brady1993

1 hour ago, RoyMac5 said:

Whilst Warne seems to prefer athleticism in his footballers I prefer 'footballing intelligence'. We have had players that 'ate all the pies' but knew 'where to be and what to do when'. How would you rate some of our squad on the limited amount of showing?

It's too early to say and there are too many confounding factors. It's hard to say exactly what comes from tactics, coaching, cohesion between players and the player themselves.

1 hour ago, Ambitious said:

It was a new system and a brand new midfield three, your excellent breakdown over their goals provides a lot of context. I have absolutely no worries about our ability to be defensively sound in the long run. 

I hope your right but I do find it alarming as if even with the above being correct I'd have expected better. My concerns aren't helped by Warne's comments around only looking at things tactically later into the pre-season, 433 only being settled on in the last pre-season game and it's liable we try to shift off 433 further down the line.

These were also issues that were on display last year as well, but it was never as obvious because our player quality relative to the division and having Bird (to a lesser extent Hourihane) who was excellent positionally. His Rotherham sides also exhibited issues like this as well from what I recall of watching them.

Either way it's something that needs to be addressed rapidly.

Credit where credit is due I feel this is the first signing by a manager in a while that feels like it has an ounce of imagination to it.

14 hours ago, Fraser_23 said:

I think this is probably one of the only places to be able to criticise the players/staff without them seeing it.

Do it on twitter, instagram etc, they will more than likely see it, however DCFCFans allows members to freely speak out about their opinions and debate with other fans

It's probably the best outlet people have for harsh criticism. This is about as good a place that people have to vent frustration and have those views challenged in a place that's not visible to players/staff. It's better to speak get it out here than sit on out or let it out on a more public social media where it can potentially harm morale.

7 hours ago, Ambitious said:

Only Portsmouth (6), Watford (12) and Stoke (15) had fewer touches in the opposition area than Blackburn (16). Mind-numbing that three of the four won, the other drew. 

However, it does back up my thoughts that generally we didn’t give them too much but they were excellent, very efficient and clinical when we did. 

Portsmouth touched the ball in the box six times, but scored three goals. I’m sure that’s got to be some sort of record. 

Honestly I think it more speaks to the opportunities we gave them were gift wrapped. And honestly given how they didn't have to work for it, I worry it won't be the last time we see 4 or more put past us. Unless we address issues structurally. 

One thing I wanted to talk about because I hadn't seen it mentioned so far really is all 4 goals come from bad positioning/organisation/pressing especially in midfield. Ozoh was a major culprit either getting sucked in to the danger late, overcommitting in a useless press or not anticipating where danger is unfolding. All 4 goals the danger originates from it being trivial to breakdown our structure. Yes there are individual mistakes past that don't help but at that point it's mostly panicked defending where you are relying heavily on individual quality to bail you out. It's the kind of thing we could get away with in league 1 because our individual player quality was higher than most teams so they could often recover and the average league 1 team would often not punish these situations. To highlight my point let me walk through the goals in how they unfold:

Goal 1:

• It starts at point of almost complete safety and the first big issue. The ball is being rolled out to their left back deep in their half. Osbourne who is already a bit out of position, decides to go press the left when there is no real chance of closing him down in time and pulls himself majorly out of position and pretty much taking himself out of the game.
• That is the major contributor in leaving acres of space in the middle allowing one of their forwards to drop into the space as Kenzo follows his marker out to the wing. The forward dropping drags Wilson out of position to follow him. I think their is a argument here that neither Kenzo or Wilson should follow their man into the positions they do. But it's following that trend of pressing/marking individually without consideration. And leads to Kenzo in a right back area and wilson in midfield for the rest of the play.
• Second big issue you can already see starting to unfold here by looking at Ozoh who's taken a terrible position up by sitting on the left side of midfield and not reacting to where the danger is going to be. 
• He only reacts to move over after it's already too late and overcommits himself allowing him to be taken out of the game. At this point you've effectively got a 5 (blackburn) on 4 with massive amounts of space on the right wing and a makeshift defence. Any good team is going to score here.

Goal 2:

• It's kinda staggering how similar this goal is in a lot of ways. Jackson presses the left back on his own but this time I think it's mostly fine based on starting positions.
• Ozoh however has allowed himself to get dragged right out to the wing. Then gets dragged further as he goes to win a ball he's not getting to a huge amount of the time. When he should have been talking to Kenzo to go cover it or communicating to Kenzo that he's left his space.
• Ozoh getting dragged out opens up a massive space in midfield for their forward to drop into with which Cashin has to follow him into to contest because if he doesn't the forward is going to have all the time in the world to turn and do what they want. But we are now at a point where we are majorly disorganised.
• Cashin does almost recover the situation (again relying on individuals to bail out team problems). This should have bought enough time to reset. Osborne though goes with him getting pulled into a spot Cashin is either going to win or Osborne won't be able to help
• Watch what Ozoh does whilst this is happening. He's coming back but stops when it looks like Cashin has won the ball rather than continue to come back into position he loosely stays hanging out the right wing. Where he's neither covering for if something goes wrong or taking up a meaningful position to provide a passing option.
• It means that when this breaks down again it becomes 7 vs 4 where one of our deepest players is Collins coming back to help out. Any good team is going to score here. 

Goal 3:

• Ozoh has the ball. And nobody is giving him a decent short option aside from Osborn to go slightly backwards. He makes a bad decision and a bad pass leading to the turnover.
• He then overcommits once again. Pressing right into the space that Osborn has occupied. Taking himself out of the game, leaving acres of space in the middle (which on this occasion the Blackburn player doesn't see and instead plays a good ball releasing their winger). It means that he's in no position to later cover for runners or take up defensive positions as the defence shifts across.
• Cashin gets dragged out of position in a point where he should probably leave it to Elder. And it's easy from that point especially given the lack of midfield to cover.

Goal 4:

• Blackburn break on the counter. Cashin steps out to press and challenge. Ozoh who's coming back checks his run back to watch what happens, when he should be sprinting to cover where Cashin came from or sprinting to go for the player free on our right wing.
• It's only after the ball has gone and released the player in space on the wing. Does Ozoh go over there, after the defence has already shifted across and he should be moving to cover centrally. By doing this it leaves a player in the centre in absolute acres of space.

In this I know I've criticised Ozoh a lot and I do think he's severely culpable in a lot of the goals. But to be honest in all of them there just seems to be structural problems. A lot of naive pressing and poor positioning as a team. Suggesting there hasn't been enough or good enough coaching around when players should press, how they should press, what positions to take up or hold and who should be looking to cover for who. It strikes me as a lot of individuals making decisions in a moment as opposed to a collective understanding of who should be doing what.

11 hours ago, duncanjwitham said:

Not picking you out particularly with this, it's more of a general comment, but the bold bits get to the root of why I'm so opposed to Warne.

The way I see it, we have everything off-field ready for the Premier League - the fanbase size, the stadium, the training ground etc are all good enough.  Obviously we have no divine right to be in any league, but in theory there's no reason why we shouldn't be in the same group of clubs as the likes of Leicester/Burnley/Fulham/Brighton/Norwich etc who have spent at least as much time in the Prem as they have out of it in recent seasons.  I'm not saying we can win it like Leicester or be top 6 like Brighton or anything, but we absolutely have the potential to get there and stay there, but the onus is on us as a club to make it happen.

Obviously, one way that happens is that a new owner comes along and throws a lot of money at the club.  But there's no guarantee this happens, there's no guarantee it works if it does, and we all know what the potential fallout can be if it goes wrong.  It's certainly not an option we should be relying on.  Another way is just genuine luck, alignment of stars type stuff - you get the right manager at the right time, a bunch of signings all work out and you hit the jackpot.  We came close with Burley+Rasiak+Idiakez... and McClaren+Martin+Bryson... but ultimately fell short.  Again, that's not something you can rely on - you need a lot of things to all hit at once, and even then it might not work.  And it gets harder and harder as the championship gets dominated by clubs with parachute payments.

So IMO we should be doing the one thing that we have some degree of control over, and that's doing our level best to get the most we can out of the academy.  But that means fully committing to it.  When academy players are hitting 17/18/19/20 (it will be different for each players), they need to start being introduced to senior football.  If they aren't they won't progress.  If we take the approach that we can't play youth players now, we need to get promoted first, then you're basically writing off the current generation of academy players.  They won't get the first team exposure they need and won't kick on. 

So if we do get promoted what happens?  We can't afford to play academy players, we need to get stabilised in this league first.  And then?  We can't afford to play academy players, we need to kick on for the top 6 now.  And then?  We can't afford to play academy players, we need to get promoted to the prem first.  If your attitude is "we can't afford to play them now", then you won't be able to play them when they're good enough later, because they won't get good enough.

You can't just have an academy sat on the sidelines and hope it produces players now and then.  If you want to be like Southampton and have a steady stream of them, you have to gear the whole club up to make it happen.  You play similar styles of football across all age groups, you gear your transfer policy to not block promising players, you commit to giving youngsters first team chances when they're ready and if they take it you let them run with it.  And from what I can see, we can't do any of that with Warne in charge.  So we're just stuck hoping a youngster pops up, fully formed, once in a blue moon.  And that's one of the big advantages we could have over similar sized clubs that we are just choosing to throw away.

I have no idea if Weston is good enough, I've never seen him play.  But by all accounts he did well when he came on, and scored a good goal.  If you give him say 20 minutes against Barnsley and he scores again, then okay, maybe we've got something here.  If he then starts against Crewe and scores, then we've got a potential first team striker for nothing.  And if he doesn't do any of that then fine, he goes back to the U21s and maybe gets another shot in a month or 2.  But right now, we've just got a guy that scored a goal once and then never played again, which is no use to anyone.

Sorry everyone for the long post, but I genuinely think appointing Warne was a catastrophic mistake for a lot of reasons.  The ridiculous short-termism of "he was brought in to achieve promotion quickly" sums it up - it's like there's no thought as to what happens when we do get promoted.  And when I see fans almost actively celebrating it ("I don't care about academy players, we won 3-0" type stuff) I just find it a bit sad really.  I want the club to be in the premier league, I want the club to play good football, and I want to see academy players getting into the first team and doing well, and I want the club to be actively trying to make all that stuff happen, not just flailing around doing stuff at random and hoping that one day it might work.

(and breathe...)

Couldn't agree more. I've been saying it for a while (alongside you and a few others) the academy is the one major advantage we have as a club that we can draw upon to essentially punch above our weight but we have to be set up for it and have to take some of the teething pains as we put the rights thing in place for it flourish.

The one thing I'll add, the short term "fast promotion" argument would have weight if it looked like that was what was going to happen. Last season we finished and right now we are looking for a finish that's more or less the same (within a few places). In what world does that look a fast promotion? That's my biggest biggest problem with Warne is we are doing neither a fast promotion nor building for the future.

17 minutes ago, Mostyn6 said:

But but but the football was dire. Isn't that the point now with Warne?

I mean not exactly. There are several reasons;

- Style of football

- Tactical naivety

- Lack of adaptability 

- Poor management of fitness at times

- Seemingly poor technical coaching 

- Lack of clear longer term planning 

- Confused transfer strategy

- Seeming lack of willingness to develop academy players

- Generally underperforming in terms of results and signs of it getting worse rather than better.

Just now, CongletonRam said:

I am of the opinion that if you did a poll of all Derby fans, the majority would still be backing PW.

I still believe that many of the supporters wanting Warne out are those young, rather naive fans who would turn their back on the team in a heartbeat. The instant success that comes with young minds.

Either way, it's something of a mute point as it's music to my ears when out owner comers out and fully backs the manager.

That is what the club needs...stability. Given time, and hopefully some real money; I remain very confident that PW will succeed.　

 

I ask this genuinely and not facetiously but why ? What are you seeing that gives you that level of confidence? 

And what do you mean by succeed? Promotion? If so in what time frame?

3 hours ago, Srg said:

Problem is, he can't move with the ball anymore. He dances round it like it's a free kick whenever he's got it under control. Literally like Savage used to.

I agree and it's fine. Understand he can't do that and use the other players we have that can. Use Hourihane for what he can do not what he can't. It's been pretty been obvious since day 1 of being here that most of what he had left was a final ball and or shot. 

And also don't play him 3 games a week to knacker out what little stamina he has.

6 hours ago, Srg said:

Legs have gone. Can blame Warne all you want re style and instructions, but when your legs go you just do whatever’s easiest because you ain’t got it anymore. 

Yes and no.

You can make it easier for the player tactically. If hoofing is the easiest option and you don't want that then you can tactically set up the team and coach the team that their is a different default. And you play them where their current capabilities lay.

Hourihane has never looked the absolutely most comfortable playing the deepest midfield role. He's too peripheral, hasn't got the best tactical awareness and is only ok under serious pressure with the ball.

He's not got the legs for serious midfield running anymore but he can still be a difference maker in final 3rd, so... use him as that and don't expect from him what he can't do.

29 minutes ago, BaianoPOTY98 said:

Get a decent manager in and we might find out, one way or another 🤷‍♂️

I think that's part of what I come back to.

I honestly feel that Warne is showing he's not what we would in spite of questions of squad quality. Tactical incoherence, unclear vision/longer term planning, lack of adaptability, mishandling player fitness, limited set of answers to problems, lack of accountability, flawed recruiting and lack of reaction to how a game unfolds are all issues he's demonstrated that have nothing to do with squad. A better squad more aligned to his sensibilities would only likely paper over these deficiencies. 

He isn't a bad manager and his coaches aren't bad coaches per se. But this is the wrong job for him and he's the wrong manager for us.

1 hour ago, Jourdan said:

People speak about this squad in such glowing terms.

The best in the league? Anything but top two is a failure? I can’t understand why.

If you have a number of players playing at a level below their actual level, this tends to shine through and become very telling very quickly. See Leicester in the Championship currently.

In our 15 months in League 1, the only player to really genuinely evidence that on a consistent basis has been McGoldrick. The rest of the players have performed like a top half League 1 team and with the exception of 15 games last winter, they have not looked out of place at this level whatsoever and that should be a massive concern.  

This is not a top two team masquerading as a top ten team, and one that will greatly surge up the table if things change.

Personally I think on paper we've got reasonable sections of the squad that are capable of playing well in the league above and then the rest are mostly good at this level. 

Is it the best squad in the league? Don't know on that front. Nor do I think anything aside top 2 is a a failure. I do however think with the ability at hand it should be pushing for top 2 rather than dreaming of trying to get that last play off spot. And I'm partly convinced of that purely because we are getting points on the board still despite poor management.

I also think with where the quality areas are in the squad (i.e. midfield)  we should be firmly in control of most games and would be with proper coaching. 

Weirdly I think we had a top 2 squad probably when Warne took over. I'm not saying it should have performed at that level because it takes time to click.

But last season should have been focused on building momentum, squad familiarity and developing academy players into solid squad players and more. All so we could mount a serious challenge this year. 

It's what I find frustrating, it feels we've thrown a year down the drain only to be in a worse place. 

4 hours ago, S8TY said:

its marginly better...I remember plenty of games sat behind the ball and i was bored to death....rarely on the front foot...fair enough if you'd like him back but there are plenty much better out there than him

And yes may sound surprising but I warned them the football would be hard to watch and they seemed ok with it for a while then starting complaining about the style of play lol....and thats Millwall fans lol as i said says it all really 

I'd say it was better in the way that it was coherent and was tactically sound.

It was ugly at times but the plan was very clear and people knew what they were supposed to be doing.

Tbh Rowett is the benchmark I put other pragmatic managers that we've seen against in recent years because with the others it was both ugly and bad rather than just ugly.

8 hours ago, Kokosnuss said:

 

Bad managers often make good players look like average players and average players look like terrible players. Good managers often make even average players look good (even if it's for a short burst).

Sometimes a player is a clear standout in terms of class (McGoldrick) and can almost help drag other players up to their level, but that's rare.

Continued exposure to poor management has a habit of convincing onlookers that the players are actually as bad as they look and incapable of being better.

It doesn't even have to be long term exposure - remember watching Chris Martin play under Pearson? It's like Pearson's system was specifically designed to make Martin look bad so he could justify replacing him.

I'm not suggesting Warne is doing the same thing intentionally as I don't think that's in his character, just as a by-product of his limitations.

There's no way Barkhuizen is anywhere near as bad as you make out he is, IMO.

I could be wrong, but If you look back to Chris Wilder's time at Sheffield Utd I have a feeling you could accuse him of having taken on a number of players who'd been 'rejected' by Championship clubs in a similar fashion to Barkhuizen, but he made those rejects into a team where everyone played to their maximum and they reaped the benefits.

 

To add to this players at this level and the championship can often big strengths but big weaknesses. So with the right manager in the right set up they look fantastic but with the wrong one they look like they don't belong at this level.

9 hours ago, Kokosnuss said:

 

That sad fact is you could learn everything you ever needed to know about Paul Warne just by listening to the Moment of Truth podcast, both good and bad.

I've seen people note that he said at his first press conference or interview something along the lines of "if you have good footballer, you try to play good football"; we have good footballers, yet we're no longer trying to play good football. Not in any game where the opposition isn't considerably weaker than us anyway, and even then not always.

I don't blame Clowes for appointing him because I assume that in interviews for the job he'll have said similar things, stated a willingness to adapt, convinced his new employer that he's capable of growth as a manager whilst delivering a team which capable of achieving promotion with his time at Rotherham clearly evidencing the latter.

In reality it's been 13 months and he's not showing enough (if any) signs of doing either of those things, all the while appearing rattled every time he's questions. When the facade drops, what's left?

I do wonder how much of that good footballer comment more meant that we'd play good football because of the players as opposed to tactically fitting those players. 

Maybe it's hyper critical in hindsight but the comment lacked depth as to how he was going to achieve it. When asked more specifically about tactics in that interview I can remember him saying something to the effect of football not being rocket science and he likes to get it wide quickly and get crosses in.

27 minutes ago, nottingram said:

I agree but it won’t be happening based on an Athletic article I read yesterday morning. Pearce and Clowes scoffed at the idea when Matt Slater raised it to them on Tuesday evening. I think the plan is to get more football knowledge on to the board as NED’s but I would worry these would be sentimental appointments.

It seems crazy to me that you would not have football people in charge of football decisions but what do I know

Yeah that's the thing. I really feel like we could benefit who can afford to take a longer view development wise, somebody who still has skin in the game (there isn't the pressure to perform with a NED) and has been up until recently in touch with coaching. With a NED I often feel like they are people who've the game has passed them by and/or their view of it has been demonstrated as somewhat faulty.

7 minutes ago, Carnero said:

Neither was Bryson until McClaren arrived.

Before McClaren 

Bryson - Decent box to box player who'd mostly played in a two man midfield 

Martin - 3rd choice at Norwich, mostly played as a 10 off another striker.

Russell - Primarily a striker who'd played in a 2

And we could go on....

6 minutes ago, Barney1991 said:

Just don’t see it. No one in that midfield is hitting double figures. Waghorn is not of the hold up and intelligent style of Martin that McLaren heavily relied on. Don’t see Nelson playing it out from the back maybe cashin at a push with the right coaching 

It's also league 1 and a bad league 1 at that we don't need as good as we had then. 

Sibley hits double figures comfortably if played for a whole season. Waghorn's hold up play is good enough and he has an understanding with Sibley (Cocu specifically paired the two when Sibley first broke the same). We've got ample ability in midfield and the playing out from the back will be good enough with coaching.

McClaren also likely makes adjustments tactically to accommodate it not being the exact same set of players. For example you likely don't want to play with overlapping wingbacks and narrow wide forwards, its probably better to let nml and barkhuizen cheat a little and stay wide.

It'd not be perfect but it'd have tactical coherence that'd let McClaren play to his strengths in coaching.

27 minutes ago, Barney1991 said:

It is the players though Roy. For example if Steve McLaren came in today and tried to set us up to play his 13/14 style how many players would you keep in that squad. I’d probably say cashin and bird sibley maybe. 

It wouldn't be exactly the same tactically but 

                Wildsmith 

Nyambe Nelson Cashin Forsyth 

                     Fornah

               Bird            Sibley

NML            Waghorn    Barkhuizen

Would give McClaren something to work with, with the right coaching.

And there in lies the rub: coaching We've got enough quality at our disposal for this division, we just need to name a balanced side that has tactical coherence and have it coached well enough.

More than anything I think I'd like to see us get a more dedicated director of football in place. Somebody who can better guide the trajectory of the club's development  all round from a playing perspective.

12 minutes ago, TomTom92 said:

I was for the short term option if it was Warnock. If we’re happy just to tread water then we may as well keep PW until the end of the season.  
 
Bowyer isn’t for me but then again he’s shown to be a decent manager with some clubs so hopefully we’d get the right version of him.

Yeah I more or less agree. It either needs to be a short term person who's going to give fast success or somebody putting the building blocks in place for more sustainable progress. 

The only thing I somewhat disagree with is I don't think keeping warne is treading water. I think it's a slow, gradually slide backwards.

We are in a worse position on many fronts than when he took over.

Generally speaking if Warne goes I think we have two broad paths we can take. Find somebody who can develop the club from the ground up and set us on a path development over time. Or go for the surest bet of promotion asap, maybe with the view of doing that short term whilst. 

Personally I think the former is the smartest course of action but I wouldn't be surprised if we went for the latter (and I think it'd be understandable, you just can't afford to stay in this division too long).

Personally Evatt is the one I've thought of for a while. Eustace seems possibly a decent shout (although I've doubts over his football at Birmingham). After that I'd be looking for a talented younger coach in a set up that plays the right way and has experience in developing academy players. 

2 hours ago, derbydaz22 said:

This just shows what Warne is all about we get beat playing very little football and his answer is run more be more physical etc how about try and play some football ? I’m sick of this garbage being served up.

That's something that's concerned me since early in his reign, his only answers to problems are:

1) work harder

2) be more aggressive

3) get more crosses in

That's it. Right in his first interview there were comments he made that worried his view of the game tactically was narrow and all we've seen since backs that up.

12 hours ago, duncanjwitham said:

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.

I think you hit at the core of why I think keeping Warne on board is going to hurt us long term and isn't the neutral option people often opine it to be. 

You have to take a step back and realise how asymmetrical the footballing system is and how uneven the playing field is to succeed at the highest levels. A club like ours either needs a robust plan to overcome that sustainably as we will likely never be big enough or attract the kinds of backing to seriously compete. (And even if we do we risk the trajectory of what happened under MM). 

Essentially we need something or a set of things we can do differently in order to level things out. And if you look at the success of clubs who have some degree of sustainability and not just relied on boom/bust investment they all have that element to them. I.e. Brentford, Southampton. 

The one major advantage we have as a club is geographical in that we have quite a sizeable catchment area where we can realistically compete for talent at youth levels, talent that otherwise might be prohibitive to acquire after they've matured. But we need to plan with this in mind. We need to have strong development pathways from academy to first team with firm incentives about taking risks on bringing people through and giving them time. 

It's what was so frustrating about last season to me. Last season was practically as free a hit as you get as a club. It was a season to get our ducks in a row and reset as a club. We should have been giving serious game time to developing academy players and recent academy graduates like Thompson. It was a season we could afford to take risks on players  This would have given us a solid foundation of a squad to work from that would improve over time. Instead we kick Thompson on loan and then find ourselves short of cover. Warne is clearly reluctant to trust academy players to the point where its actively detrimental. In a nothing game with a lead once again we were playing players past the point of exhaustion (some of which like bird who are coming off injuries) rather than giving someone game time. 

It feeds into my feelings that as a manager he struggles to see beyond the surface level and struggles to see the bigger picture whether it's tactical, player fitness management or overall club development.