an 11 of b4 dislikes?  I guess Eric Steele could be in goal.

Pretty sure you'll find its spelled "Chris Bird" 😉

8 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

Were we lucky in all 3 of these games? Genuine question.

The way I see it, we're quite effective when teams come at us, try to play a bit etc.  But we look clueless when teams set out to stop us playing and nick something.  If teams are just sitting in a low block, or maybe sitting someone on our DM to stop us playing out, we have no game-plan at all, we just keep lumping crosses into a brick wall.

Barnsley, Exeter and Northampton all, to varying degrees, tried to play against us and we picked them off.  Games like Shrewsbury, Stevenage etc, where they've set out to stop us, we've struggled.  From what Radio Derby were saying last night, it sounds like it started like a fairly open game (e.g. our first goal), but as the game went on and Crewe got the lead, Crewe sat deeper and deeper and just soaked everything up, and that's why our second half was so much worse than the first.

Those open games let our better players shine through, they get more time on the ball, more space to actually play. And the stuff that Warne wants us to doing actually has an effect.  We can press high and win it back when they play out from the back.  We can get it wide quickly and get crosses in because the game is more stretched, so more room to cross, more likely to be players running free in the box etc.  In those tight games, the stuff we're setting out to do is completely ineffective, because teams don't even try to play into our press, and they double up on our wingers, and pack their own box etc.  So our better players get stifled and the managers tactics don't do anything to actually effect the game either.

8 minutes ago, DerbyAleMan said:

To be fair to Warne he mentioned this in his radio Derby interview, and said we should not have kept hitting the ball in the area time and time again, we should have been more patient and try to work out better openings, the players chose to do this. 

He also talks repeatedly about wanting to get it forward quickly.  It’s no wonder the players are struggling to implement what he wants.

If you set out to make “get it wide and cross it” your only strategy to win game, then start 2 wingers who aren’t remotely “hit the byline and cross it” types, and have Collins as the only guy getting in the box, you aren’t going to win many games. That’s not really the players fault.

1 minute ago, DavesaRam said:

If, as it sounds on RD and from the comments on here it was tactics. We reverted to rattling it down the wings and put 15,000 crosses in to Crewe defenders.

How did we get away with playing proper football for the previous 2 matches? Was Warne off sick or something?

If the other team stand off us, we pass it around a bit.  I suspect almost against Warne’s instructions - he’s moaned about us playing through the middle too much multiple times after these kinds of performances.  If the other team set out to stop us playing through the middle, we just revert to get it wide and lump it in, and look terrible doing it.

I haven’t seen the game tonight, so I don’t if that applies here, but it’s certainly been the general pattern while Warne has been in charge.

That really is pathetic.  It would be more surprising if Morris didn't have connections with the club still - he was the owner here for 5(?) years until very recently, and even beyond that he's a fairly prominent businessman in the city where the club is based.  If you look hard enough, you'll find all sorts of links.  And if the guy that Dom Dietrich named is the root of it all, then the barrier for "having connections" he's using is incredibly low - the club used an independent company for something, that Morris also used at one point? Really?

32 minutes ago, Caerphilly Ram said:

 

"he has no contract with #DCFC & no involvement with Morris" - this certainly has all the hallmarks of a Kieran Maguire story...

11 minutes ago, MackworthRamIsGod said:

And what about MM still having boots on the ground?

What about it? You can't fire every single employee that ever worked under Morris and you can't assume that every one them is some kind of secret agent/mole/informer.  

8 minutes ago, MackworthRamIsGod said:

I also think Mike Ashley will eventually take over, promotion dependent.

Mike Ashley's entire shtick is buying stricken businesses on the cheap. Unless Clowes is going to hand the club over for massively less than what he paid for it (which makes no sense at all), it's very unlikely Mike Ashley ends up here any time soon.  Either someone comes along and pays Clowes a decent sum for the club (i.e. break-even for Clowes at least), or someone convinces Clowes that they are willing to put in significant investment into the club.  Those are the 2 ways that Clowes sells the club IMO, and Ashley is in neither of those camps

56 minutes ago, MackworthRamIsGod said:

I've long suspected and still do, despite what Clowes said, that MM is still lurking around somewhere.

There is just no way SP keeps his job imo if that wasn't the case.

With the vitriol pointing in SPs direction, a quick win for DC would be to thank him for his time and wish him well..but he chose to keep him to the amazement of fans.

Maybe we, as a club, owe MM money and he is putely keeping tabs on it.

Or the simple truth, that doesn't involve conspiracy theories and MM secretly pulling strings (from his hidden bunker in a hollowed out volcano, no doubt) is that Stephen Pearce is very experienced in both football finances in general and how we run financially as a club, and Clowes sees it as being beneficial to have that knowledge around (presumably being very inexperienced in football finances himself). 

The most likely scenario is that Clowes kept him around as we came out of admin, because we needed to move very quickly to get stuff back up and running, and didn't want things being delayed while we replaced him.  And he's seen enough of him working to keep him around beyond any sort of transition period.

1 hour ago, Gaspode said:

Dreadful news - it wasn't until I saw the photographs that I realised he was the chap that used to sometimes chat to us before the game on his way up to his seat - I only wish I'd known at the time.....

Thoughts with his family, friends, and everyone on here that was touched by his infectious love for our club - RIP Daniel

Same here. He’s been sitting near me for years, having the odd chat as we passed on the stairs etc, and I never realised who he was until I saw the photos.  Well **** ☹️.

I reckon we rename the main forum in his honour - The B4 Derby County Forum or something.  It’s not going to be quite the same without him.

Once a Ram, always a Ram 🐑.

4 minutes ago, Srg said:

that’s an own goal… but can anyone explain what the actual Sonny Bradley is supposedly doing there?! Dear god. 

You could understand him getting done for pace occasionally, and he's clearly not great on the ball or anything, but he's not even doing well what he's supposed to be good at.  Misjudging a header there, and getting outmuscled at the weekend.  He's meant to be big, strong and dominant, but he's nothing like it.

8 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

Brown and Collins, who plays where?

As far as I know Fapetu is a central midfielder, so that either makes it some sort of 442-diamond, with Sibley in behind a front 2, or 451 with Sibley and Brown stuck out wide.  Either way, I’m not sure why we’re starting Collins with literally no wide players in the team 🤷‍♂️

3 minutes ago, The Last Post said:

Memory can play tricks, This is how I read it, LR was offered a job on the coaching staff but he turned it down, Then DC let him go with a "duty of care" for him.

Happy to be corrected 😊

I think the "duty of care" comment was more to do with removing him as manager. Clowes didn't want a manager having to face the wrath of an angry fanbase, if results weren't up to scratch when the managed was clearly inexperienced at the level he was being asked to perform at...

22 minutes ago, Mostyn6 said:

IN the current situation, I'm thinking the reason Warne is still manager is Derby are well-placed in the league. 5 points off a play off place and 8 points off 2nd place. With 96 points to play for.

Whilst the football is not brilliant, we are still winning games (won 6, lost 5). 

3 wins in our last 13 home league games, if my maths is right. No matter what the league table says right now, that's not a sustainable platform to build a promotion challenge on.

23 minutes ago, Mostyn6 said:

Many experts would state that winning ugly, and when not playing well is a positive thing, and gives room for improvement.

The proviso of that "good teams find ways to win when they play badly" argument, is that good teams play well and win the rest of the time, and then find ways to get it done when they don't.  Playing badly all the time, but managing to win some of them, does not make you a good team.

1 minute ago, Jayram said:

I’m not precious about us being in this league for another couple of seasons. I could live with that if the football was decent and progressive, but it isn’t. It’s absolutely awful, the same thing week in week out. I want to be entertained, to watch creative exciting football, but instead I have to endure Warne’s repetitive hoofball at places like Stevenage where I spent my hard earned yet again to watch the same failings. The mate I was there with was at Shrewsbury the week before watching the same thing again. He’s going through a divorce and money is tight but he goes to matches for a bit of a break from the strain of it all. My dad has terminal cancer and like my friend watching the Rams is a break from the strain of that. This is the point I think some of Warne’s adherents fail to see; football is meant to be entertaining, but Warne’s football philosophy is sucking the life out of the club and turning a lot of Rams fans away. In an era where the cost of living dictates what people spend their money on, the club have to be careful that the unconditional backing of Warne doesn’t cost them revenue that will be badly needed at this level of football going forward. 

Agreed, but on top of that, you want to see signs that we're building something.  If we'd given decent minutes to the likes of Thompson, Robinson, Brown, Rooney even, and signed a few more players like Fornah and Wilson, you'd be willing to tolerate a season or 2 extra in League One.  Then you go up with those guys all hitting the 20-25 year old range, they should mostly be good enough to step up,  and you don't need a massive rebuild.   

38 minutes ago, IlsonDerby said:

The point was more he isn’t some absolute chancer he’s a serious business man. He’ll know things we don’t because he’s in different circles to us. It’s why most clubs seem to roughly know the ball park budgets for other teams. That’s why I believe him when he says our budget is good. 
 

The other part about the ‘proof’ is more for mick who is seemingly questioning the size of our  budget. 
 

They know because it's published in every club's annual accounts.  Admittedly it's total staff costs for the entire club (including all employees etc), but player wages will dominate that anyway.  Presumably we'll find out what our wage bill for last season was when our next set of accounts are produced.

"What do we want?"

🎵"Midtable obscurity in league one"🎵

"When do we want it?"

🎵"Forever!"🎵

7 minutes ago, MackworthRamIsGod said:

I can see him staying and the players putting in a performance tomorrow.

Just to delay the inevitable.

If it's anything like the Exeter game, I wouldn't class it as "putting in a performance".  We won that game purely because we had better players than they did.  And we'll do that in a bunch of games this season, because there are a lot of poor teams at this level.  If we're waiting for some kind of clear marker before we sack Warne (5 games without a win, or something like that), we're probably not going to get it.  We'll face a poor or out-of-form team often enough to keep him limping on, if that's the sort of threshold.  We need to say enough is enough, it's not getting better, change is needed.

42 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

Was Elder injured or not in the squad?

I don't know for sure if he's still recovering from that hernia op or just not picked, I suspect it's mostly the first.  Either way, we've got 22 senior players, including Thompson, for 18 matchday places.  So there are going to be multiple senior players not selected every week, if everyone is fit.

39 minutes ago, angieram said:

Thommo?

The matchday 18 at the weekend was all senior players.  There's Waghorn, Elder and TJJ to come in when/if fit.  There's a more than decent chance that Thompson doesn't even make the bench if Warne stays here.  Nevermind the likes or Robinson/Browne etc.

2 minutes ago, S8TY said:

This exactly....I've always been told good football will beat physical teams , you have to be tough still of course especially in this division and have an element of physicality  but a good prem or championship  side for example wouldn't be worried about playing Stevenage and wouldn't make excuses if they lost saying it was because they wasn't physical enough lol  as they would have the opposition chasing shadows ...

This is the whole point some see it that we should be more like a L1 side and mix it more and have more L1 traits  but some see it that we should play like a decent level side and build something more sustainable should we ever get promoted and thats where i am with it 

I don’t disagree of course, but more than anything, just get your players doing what they’re good at, and not doing what they’re bad at.  If we had a team full of lower league cloggers then yeah ok, get them trying to out kick/out run/out fight the other team. But we don’t have that at all, even with all the summer signings.  We’ve arguably got the best set of midfielder passers in the league, so sodding-well use them.