Ghost of Clough

It's definitely too soon to smash the panic buttons. However, the way Warne sets the team up means we struggle when we're lacking squad depth - we saw it at the start of this season, we had it when we didn't rotate the squad as much as Warne would have liked last season, and we're seeing it now (6-8 players had been unavialble). It doesn't help that a significant number of signigns are injury prone or have a recent history of not playing much. 
Warne needs to trust the players on the fringes of his squad more (we said the same last season). There's no reason for players such as Ward to have just 30 minutes of football over a 4 week period when he's fully fit and other players are starting to struggle with fatigue a little bit. The use of players such as DBrown and DRobinson at the end of games needs to happen more frequently in periods when we do have a mini injury crisis as it helps keep the senior player fresher. More games for Brown earlier in the season would have meant he'd now feel comfortable playing more of a part now when we only have 1 fit forward. Instead we'll now have to rely on Collins playing full 90s or move Mendez-laing upfront and weaken ourselves on the wings.

It's definitely too soon to smash the panic buttons. However, the way Warne sets the team up means we struggle when we're lacking squad depth - we saw it at the start of this season, we had it when we didn't rotate the squad as much as Warne would have liked last season, and we're seeing it now (6-8 players had been unavialble). It doesn't help that a significant number of signigns are injury prone or have a recent history of not playing much. 
Warne needs to trust the players on the fringes of his squad more (we said the same last season). There's no reason for players such as Ward to have just 30 minutes of football over a 4 week period when he's fully fit and other players are starting to struggle with fatigue a little bit. The use of players such as DBrown and DRobinson at the end of games needs to happen more frequently in periods when we do have a mini injury crisis as it helps keep the senior player fresher. More games for Brown earlier in the season would have meant he'd now feel comfortable playing more of a part now when we only have 1 fit forward. Instead we'll now have to rely on Collins playing full 90s or move Mendez-laing upfront and weaken ourselves on the wings.

Defensively, Wilson's making just as many tackles as Nyambe at RB (dribbled past a fraction more. He's also making more interceptions and commiting fewer fouls. The big difference is the number of crosses Nyambe blocks compared with Wilson (he blocks crosse 3 times more often). Given Smith's contribution in his 1 game at RB was lower than what we've seen from Ward there this season (although less liekly to give away penalties), I would be reuctatnt to use him there either.
It's less about Wilson's attacking output being wasted and more about trying to stay as defensively solid as possible. It hasn't helped that we've relied on just Barkhuizen and Mendez-Laing on the wings for the past few games with no-one on the bench to freshen it up - a factor mitigated with the Blackett-Taylor signing. It'll hopefully be just 1 more game of Wilson at RB before Nyambe.

Some simple passes going astray are from the passer expecting the wide player to continue his run down the line. Others are from being caught under pressure. Both of these are a direct result from alack of coaching those aspects of play

I didn't intend to imply it's all down to Warne. Mereley, a focus on situational passing in training and working on when to make the runs and when not to will improve the success of our passing during matches. If training wasn't a factor, then why do teams bother doing it? The best passing teams in the world rehearse how they're going to pass it from back to front, so much so they can almost do it blind-folded during games. It's no different at our level - the more practice put towards something, generally the better you are at it...

I didn't intend to imply it's all down to Warne. Mereley, a focus on situational passing in training and working on when to make the runs and when not to will improve the success of our passing during matches. If training wasn't a factor, then why do teams bother doing it? The best passing teams in the world rehearse how they're going to pass it from back to front, so much so they can almost do it blind-folded during games. It's no different at our level - the more practice put towards something, generally the better you are at it...

That depends on which highlights you watched. The first was our 5-2 win over Lincoln earlier in the season in the Central League Cup. The 2nd was yesterday's 4-2 loss in the Central League 

I think even Phill Brown would struggle to not finish top 2 with this squad. Someone like Warnock would jump at the chance of managing us thhrough to the end of the season, and it's easy to see him gettting a lot more out of us than we've seen

No I agree with you there mate.
I think we do have that. Last night for example I can think of twice where the movement was there, you can see it's rehearsed. Yet Hourihane (who out of our squad has the biggest pedigree and played at the higher level) inexplicably puts too much on a basic pass to set Wilson clear. 
That's what Warne cannot legislate for in my opinion. 

Warne opted to use Mendez-Laing in the middle rather than playing John-Jules there. What hope does an academy player have?

Warne opted to use Mendez-Laing in the middle rather than playing John-Jules there. What hope does an academy player have?

I think Nyambe is a better RCB than RB as his attacking output is minimal
We'd also have a second 11 (with everyone fit) of:
Vickers
Rooney   Bradley   Forsyth
Ward   Thompson   Fornah   Sibley
Barkhuizen   Washington
Mystery-new-forward
Which leaves John-Jules, Waghorn and Smith in reserve.

Defensively, Wilson's making just as many tackles as Nyambe at RB (dribbled past a fraction more. He's also making more interceptions and commiting fewer fouls. The big difference is the number of crosses Nyambe blocks compared with Wilson (he blocks crosse 3 times more often). Given Smith's contribution in his 1 game at RB was lower than what we've seen from Ward there this season (although less liekly to give away penalties), I would be reuctatnt to use him there either.
It's less about Wilson's attacking output being wasted and more about trying to stay as defensively solid as possible. It hasn't helped that we've relied on just Barkhuizen and Mendez-Laing on the wings for the past few games with no-one on the bench to freshen it up - a factor mitigated with the Blackett-Taylor signing. It'll hopefully be just 1 more game of Wilson at RB before Nyambe.

Does our website admin know something we don't? Because the way this headline is worded suggests we're going to lose on Saturday as well.

That's the guy that got shot by Hans Gruber after trying to negotiate with him in Die Hard.

Based on the effort he put in vs Bradford, especially defensively, I can't see him getting another start for a while

Based on the effort he put in vs Bradford, especially defensively, I can't see him getting another start for a while

Based on the effort he put in vs Bradford, especially defensively, I can't see him getting another start for a while

Dreadful performance. I don’t even know where to start, so won’t bother, but I will say I feel for the fans that went tonight. 
The last few weeks have been rotten to watch, performances have been really bad. Too much emphasis on results, rather than performances have seemingly led us down the wrong path. Standards need to be so much better than they currently are.
I’m still very much concerned that the people currently employed by the club don’t have the necessary skillset to achieve long-term. The recruitment and coaching is miles off where it needs to be, for me. I have no doubt that even if we did get promoted this season, we would be in for a long season next year which is a niggling thought that I can’t shake. 
Obviously nothing I can do to change the decisions the club make so I’ll continue to support (and moan) as it plays out. I hope I’m wrong, honestly, because I want success for Clowes and I’d like Derby to be seen as a relevant football team on the national stage again. 

The thing that annoys me so much is, I have no doubts that if we brought in Neil Warnock as manager, he would have this squad/team top by the end of the season.
We have the players, maybe light on 2 or 3, but there are no excuses for Warne, we should be blowing this division away.

Right everyone... back to the finance thread.  That'll perk us up!  👀

The people slagging Bird off defensively must be watching a different player to me. Granted, he was poor on the ball by his own standards tonight but I think, defensively, he gets about, makes blocks, interceptions etc. that’s next to a player who cannot run as well 

Good play from Mendez-Laing and Elder. Elder arguably our best player in thr opening 30 minutes

John-Jules is off. Down to 10 men

Second thoughts, you should probably just go home.