Ghost of Clough

Average compared with what? The rest of our league? If the players are better than most in the league, they're 'above average'.
You need to judge players on current ability. Not what they did 10 years ago or when they were 16

You logic, based on the club's financial resources (considering wages and transfer fees) are top 3, yet our squad player ability is "average". You're therefore saying Warne is a very good coach, since he gets more out of the players than their ability deserves, but the club's recruitment (which includes Warne) is abysmal.
 

You aren't using recent past. You're using phrases such as 'majority of career'. You use this phrase when referring to players who have barely played below the Championship in the 5 years before joining us. For example, Vickers, Bradley, Nelson, Nyambe, Elder, Wilson, Hourihane, Smith, Fornah, Barkhuzien, Collins, Waghorn and Washington all played in the Championship the season before joining us.
You could argue a number of players are aging and on the decline, but that's not what you said. You're including information from more than a decade ago for some of those players, which is certainly not 'recent'.
I'm not the only person to have asked, but you've consistently failed to explain what you mean by average. To most, it would suggest mid-table quality. This is contradictory to your other comment that we have a chance of promotion - suggesting at the very least, it's an above average squad.

Firstly, you need to compare our squad with the rest of the division. You continuously state our players are "average", yet in a different thread you also admit that the lack of quality in this league means we could still finish top 2.
Secondly, are you suggesting current ability of the players puts them at L1 ability or their historic ability? What relevance is 6 years ago to judging if a player is good enough now? Would a player who spent 4 seasons in the L1 top 6, 2 in the Championship followed by 1 in the PL a L1 journey man? He is based on the definition you've been using.
Thirdly, you've put a negative slant on most players, even those who are being targeted by PL clubs. A lack of pace doesn't mean a player isn't of quality above L1 level, and I'm struggling to think of many times when Cashin has actually been beaten for pace
Let's look at the squad in a more positive light...
Joe Wildsmith: 4th most clean sheets last season
Josh Vickers: Signed from a Championship club
Scott Loach: Effectively part of the coaching staff, providing emergency cover
Sonny Bradley: Just captained his last club to promotion to the PL
Eiran Cashin: Wanted by PL club(s), and wanted on loan by top end Championship clubs
Curtin Nelson: Spent 4 seasons playing regularly in the Championship before we signed him and was matchday captain for both of those clubs at various points.
Jake Rooney: An emerging talent and been steady in a L1 side battling for top 6.
Joe Ward: His last 3 seasons consist of: promotion to the Championship, a season in the Championship, and a top 6 finish
Kane Wilson: No player in L2 has more assists in 21/22, then excluded from Bristol's Championship squad because he didn't suit Pearson's defensive back 4
Nyambe: Conveniently missed off your list. Spent his entire career above L1 prior to joining us and has been a very solid defensive option since joining us.
Criag Forsyth: Spent 11 seasons in the Championship before following us down to L1 and has been a reliable player every game at this level.
Callum Elder: Played below Championship for only 1 seasons since 19/20, and he was a key part of that Hull side who won promotion.
Conor Hourihane: Hadn't played below Championship level since 15/16, including a full season in the PL, prior to joining us
Max Bird: Wanted by Championship clubs fighting for promotion.
Korey Smith: Hadn't played below Championship level since 14/15 prior to joining us
Liam Thompson: The majority of his games have been at Championship level.
Louie Sibley: The majority of his games have been at Championship level.
Tyrese Fornah: Was a regular in a Championship side prior to joining us.
Tom Barkhuizen: Hadn't played below Championship level since 16/17. Left Preston as they changed to a formation which doesn't use wingers
Mendez-Liang: One of the highest goal contribution records in the league last season
James Collins: 3 seasons in the Championship before joining us, recording 37 goal contributions. Currently averaging a goal every 138 minutes for us this season.
Martyn Waghorn: 1 goal contribution every 215 minutes during the 3 seasons in the Championship before rejoining us. Currently averaging a goal every 93 minutes.
Conor Washington: Signed from a Championship club where he was a regular
Tyreece John Jules: A goal or assist every 200 minutes at this level.

What sort of message does it send out if the players are called up to the matchday squad knowing Warne won't give them a go anyway?
Darren Robinson was named in a matchday squad for the first time under Warne in October last season, coming off the bench in the Pizza Cup against Mansfield. Since then, he has been named in 7 other squads and never used, including 2 games this season where were were 2-0 up (Lincoln and Carlisle)

At no point have I said we should have started a different 11. I have however said we should have brought the likes of Allen, Davidson and Brown on around the 70 minute mark to give us fresh energy. At this point, our midfield was getting overrun and we were getting nothing out of Collins.
Fornah and Collins were the main liabilities over that final 20 minutes. Allen would have added fresh legs to our midfield, whilst Brown wouldn't be a red card waiting to happen and may have actually known where his feet were in and around the box.
Warne has openly said he wanted to bring them on at 3-0. That's just ridiculous. He's basically saying a couple of young players will cost us a 2 goal lead with less than 20 minutes left on the clock. He didn't even trust them enough to bring 3 on with just 90 seconds of the game remaining, instead just bringing Brown on.

If we compare him with Brown, who is the same age (only 2 days between it), and just as highly rated within our academy...
Brown has only been given 18 minutes of first team football (17 minutes in the cup vs Blackpool and 1 minute last night)
Kellyman, was given the full 90 in Europe (and got 1 assist) whilst also getting 12 minutes off the bench against Everton in the cup. He was brought on when 2-0 down to help rescue something from the game. He was given 26 minutes in the Pizza Cup last season, and was trusted to play the full 90 in their first game this season

If we compare him with Brown, who is the same age (only 2 days between it), and just as highly rated within our academy...
Brown has only been given 18 minutes of first team football (17 minutes in the cup vs Blackpool and 1 minute last night)
Kellyman, was given the full 90 in Europe (and got 1 assist) whilst also getting 12 minutes off the bench against Everton in the cup. He was brought on when 2-0 down to help rescue something from the game. He was given 26 minutes in the Pizza Cup last season, and was trusted to play the full 90 in their first game this season

Go on, show me evidence that I talked about possession, passes, and xG after the Blackpool and Notts County games which we won. I was actually pleased with the play in general for both games.
In fact, these are the criticisms I made in those games, from teams being announced to present...
Blackpool
Barkhuizen should have started (after seeing the team sheet) - came off the bench to assist 2 as we won 3-1.
Stated we rode our luck at times (after FT, but also stated I was really pleased with the win) - which is true, Blackpool had a number of good opportunities to draw level.
Criticising other forum members for not targeting a top 2 spot - can you argue against my view on this?
Notts County
Collins - whilst praising his play outside of the box with some good link up play, I was critical of him getting his feet mixed up, but also felt he was unlucky not to score a goal, but also critical of him being a red card waiting to happen.
Fornah for diving in and giving the penalty away - hardly unjustified criticism
Warne for not giving minutes to youngster at 2-0 with 20 minutes remaining - this has been debated enough already by all parties.
However, I was heavily critical of the Cheltenham draw, mostly due to the style of play being awful, which I highlighted by showing how bad we were at passing (pass %). Perhaps if we had passed it better rather than relying on crosses we would have actually won the game... I was also critical of not bringing Sibley on. His performance against Notts County backs up why he should have been brought on when we were struggling to score.

I felt we should have brought Allen on at AM for any of our midfield trio, who were all tiring late in the game. Fornah diving in was a tired mind setting in.
Davidson should have been brought on for Barkhuizen, for the reason you give, rather than for Smith (pushing Wilson to RW and Sibley to LW)
Brown should have come on for Collins much sooner, who was having 'one of those days' and was a red card risk.
 
I've created a list of minutes given to academy players/graduates up to and including their breakthrough season, with a total minutes row at the bottom.

Cheltenham, the two main criticisms being:
1. Not bringing a goal scorer off the bench when we're struggling to score
2. The one-dimensional tactic of getting the ball out wide and crossing to Collins and Waghorn when they're surrounded by CBs who specialise in dealing with crosses.
Last night, there were a lot of positives. However, the two main negatives were:
1. Players tiring
2. Poor finishing from Collins
These both directly lead to Warne not using the bench because he doesn't trust young players. If he should even a little bit of trust in them, the team wouldn't have looked so tired during the last 15/20 mins, and we may have had a forward who was able to shoot. Those two criticisms go away.

Go on, show me evidence that I talked about possession, passes, and xG after the Blackpool and Notts County games which we won. I was actually pleased with the play in general for both games.
In fact, these are the criticisms I made in those games, from teams being announced to present...
Blackpool
Barkhuizen should have started (after seeing the team sheet) - came off the bench to assist 2 as we won 3-1.
Stated we rode our luck at times (after FT, but also stated I was really pleased with the win) - which is true, Blackpool had a number of good opportunities to draw level.
Criticising other forum members for not targeting a top 2 spot - can you argue against my view on this?
Notts County
Collins - whilst praising his play outside of the box with some good link up play, I was critical of him getting his feet mixed up, but also felt he was unlucky not to score a goal, but also critical of him being a red card waiting to happen.
Fornah for diving in and giving the penalty away - hardly unjustified criticism
Warne for not giving minutes to youngster at 2-0 with 20 minutes remaining - this has been debated enough already by all parties.
However, I was heavily critical of the Cheltenham draw, mostly due to the style of play being awful, which I highlighted by showing how bad we were at passing (pass %). Perhaps if we had passed it better rather than relying on crosses we would have actually won the game... I was also critical of not bringing Sibley on. His performance against Notts County backs up why he should have been brought on when we were struggling to score.

Loach 😅

I'm not even sure it's down to trust.  You either have to commit fully to being a team that develops academy players, or you just don't bother at all.  If you genuinely want academy lads to progress through to the first team consistently, you have to be willing to gamble a bit on them sometimes.  Give them some minutes whenever you can, and be aware that it might cost you results in that game, but be willing to accept that, because long-term you will be better off as a club.
If we don't ever play Brown because we don't trust him, he's never going to make the mistakes that he can learn from, and become a player that we can trust.  And then instead of being a 17 year old that needs to develop, he's suddenly going to be a 21 year old that needs to develop, and by then it's probably too late.  Players don't just spring from the academy fully formed and trustworthy.
And obviously I'm not saying throw players in before they're ready at all, or even that we should have put all of the youngsters on much earlier the other night.  But if we think Brown is a genuine championship-level prospect, he should be getting at *least* a couple of hundred first-team minutes over the course of this season.  If he's only getting 2 minutes in a tin-pot cup when we were 2-0 up, he's going to get nowhere near that, especially when he barely even makes the bench in league games.
If you aren't going to be willing to commit to it, you might get the odd Will Hughes-type that comes through and just looks like a first-team player from day one, but you'll never get the conveyor-belt of players that teams like Southampton seem to manage.

Go on, show me evidence that I talked about possession, passes, and xG after the Blackpool and Notts County games which we won. I was actually pleased with the play in general for both games.
In fact, these are the criticisms I made in those games, from teams being announced to present...
Blackpool
Barkhuizen should have started (after seeing the team sheet) - came off the bench to assist 2 as we won 3-1.
Stated we rode our luck at times (after FT, but also stated I was really pleased with the win) - which is true, Blackpool had a number of good opportunities to draw level.
Criticising other forum members for not targeting a top 2 spot - can you argue against my view on this?
Notts County
Collins - whilst praising his play outside of the box with some good link up play, I was critical of him getting his feet mixed up, but also felt he was unlucky not to score a goal, but also critical of him being a red card waiting to happen.
Fornah for diving in and giving the penalty away - hardly unjustified criticism
Warne for not giving minutes to youngster at 2-0 with 20 minutes remaining - this has been debated enough already by all parties.
However, I was heavily critical of the Cheltenham draw, mostly due to the style of play being awful, which I highlighted by showing how bad we were at passing (pass %). Perhaps if we had passed it better rather than relying on crosses we would have actually won the game... I was also critical of not bringing Sibley on. His performance against Notts County backs up why he should have been brought on when we were struggling to score.

I might also add that at the games, you can often see more of the off the ball work that goes on, which influences how you see the game.
For example, the frustration voiced about players turning back with the ball might be due to lack of movement further forward.
On Tuesday, some people scored Louie Sibley quite low despite him scoring two goals. One poster said he'd had a "quiet" game. The opposite was true for me, watching live at the game. He was buzzing about, making runs and making himself available but not always receiving the ball. That might not have been apparent on camera.
Similar with players who drop back into defence to cover the forward runs of other players - Bird and Smith in particular are both very good at this but the camera is following the attack.
I agree about Barker. When I get back from games I often hear grumbles reflected across the Forum that I hadn't even considered. It usually turns out they're very similar to those stated by the RamsTV or Radio Derby commentary teams! 

And bradley last couple hes played has looked solid, first couple he stuggled with, yes but i think that was lack of match fitness i wpuld have no problem we bradley starting but hes got to fight with cash and nelson which both are doing well to keep him out the team

A big part of the reason I'm so negative about Warne, even when we win, is that I have absolutely zero faith that we can repeat it.  The people flagging up e.g. xG differences vs real life results aren't just picking fault for the sake of it (or anything like that), we're looking at what happened and thinking how likely we are to be able do it again and win again.
That Peterborough game for example -  we could easily have been 3 or 4 down early on, then had a spell where literally every chance we had went in.  Was I happy we won? Yes.  Did I think we were likely to play like that in other games and win them? No.
 

We will have a top 3 wage budget
14th in the xG table would suggest the club is vastly underachieving. Either management not getting the most out of the players or recruitment (including management team) not signing good enough players for the system on the field. It does depend on which xG modelling is used though, and how they determine what xG score results in a 'win' as one source has us 5th. 
Based on rounding xG and xGA to the nearest whole number:
Wigan should have been 2-2 (was 1-2) = +1 point
Burton should have 2-0 (was 3-0)
Oxford should have been 1-1 (was 1-2) = +1 point
Fleetwood should have been 1-1 (was 1-0) = -2 points
Peterborough should have been 2-3 (was 4-2) = -3 points
Bolton should have been 1-1 (was 1-2) = +1 point
Portsmouth should have been 2-2 (was 1-1)
Carlisle should have been 1-0 (was 2-0)
Cambridge should have been 1-0 (was 0-0) = +2 points
Blackpool should have been 2-1 (was 3-1)
Cheltenham should have been 2-1 (was 1-1) = +2 points
Those results would put us on 20 points with a +5 goal difference.

We will have a top 3 wage budget
14th in the xG table would suggest the club is vastly underachieving. Either management not getting the most out of the players or recruitment (including management team) not signing good enough players for the system on the field. It does depend on which xG modelling is used though, and how they determine what xG score results in a 'win' as one source has us 5th. 
Based on rounding xG and xGA to the nearest whole number:
Wigan should have been 2-2 (was 1-2) = +1 point
Burton should have 2-0 (was 3-0)
Oxford should have been 1-1 (was 1-2) = +1 point
Fleetwood should have been 1-1 (was 1-0) = -2 points
Peterborough should have been 2-3 (was 4-2) = -3 points
Bolton should have been 1-1 (was 1-2) = +1 point
Portsmouth should have been 2-2 (was 1-1)
Carlisle should have been 1-0 (was 2-0)
Cambridge should have been 1-0 (was 0-0) = +2 points
Blackpool should have been 2-1 (was 3-1)
Cheltenham should have been 2-1 (was 1-1) = +2 points
Those results would put us on 20 points with a +5 goal difference.

Washington has managed 142 games at Championship level (predominantly in his preferred position,  CF), scoring 18 goals.
Sibley is at 97 games, scoring 7 goals. The majority of those games played on the wing, yet the majority of goals scored when playing central. It would only take a season and a bit to play more games at the highest level Washington has ever managed, and if played central consistently, he'd easily score more too.

Made more big errors leading to goals this season: Bradley, Nelson, Elder, Fornah
Losses possession more often than Sibley this season: Waghorn, Collins, Wilson, Washington, John-Jules, Elder, Barkhuizen, Mendez-Laing, Thompson
Loses possession more often from attempted dribbles: John-Jules, Wilson
Lost pessession more often from short passes: EVERYONE except Wildsmith and Vickers

I refer back to comments made by Wildsmith. He had to leave Sheffield Wednesday because it's easy to drop the academy graduate no matter how he performed.
Sibley and Thompson appear to fall in the same category.

If we compare him with Brown, who is the same age (only 2 days between it), and just as highly rated within our academy...
Brown has only been given 18 minutes of first team football (17 minutes in the cup vs Blackpool and 1 minute last night)
Kellyman, was given the full 90 in Europe (and got 1 assist) whilst also getting 12 minutes off the bench against Everton in the cup. He was brought on when 2-0 down to help rescue something from the game. He was given 26 minutes in the Pizza Cup last season, and was trusted to play the full 90 in their first game this season

He went through the list of players who are currently injured, players away on international duty and players with niggles. The squad last night involved every first team player who doesn't fall into one of those categories. It would have been bizarre if Warne had named a bench containing only Wildsmith, Nyambe and Smith.
Making a couple of changes with 20 minutes to go, when 2-0 up, doesn't mean putting the academy BEFORE the first team. Both the first team and academy benefit from this scenario.