duncanjwitham

The thing with Cashin is, yes he's been struggling trying to do that wide-left-centre-back role, but (defensively at least) he's been struggling and still managing to get it done.  He's not been struggling and failing.  He's not made any disastrous errors, or directly cost us any goals, like other defenders have done.  He's doing the right things and that's letting him get away with it.
Long-term, his lack of height and pace will probably hold him back a bit, but you can learn to mitigate them to some degree.  I always go back to Gareth Roberts (the tiny left back we had for a while).  I know he wasn't the best player in the world or anything, but teams used to explicitly target his lack of height - they'd put a big forward out there and smash long balls at him all game. Except it never worked, because Roberts had been around the block enough to know when to drop off, when to get close to the guy, when to give the striker a nudge in the back and so on.  Cashin will learn those things too, and honestly, I think he's already well on the way.

The thing with Cashin is, yes he's been struggling trying to do that wide-left-centre-back role, but (defensively at least) he's been struggling and still managing to get it done.  He's not been struggling and failing.  He's not made any disastrous errors, or directly cost us any goals, like other defenders have done.  He's doing the right things and that's letting him get away with it.
Long-term, his lack of height and pace will probably hold him back a bit, but you can learn to mitigate them to some degree.  I always go back to Gareth Roberts (the tiny left back we had for a while).  I know he wasn't the best player in the world or anything, but teams used to explicitly target his lack of height - they'd put a big forward out there and smash long balls at him all game. Except it never worked, because Roberts had been around the block enough to know when to drop off, when to get close to the guy, when to give the striker a nudge in the back and so on.  Cashin will learn those things too, and honestly, I think he's already well on the way.

While winning football matches is ultimately everything in football, I do find there is extra leeway given in defeats where you can see a clear plan and the football is generally positive and front-foot.
The biggest problem managers face is when they disregard pretty football and it’s all about results. Because when results don’t go your way, it makes it that much tougher to take as fan. It’s just crap.
If Mourinho isn’t winning his football is awful to watch. Gary Rowett’s tenure was the same. I can’t think of a single game under Rowett where we lost and there was a slightest positive to take. It was just terrible.
Warneball is similar. When we lose it’s generally an awful watch. He needs results quickly. Expectations were always high in the Championship, in League One we simply have to be competing at the top.

The first problem is we are 4 or 5 players away from playing the style the manager wants.
The second problem is most fans don't like that style.
The third problem is every year we don't go up, our support will drop ten percent and our advantage will be lost. 

My preference would be the opposite.  I think the reason we're struggling is because we've still got a squad full of footballers, not runners.  I think if you put McClaren (or someone like that) in charge, we'd be straight back to 433/4231, playing through midfield, and looking a lot more comfortable.

Second half last night was what I was expecting this season to look like (early on anyway) - reasonably solid at the back, lots of running around, plenty of half-chances, but never really looking like scoring one of them.  I wouldn't exactly say it was good, but it was certainly miles better than the first half.  
And FWIW, Bird and Cashin (plus Forsyth and Waghorn), all played well and were probably our best players.

A big part of the problem is that there isn't a single formation where we can place all players in their preferred positions and have a balanced team.
GK: Wildsmith, Vickers, Loach
RCB: Nelson, Rooney
CB: Cashin, Bradley
LCB: - 
RB: -
LB: Forsyth, Elder
RWB: Ward, Wilson
LWB: -
DM: Bird, Smith
CM: Hourihane, LThompson
AM: Sibley
RW: Mendez-Laing, Barkhuizen
LW: -
CF: Collins, Washington, Waghorn
We lack a pacey left sided CB and an effective left wing back to play 5 at the back.
We don't have a defensively minded RB to play 4 at the back.
The midfield could be balanced when playing in the right 3 man midfield system, but would lack balance with a 2 man midfield.
We lack a top left winger or inside forward to play with wingers.
All of our CFs prefer playing in a 2, meaning any formation with 1 up top is innefective.

I agree. I've been fairly appalled by the cult-of-Paul-Warne-like posting lately. Supporting your club is fine, and speculation is part of the fun, but obsessively absolving the manager of all blame is a real drag. I get enough fake-news in real-life, football is supposed to be an escape!

There's a chunk of fans who think the manager walks on water, can do no wrong, is a football genius, and it's just not realistic. Accept the issues, accept we're struggling, accept we're in a mess. Accept the footballing reality. 😉

I agree. I've been fairly appalled by the cult-of-Paul-Warne-like posting lately. Supporting your club is fine, and speculation is part of the fun, but obsessively absolving the manager of all blame is a real drag. I get enough fake-news in real-life, football is supposed to be an escape!

There's a chunk of fans who think the manager walks on water, can do no wrong, is a football genius, and it's just not realistic. Accept the issues, accept we're struggling, accept we're in a mess. Accept the footballing reality. 😉

I agree. I've been fairly appalled by the cult-of-Paul-Warne-like posting lately. Supporting your club is fine, and speculation is part of the fun, but obsessively absolving the manager of all blame is a real drag. I get enough fake-news in real-life, football is supposed to be an escape!

There's a chunk of fans who think the manager walks on water, can do no wrong, is a football genius, and it's just not realistic. Accept the issues, accept we're struggling, accept we're in a mess. Accept the footballing reality. 😉

It does seem completely out of character for Warne though.  His "good people" shtick would be completely undermined if it turned out he was basically siccing a hate-mob on a couple of relatively young academy graduates, just to get his own way in the transfer market.  The other players aren't idiots either, and I can't imagine it would go down well with them.
I still think that by far the most likely explanation is that he really can't understand why it's not working, so is clutching at straws.

It does seem completely out of character for Warne though.  His "good people" shtick would be completely undermined if it turned out he was basically siccing a hate-mob on a couple of relatively young academy graduates, just to get his own way in the transfer market.  The other players aren't idiots either, and I can't imagine it would go down well with them.
I still think that by far the most likely explanation is that he really can't understand why it's not working, so is clutching at straws.

That would reflect even worse on Warne than if it was a rash comment made in the heat of the moment IMO.

I believe Warne should be given time - at least until Christmas - but I didn't and still don't  believe he's the right man and I'd be surprised if he gets us promoted.   Why give him time then - simply because we are where we are and I don't claim to be infallible - I hope he proves me wrong.  
 
First off lets forget the decent man stuff - 90% of us are decent men or women aren't we?  Being a decent man is not a qualification to manage a football team.   Is he likeable - I find him slightly annoying - all that family photos on the wall stuff or whatever he does to me would just be irrelevant BS. Not everyone is wired the same way - if I'm a player I want decent sessions, tactics that work and a manager that is straight up - if Warne provides them the rest is irrelevant.
 
For me the issues are:
- He seems wedded to his 532/352 Rotherham way of playing - he's dogmatic rather than pragmatic.   If you listen to the BBC podcast series on him he admits he's not really a tactical thinker.   I think he stumbled onto a system that worked to an extent at Rotherham and he can't now see beyond that.   Our best form last season was due to non Warne type players playing non Warne type football - it was was Rosenior's side with a dash more directness. 
- At Derby in div 1 we are going to have the ball a lot - at Rotherham he didn't.   Does Sonny Bradley look like a player comfortable being last man in possession ? 
- His transfer policy is short term.  These frees will be on biggish wages for div 1 and have no sell on value IF we can even move them on.   This squad is only getting weaker if we don't go up this year - anyone think Waghorn, Washington or Collins will be at Derby in 2 years? 
- I don't know what Clowes' budget is but we desperately need to start identifying younger talent and paying a fee with the thought we can recoup that and more in 2 years.   The issue is bigger teams won't want to buy players from a Warne style team - its certainly not a style that will attract decent fees for players. 
- Do good players want to play for Warne?  I honestly think it's a factor in McGoldrick leaving.  The guy is a footballer he doesn't want to be run into the ground. 
 
Longer term my real worry is that Clowes is a footballing dinosaur hankering after the 80s and he's going to keep appointing managers in the same mould.  We need an innovative forward thinking owner not just a saviour. 

That's the point really.  We probably aren't going to be able to sell those players, given their age etc, so it's either keep them or pay them off (which we probably can't afford to do).  So we either accept another season of transition or Warne adapts.  
I do wonder what the recruitment process was that resulted in him getting the job.  If you're getting in a manager in, purely off the back of him being successful at another club, surely the first question is can he replicate that here - what setup was he working in, do we have the same or similar here, and if not, what will it cost us in time/money/whatever to get us to that setup etc.  I can't imagine he was appointed with the intention of giving him 2 years to replace all the players we'd literally just signed.  But equally, I can't see the logic in giving him the job if the intention was for him to do something completely different to what he did at Rotherham.

You'd be surprised if Bradley, Elder & Nelson weren't up there too.
They may all come good if we get the midfield sorted ahead of them (and stop pretending our CBs are midfielders/forwards), but with the squad balance the way it is that's a further proportion of our budget tied up in players who can't perform what's asked of them if we're playing 3 at the back.
It makes me want to hide behind the sofa.

For me it's more frustration.  Like you say, everything off the pitch is there for us to be a mid-table prem team.  The capability is there, and the fact we're not a prem team is entirely down to our own failings as a club.  And for me, rampant short-termism is by far the biggest reason.  Any suggestion on here that we should be thinking about anything beyond the next match/current season is met with howls of derision.  And then we just keep repeating the same mistakes, and people wonder why we're stuck in League One.

Obviously I'm slightly exaggerating for emphasis, but I can also see what's happening on the pitch.  Does anyone here genuinely think that Hourihane, Bird, Smith etc can do the high intensity box-to-box running that Warne seemingly wants them to?  Is Cashin really a part-time overlapping fullback?  Is Sibley really a wingback?  Are NML and Bird really some sort of inside-forwards?  I could go on...
If his entire style is based on having players do these things, and the players we have literally aren't capable of doing them, but he sets us up to do it anyway, what's the alternative explanation?
I'm not necessarily saying that "run around a lot" is his entire style, but I'm not convinced he's ever had to deal with a squad where the majority of players literally can't do that (to the extent he wants anyway).

For me it's more frustration.  Like you say, everything off the pitch is there for us to be a mid-table prem team.  The capability is there, and the fact we're not a prem team is entirely down to our own failings as a club.  And for me, rampant short-termism is by far the biggest reason.  Any suggestion on here that we should be thinking about anything beyond the next match/current season is met with howls of derision.  And then we just keep repeating the same mistakes, and people wonder why we're stuck in League One.

And even if it isn't Bird, people were obviously going to jump to the conclusion it was him, given the Hull bid.  Warne has basically started a witch hunt with that comment - we've already got people who've basically decided that Bird has downed tools and demanded a transfer and should be sold immediately.  How is this possibly helping the club?  
If there are genuinely issues (and I have no idea if there are), then either keep it in-house, or make a generic "Max's head isn't quite right after the bid, so we're going to keep him out of the team for a couple of games while everything gets sorted" type statement and deal with it properly.  It does seem to me like Warne has no clue why we're performing the way we are, and is reaching for random excuses though - he "feels" a couple of players might have had their heads turned, so he doesn't even know anything for sure.

The big difference there, is that it was Jim Smiths first season in charge.  He'd barely been here 5 minutes, so you have to give a manager time to get something set up.  Paul Warne has been here nearly a year, and has anything improved? Like anything at all?  We still can't beat the top teams (which I assume Wigan and Blackpool are going to be).  We still don't seem to have any organised defensive or pressing structure.  We still keep gifting stupid goals away.  We still don't seem to have any clear pattern of play going forward.  We still don't create enough chances.  We still don't take enough of the chances we create.  The players we already have seem incapable of playing the system Warne wants.  The players we've *signed* seem mostly incapable of playing it too.

And even if it isn't Bird, people were obviously going to jump to the conclusion it was him, given the Hull bid.  Warne has basically started a witch hunt with that comment - we've already got people who've basically decided that Bird has downed tools and demanded a transfer and should be sold immediately.  How is this possibly helping the club?  
If there are genuinely issues (and I have no idea if there are), then either keep it in-house, or make a generic "Max's head isn't quite right after the bid, so we're going to keep him out of the team for a couple of games while everything gets sorted" type statement and deal with it properly.  It does seem to me like Warne has no clue why we're performing the way we are, and is reaching for random excuses though - he "feels" a couple of players might have had their heads turned, so he doesn't even know anything for sure.

Hope it's not our back 3 defending Paul Warne, or he'll have no chance.

The big difference there, is that it was Jim Smiths first season in charge.  He'd barely been here 5 minutes, so you have to give a manager time to get something set up.  Paul Warne has been here nearly a year, and has anything improved? Like anything at all?  We still can't beat the top teams (which I assume Wigan and Blackpool are going to be).  We still don't seem to have any organised defensive or pressing structure.  We still keep gifting stupid goals away.  We still don't seem to have any clear pattern of play going forward.  We still don't create enough chances.  We still don't take enough of the chances we create.  The players we already have seem incapable of playing the system Warne wants.  The players we've *signed* seem mostly incapable of playing it too.