SSD

In the grand scheme of things, there's plenty of time left. How many deals get done on the last day (tomorrow)? Happens every bloody year, like last minute Christmas shopping.

I am wondering if Warne has secretly entered a squad in for the Masters Football tournament that used to be on Sky.

Gregory and Waggy up front you say?

Jordan Rhodes has done alright dropping down a division. This might be Gregory's level to chip in 7-8 goals. I'm not surprised if we went for him. Warne and his lack of trust in a young loanee makes me think he'll be after older players. I mean, look at how he treated Will Osula. Didn't want him for some unknown reason and then Sheff Utd recalled him. I've been watching him recently and he'd be ideal for Warne, chasing down and pressuring defenders. Bonkers.

With Bolton, Peterborough looking strong, plus Pompey getting over their bad patch, it'll be 3rd or 4th. I will be amazed if Warne makes the exact same mistakes again and we end up finishing 7th. We have got enough scrappy wins in the team to get us into the play offs.

Two of the usual back four being out, plus Cashin having his player of the month curse, feel sorry for Vickers. Let's see him with our full strength defence.

If I'm picking at it, they beat two sides at home who were relegated and Birmingham. Nice results but ones I'd expect to win. They did have a nice easy start. If he was 12/15 games in and they were top half, I'd give him credit and my argument is invalid.

If it is Ward who wants to leave, I think that says a lot about Sibley starting at the weekend at Left Back. I thought Warne said Wilson could play either side so you'd think Ward have gone to right back. Or does Warne think Ward is a massive defensive liability and won't put him anywhere near a full back spot. Seems strange.

I think in years gone by I don't think it would have mattered what type of football you played to gain promotion to the Championship, it was more based on budgets and the quality of squad to keep you up. Of course, these points still matter. I believe with teams who go up, you have to try and focus on more control of the ball in possession and midfield is really instrumental in keeping the team ticking over. Peterborough are a prime example of trying to go all guns blazing, works great in League One, every time they gain promotion it's straight back down the slide because it does not work in a better division. I know Rotherham have a small budget and it's mainly why they've struggled to go much further. You hear the feedback from their supporters when Warne was manager, they just did not adapt to a different level. If Warne does get us out of this absolute pit of a league, which I believe he will, he has got to start thinking of another way to keep us in the Championship. I appreciate he wants to do everything at 100mph and make the team monster running machines, it usually keeps the team in games at the end. When he is up against a half decent side in the Championship, the team will get picked off very quickly, even lesser League One sides can do it. It has happened to every single Rotherham side Warne took charge of. I wouldn't be surprised if he tries to go wing backs again, he is that stubborn. I hope he reflects and realises to change it up, adapt to a higher standard of football. I just don't think he will. It's becoming more clear as time goes on that he will have that L1 Neil Warnock tag. I thought he was more intelligent enough to bring his winning formula but choose the right moments when to break, when to keep the ball. It's a shame I feel this way because he's a very honourable man. From watching his Derby side for nearly 18 months, grinding along every match is not a good platform for a promotion winning side.

I don't think Dutch managers have done that well in English football, the exception being Guus Hiddink. Still feel bad for Cocu. COVID ruined the momentum we built, an empty pride park was awful and our home form dropped. Rooney packed up playing football during COVID and was overweight, essentially downed tools. He never had a proper crack (although he did think Mike Te Wierik was a good footballer)

21st Century to make it easier. 1. Steve McClaren 2. George Burley 3. Frank Lampard 3. King Billy 4. Paul Clement 5. Gary Rowett 6. Phillip Cocu 7. Wayne Rooney / Liam Rosenior 8. Nigel Clough 9. Paul Warne 10. John Gregory 11. Terry Westley 12. Phil Brown 13. Nigel Pearson 14. Paul Jewell

Yesterday proved to me that I don't think Warne will cut it in the Championship. I am confident he will get us out of this division. Regardless of how terrible the performances have been recently, he is still accumulating points and we can't argue it. I don't think it takes a tactical genius to get this team out of League One. Big budgets matter and DC clearly told Radio Derby we have a competitive budget for promotion. Warne has had money to spend and if he doesn't get promoted then I think he knows where the door is. The big elephant in the room is I have never seen a fan base so divided over a manager when we're clearly challenging for promotion. This has to ring alarm bells. The South Stand is a big indicator for me how the fan base is feeling and there's not many chant for the manager. It's been very flat in the noisy stand. A feeling of fear challenging in the league above. Ipswich and Plymouth last season showed they could win matches in League One and continued to play well in Championship. Call me Captain Doom, if we continue to bundling along winning games, I don't see Derby landing any blows in the Championship.

I'll drop my opinions about Warne and how garbage the performance was for 70 minutes of that match. Collo's goal was superb. He had zero service the entire game, ran his nuts into the ground yet again. One good cross and he got that brilliant volley in. What a player. I thought he'd be a broken man by now with that constant chasing down and battling. He got his rewards. Superb striker.

I think I have finally found why I haven't warmed to Paul Warne as our manager. I know many of us think football is just a results business and any type of win is a win. You don't complain, points on the board, good job done. For me though this reason didn't make me fall in love Derby County. If I wanted good results every week I would jump on the wagon of whoever was winning the Premier League. Football is more than just results. It's the theatre, the drama, the excitement of watching your team playing brilliant football and creating memories. I love a feel good story and I think this could have been on the card with Liam Rosenior. A rookie manager who wanted to play attractive possession based football, stuck through the club in those dark times, worked his arse off to bring in a core of side within a matter of weeks. In my view, he had every right to be the manager of this club and I don't care if was very inexperienced and didn't have a track record. It would have carried on that feel good factor within the club and I believe everyone would have got behind him. At this point we had nothing to lose. If he didn't work, go and find a Paul Warne type manager who can pick up results. The Paul Warne appointment was a very solid business decision and I cannot fault David Clowes because on paper it makes complete sense. But football doesn't work like that for me. It is a weird and wonderful sport which most of the time is bonkers. In the real world, why would you hire someone who no experience to lead a team of people. However, this is why I love football. And I'm still a bit disappointed we couldn't have had a cheesy, upbeat feel good story. With Warne, we are just plodding along with very good players at this level doing what is expected of us. Like a excel spreadsheet formula that works. Very dull, really boring, it's clinical. I keep feeling I want more from this side and it has the potential to do more. I watched Ipswich destroy us last season and thought this is the standard we should aim for. Got the result but more importantly, had some flare and quality about the performance. I'll never boo our manager, I will always get behind him. He doesn't excite me though. The side is missing a soul.

He doesn't deserve to be called a charlatan or gym teacher, that's very harsh. We can't argue that he is very successful at this level of football. With this budget and calibre of players, we should be a top 3 team in this league comfortably regardless of manager. And we are challenging for promotion based on our position and points. I'm not sure why I can't warm to Warne though. Is it because I have been used to watching a certain style of football for years and now we have gone back to good old fashioned "hit it wide and cross it"? I don't think he is maximising the best out of the squad and financial resources at his disposal. There is a sense when I watch the team we are winning purely because we have better players, nothing that Warne is doing tactically to win us matches. It feels like the bare minimum to win and a number of supporters don't want bare minimum. We should be dominating and the team are not doing it regularly. The league is there for the taking and we keep missing opportunities.

I don't like Warne football as much as the next pessimistic supporter. His objective was promotion and we are still well in the race. Back to back wins and we'll be pulling away from the pack again. He just needs to stop this mini rot of bad performances and now poor results. I still believe we will be top 3, if the manager actually starts to rest his better players more often. We've got a lot of over 30s who are our star players, their game time needs to be managed far smarter than they are now. My main concern, forget about how dire the football can be when it goes wrong, is he going to learn his lesson from last season and manage the fitness of the squad properly? Ultimately this killed our momentum and we left it too late at the end. Ironically, he had Collins sat on the bench 2nd half of last season and he refused to play him from the start when we really needed to give NML a break. Now we have completely burnt Collins out, burnt out NML and let a young striker out on loan, granted we should be bringing in a striker soon. He thinks another player will be enough, I'd argue he needs 3 or 4 more for depth. A tight squad with an older average age needs help.

Midfield has been our main problem this season. Whether that's not utilising their quality or being dominated on the counter attack. I have felt for years, even though we've not had a big destroyer sitting in front of the defence, our midfield rarely let us down. Keep the ball well, tried to create chances even though the quality might not be their consistently. We've got a manager who does not want to use midfield to create chances, as much as Hourihane pretends he's Andrea Pirlo. It is a wide man team, plain and simple. For half of the season it's worked very well and the team have created plenty of shooting opportunities. When it doesn't work and teams double up on our wingers, we look horrible to watch. Forcing the ball wide at all costs. Still makes me wonder if the manager can cut it at a higher level with that type of tactic and if better opposition can work out our simple plan.

De ja vu of last season. Best players burning out and losing some spark. Even though we've kept our good run going, it's been clear that performances have dropped. Warne not rotating the better players enough, making the same error as last season. Collins has been superb but we nearly need to give the poor bloke a rest. Covers alot of ground and needs a break. Same with NML. Hopefully 2-3 more players will sort it out. The main point, regardless of systems or manager, if you can't string 3 passes together you'll never get any points. Simple.

Worst overall performance in 4 months in the league. Not bad going is it.

Going for Darren Bents record of offsides

With that attendance, they couldn't invade a care home.

Michael Smith then.

Because he works for the DET, it'll be a Peugeot. Bland, loads of horrible adverts and it never works properly.