tomsdubs

4 hours ago, Bris Vegas said:

Derby are always brilliant in November and December.

Under McClaren three times we had brilliant records before a stumble around February.

We were too two under Clement and Rowett until after the new year.

We were flying under Lampard until Mount’s injury after the new year.

And last season under Warne we went about 18 games unbeaten until we lost at Wycombe or someone like that.

If you know Derby, then our current form isn’t a surprise. Expect top two by late December.

Expect posts of ‘just give us the title now’ before our customary February slump.

This season we will get promoted though. The league is dog awful. Warne needs binning if he can’t get us up this year.

Not getting promoted with this squad and the Jan window with money available would be a pretty big fail in my eyes. It's good to be able to scrape wins away at Port Vale but a bit more football sometimes wouldn't go amiss.

The fact our other wingers aren't performing is putting more pressure on him to come up with the goods.

Barkhuizen seems to be in decline to me, very poor this season, Wilson looks way better going forward and he's a wing back.

1 minute ago, Caerphilly Ram said:

Which questions did you want answered? 

Will we stop being Mendez-Laing FC?

Does Warne know his best side?

Does Warne know his best formation?

Can we be consistent in levels of performance?

I will say putting a winning run together is a big step this season but whether we can go on an unbeaten run we need to get promoted i'm not sure right now.

Good win but hasn't answered any questions really, his Jan signings are going to be crucial and I think it'll define his managerial period with us.

53 minutes ago, The Last Post said:

Why? 😊

Might be something to do with a manager that admits in interviews he can't motivate the players, who knows.

This squad is plenty good enough to escape this league, other managers regularly speak of being envious even ones at clubs above us. I don't really give much creedance to this average age stat this season. The way the team are playing doesn't really correlate to age, we aren't fading in the last 10 we just aren't turning up half the games we play.

Such a Derby signing, can't wait to complain about this guy.

5 minutes ago, Blondest Goat said:

Another thing for David Clowes not to be concerned about (according to some).

In the pro warne thread I raised this after previously I was told I need to give my head a 'wobble' and that we shouldn't be expecting to spend any kind of nominal fee.

Since posting about the money lost because yet again it is clear the players are self motivating (apparently I was wrong), no one has responded. I'm sure next big game the players decide to self motivate themselves for they'll start quoting me.

I also pointed out the longer we stay down in L1 the more our revenunes will drop but this wasn't accepted either.

Pretty sure my points about motivating the players still stands after tonight. FA Cup getting to 3rd round could have landed us a nice financial bonus, 40k tonight could have paid some wages?

With Mendez-Laing out and it showing badly, the more I look at the transfers over last couple of years Warne has been winning games with performances from lads mostly he didn't sign. Ratio of duds to goodens at the moment is not good for him.

Not given up hope but the signs we could go on some magical run required to get promoted (a necessity) just aren't there.

No Mendez-Laing zero invention. That was such a poor performance.

I remember him from the old forum days back when I was a kid, always Mr Positive and you could tell he loved DCFC more than anything. Condolences to his family.

3 hours ago, Ghost of Clough said:

Excluding players on loan from PL and Championship clubs, these are some of the best young players in League 2...

Sam Stubbs - 24 year old CB at Bradford. Son of Alan Stubbs. Aerially dominant, but a bit slow and not the best passer. Out of contract at the end of the season.

Jayden Fevrier - 20 year old wing back at Colchester. 1 goal and 6 assists in 18 games this season.

Dan Kemp - 24 year old AM at Swindon on loan from MK Dons. 11 goals and 5 assists in 18 games.

Ali Al Hamadi - 21 year old CF at Wimbledon. Had a short trial with our U21s 2 years ago. 6 goals and 5 assists in 17 games this season.

Freddie Draper - 19 year old CF at Walsall on loan from Lincoln. Previously in our academy, but has 8 goals and 2 assists in 14 games

Isaac Olaofe - 23 year old CF at Stockport. 12 goals and 2 assists in 19 games.

Jake Young - 22 year old CF at Swindon on loan from Bradford. 12 goals and 4 assists in 17 games.

I just watched some recent highlights with Olaofe in, all rounder with a good touch. Little bit raw but with coaching could turn into a decent player. Holds it up well.

Saw we've been linked with Al Hamadi, seems like a more polished player on the stuff i've watched.

Kemp scores and Young gets 4 in one game against Crawley, both look pretty tidy player but they aren't very tall so might be limited in a Warne side.

Personally though I think we need at least another winger to support ML and Barks, losing Embleton left us massively reliant on those two to perform every game. Luckily Wilson has stepped up lately.

2 hours ago, Crewton said:

And if we splash out on a player and he gets a season/career-ending injury early on (see Thorne, Bielek and others) we're back to Square One and facing a significant financial issue perhaps. I'd be very happy for us to sign a striker in January, but I'd be more than a bit concerned if we started splashing around even "Shaun Barker-sized fees" without reassurance that this was entirely within budget. I'm getting too old to go through 1984/2003/2022-type trauma again!

I'm not really thinking of mega fees, if there is a good prospect doing the biz in L2 for a nominal fee surely we have to take a look? Good defenders can be found on frees but I see usually good attackers you need to pay up for most of the time.

14 minutes ago, bcnram said:

I suspect that you are right. Maybe they will have a special ‘Black Friday’ window in the future. 50% off and low wages for 3 months. 

We're paying Embleton's wages for the whole season and we dont even own his contract, just putting it out there. Bad luck on our part but that is the risk signing loans on full wage. All dead money now.

6 minutes ago, Crewton said:

Sure, but it does impact on the speed at which we can reach our potential, particularly when you take into account the restrictions imposed by the EFL that we were required to accept in order to be released from the stringent sanctions that applied during Administration. Some fans don't seem to have grasped that "speculating to accumulate" isn't either feasible of sensible for DCFC at this time. There's a discussion on another thread about what Alfie May was looking for as personal terms and that would have taken us back down the road of the Mel Morris years. Last season we still had a restriction on the length of contract we could offer, which was a big turn-off for younger players looking for 3-4 years of security, which is why we were generally shopping in the veteran's market. This inevitably meant wages at the upper limit of what the EFL allowed. Over time, I expect the age profile of the squad to reduce (it already has), and the signings of Wilson, Fornah and Weston should be a sign of things to come.

I'm not surprised at the impatience of some fans for an early reversal of our fortunes, but I don't think it's either helpful or realistic.  

That's reasonable but looking at our squad we've had a number of lads brought in aren't really performing or constantly injured. Elder injured all the time, JJ injured permanently, Ward always injured it seems. Waghorn looked inspired initially but now struggling. Embleton got totally crocked which was a shame because I rated him. Bradley gets beaten everytime a team hoofs and up and under ball and loses his head at away game home fans.

We need to add in Jan upfront, if Mendez-Laing is out for a while I reckon we'll dip in form as we are massively reliant on him. Is our cautious approach causing us to spend more in the long term?

I'm not impatient for us to be a top Champ side any time soon but I think we should maximise what is in front of us, this league is poor.

13 minutes ago, S8TY said:

i do think Jan could be pivotal for us, don't have to break the bank and spend a fortune as you've said, but if JJ still looks like he's going to be injured I'd send him back and get another striker on loan with pace and spend a few bob on a striker on a permanent but not Clarke harris as some have suggested , he's been poor this season and on the bench now so lets look at L2 players like maybe the Crewe lad Baker-Richardson or Al Hamidi as GOC suggested 

We are 8 points away from top 2 currently with arguably the strongest squad in league, if we never take a small calculated gamble now then you start to question the ambition. Crowds will drop and so will revenue if we don't escape IMO. We don't have to risk the club at all to do so, just a small bit of investment to give the squad a lift for the second half of the season. We've seen other clubs do it succcesfully  so many times while we've watched on over the years.

10 minutes ago, Tyler Durden said:

Respect your opinions and not trying to wade into and argument or inflame matters, but your comment about 1 million quid wouldn't break the bank or fit into our business plan did interest me.

I would have inferred by our unwillingness not to spend this sum of money then it wouldn't have fit into our business plan and or Clowes wasn't willing or couldn't underwrite this - what makes you think otherwise?

 

 

From the forum the club held Warne seemed to say he had some money to spend but didn't think anyone was worth it? Obviously we don't know who his actual targets were but we need to make a move at some point if we want to progress.

1 hour ago, Rich84 said:

And there in lies the issue with a proportion of deluded Derby fans....

Less than 18 months from going under, working to a tight business plan to demonstrate we won't make the same mistakes, so let's just spend a million to strengthen the team..........

Give your head a wobble

Don't need to give anything a wobble, just cause we were in danger 18 months doesnt change the reality of what is infront of us or should it lower what we can achieve as a club. Find that notion honestly stupid. Shame you had to become condescending. 1m would not break the bank and would be well within our spending plan if we had dealed appropriately. Every signing a club make is a gamble and it is all managed risk. We didn't manage risk under Mel and paid for it. But We didn't even need to spend that much in my eyes, happy to look at L2 for some prospects. How much was Alfie May now top scorer in League One?

I'm glad you can put everyone in a box as wrong though, must be amazing being you.

1 hour ago, Rich84 said:

So, 2nd placed Oxford and newly relegated Wigan that would be competing with us if they didn't have their points deduction..... really poor teams to lose to!

Reality is, Wigan should never have won that game, 2 bad mistakes by players, which obviously Warne takes the blame for.... which when you look back, most games we haven't won are down to the players poor decisions or finishing,  imagine if we needed Barkhauzen to have scored that 1 v 1 yesterday to get a result and he did that! Clearly it's the managers fault!

I'm not saying Warne gets everything right, I still think we are seriously lacking up front and it should have been addressed in the summer, personally I think the substitutions are too late and not positive enough at times, and I am not a fan of the Hourihane,  Smith, Bird midfield set up, but, pretty much every game we see poor decisions and mistakes by the players, tha same players that the moaners in here say are "too good for this division"...... 

 

I don't care where they are in the league mate, I look at their squad and quality of play and we should not be losing to those sides if we play even to 75% of our potential. We had a run of performances that were frankly dire, hopeless football which ended up with Hourihane falling out with the fans and just saying "we're playing to orders". This isn't evidence in Warne's favour is it?

Look he might get a run going and i'll give him some credit if he finally gets some better team selections going. But I caveat that with the fact to me it looks like the players have had stern words among themselves rather than Warne did something magic that made them switch on and give their all for 90 mins.

Like you say with the subs I think Warne puts himself in bad positions because he never seems to know his best 11 (although he's getting more consistent now), spends too much time concerned about opponents in a low quality league. Recruitment is a big one for me in a weak L1 season if we had just invested a little we'd surely be cruising this league. The players we talked about in the summer are having great seasons as well e.g Rodrigues at Oxford.

On the poor decisions by players, do you not feel like this is more a coaching/cohesion issue? Many times you wonder when watching Warne's side what the actual plan is. I was at Crewe and we were all behind goal second half wondering who in the hell all the crosses were for as Washington could play 24 hours and still never win a header. This season just feels like a fumble to me, we should be relishing the challenge, should have just spent a million on a few good playuers and prospects. Another year down here will have negative impacts on the club in all areas IMO.

7 hours ago, Rammy03 said:

Who said there was a dressing room meltdown? I think Hourihane made it pretty clear that the players were trying their best. Just because we lost games to some poor teams doesn't mean the players weren't motivated.

Warne literally said in the interview there were all having a go at each other and he just let them sort it out.

The players deciding to start fully trying after a dressing room meltdown isn't necessarily a great look for Warne, why couldnt he motivate the players before? The football isn't amazing but with the strength of our squad and the weakness of the league I view anything other than fighting for the top 2 as underachievement. I still get angry to how poor some of the sides that beat us at home are, shocking we lost some of those games.

22 hours ago, HorsforthRam said:

Reading some of the comments on X (Twitter) with regards to the club banning the above display because of Health and Safety (slip hazard on plastic)…. Some say “We all know the actual reason why…” and then when asked what that would be, don't reply. Reflective off divisive culture wars going on at the moment. 

Welcome to Tory divide and conquer UK. Stir it up, stit back and watch the carnage.

Like I said before he may not be a world beater but his service at times has been dire. When he came on at Crewe as I was right down close to the pitch he was screaming at the wingers to put the crosses in low. Immediately after that he had his dissalowed goal but goes to show if we actually play to our strengths we'll win games.

Saw him up close at Crewe, as in running directly towards me about 5m away. He was quality when he came on there, very positive.

Just now, HectorsHouse said:

… and how’s that working out for us…?

Terribly because Warne's tactics are shocking.