May Contain Nuts

Not sure you can get much more patronising than claiming someone can't see the full picture just because you disagree with them. Nothing in your post seems to be based on what's actually playing out in front of us, it's pretty much a list of theories, preconceptions and excuses without any substance or analysis behind them. "11 strong men..." Sorry, what? Are we playing with our U12s? "...busting a gut to put one on us". - in theory true but it's not what we've actually come up against in the vast majority of matches. "It hasn't been an easy ride"... it has been pretty easy actually. Especially this season with 3 very good teams removed and 2 would-be competitors suffering points deductions and ongoing ownership issues. "There isn't a higher cheque book" - no but there's more than most teams have and a promotion level budget. "25k a week saying we are Derby..." - Oh please, my posts haven't said anything of the sort. Making out my view is based on us having the name Derby County and a lot of fans is again patronising and insulting. "the obvious structures they would be under given our current level of strength and stability" - which is pretty damn good, just because we came from a bad place doesn't mean we're currently in one and have to pretend we're this meek little things who shouldn't expect to compete from promotion. There's nothing wrong with the structure Warne is working under, he's got more than enough at his disposal to get us promoted and we're told that his only remit is getting us up so his use of the academy can't be brought into discussions, and the Chairman is on record as saying he has patience with him and would understand even if he does somehow fail to get us promoted. He's got it bloody easy and there's no reason to think another manager couldn't at least match what he's done. "many if our signings were designed for Warne's vision"... which was to play with a back 3 with Bradley at the heart of it. Thank god for injuries, quite frankly. It's debatable whether we'd even have signed Niambe had they not happened. Our "compromised style" as you put it has been key to some of our better performances both last season and this. When most of the injured players have played they've looked no better than what we have as 'backups'. "This isn't happy clapping. It's reality. It's support" - the patronising b******* goes on.

No, I'm thinking of Warne (and Rosenior's) full spell in charge. It's just even worse this season than last. It's still only a small number of games where the opposition's resilience has been our downfall, I'm not glossing over them - every team has games like that - it's just theyve come along to cost us far less often than our lack of tactical nous and poor game and squad management. As I said, those other big clubs had to spend ages clearing out the s*** before they could do anything - we didn't have that problem. It was as fresh as fresh starts get. We overcame many of our issues within the first couple of months. There are more teams who try to play 'football' in League One than there were when they were down here too. You could even attribute someone like Sunderland, say, finally achieving promotion at least in part due to the changing nature of the league.

Of course he hasn't. As I said earlier, it's likely - in the statistical sense, and understandably given human nature, so not really even a dig - that there are some posters who think criticising Warne is the same thing as abusing posters who publicly back him, taking it upon themselves to feel insulted on his behalf.

I'd probably subscribe to that view had League One proved true to its billing. Everyone's cup final, having to scrap for every point, technical players routinely nullied by 6ft 4 oafs kicking them to bits every game etc. The reality is that describes probably only about 3 teams. If teams are supposed to raise ther game against us, someone forgot to send them the memo. It isn't the same league other teams (Forest, Leeds, Sunderland, Ipswich prior to last season) are often cited as struggling to come to terms with. (Nor did we need to offload an overstuffed, overpaid squad reeking of the failure of relegation) I probably end up spending more time watching, concentrating on, the opposition team than I do watching our own play now. I find that I'm saying to myself "how would I feel if I was a ____ supporter"; would I be happy with that level of performance? Hand on heart I can honstly say that I would be gutted and almost ashamed of nearly all of them. Not just the lack of skill but the application, determination, intent too. It's a cake-walk for us at times only difficult if we fail to do the things we know we can do. Yes, the club was decimated and had the league lived up to its reputation it would be easy to just accept that we need an extended period of time time to heal, but it's risen back very quickly (brilliant work behind the scenes by Clowes and his team) and even under certain restrictions has big advantages over many others clubs - the truth is that even a few short weeks of exiting administration we'd managed to assemble a squad which probably should have finished top 6 in its first season. (Nearly) A year and a half later the league is weaker and our squad better than last season, to the point that an increasing number of games barely even represent a challenge. Of course there are some lingering after-effects of where we found ourselves, but it feels like some are content to wallow in it still, and to keep on taking their medication long after the infection has cleared. If those in charge of the club had that same mentality we'd be stuck a mid-table League One club with a budget and players to match forevermore.

Not one of those is a Scott. I wouldn't mind signing another Jeff, Graeme or Jason though.

If you say so. I'd say there's a crucial difference between being called out as a happy-clapper vs being called out as a moaner (or similar) anyway - the vast majority people are happy to take ownership of the former, but not the latter, I don't really see it as a derogatory term. Surely everyone would love to be a happy-clapper? I don't suppose any of this really matters tbh, just something to fill the time. I'm incredibly bored of the shitness of League One, our victories feel almost entirely hollow to me and I can't wait for the season to be over, it's already dragging on like a MFer.

I've done that before, completely clear headed and trying to be as objective as possible, and found the result to be as I've described. Obviously not ten-fold (hence me calling it an exaggeration) but easily three-fold. What happens fairly often is that a few people will react to a poor start to a game, a goal conceded etc - not necessarily even with anything overtly negative - and then (should we turn it around) have these posts called out and grouped together as an example of wanton negativity, even if they were simply a fair reflection of the way we were performing when they were made. (Don't get me wrong, there will always be a couple of knee-jerk catastrophists and attention seekers in amnongst it all) There's often very little appreciation that a match thread is a living, evolving thing. Anyone perceived to have been negative at any point must be shamed. Just the way it is. This now tends to happen less than it did, of course, because we hardly ever concede and generally have tended to play better from the off (barring a few ecamples to the contrary) On the subject of thread lengths, there are aways more things to discuss after a defeat, that's the way of footbal forums world-over. It's the way of human nature full stop, tbf.

Such a confusing image. Is it supposed to represent "just another stick to beat Paul Warne with" and if so, are you suggesting he's into self-flagellation? Onanism?

Semi-fair. It's impossible to change your thinking that posters using a stat-lead approach are claiming to know better than people simply watching the games, and using stats alone as proof, so I won't waste time trying to do that. Dish it out, take it back? Sure. Except, it doesn't work when the general trend is to 'give back' ten-fold (slight exaggeration) what's been dished out. The prevalent attitude on here atm is one of undue smarm.

Being described as a happy clapper or blind faither isn't being ridiculed. They're typical, cliched, go-to message board terms for when people are discussing / describing the 'factions' in the debate, used broadly rather than personally. Fanboi has been used once, on a topic discussing Elon Musk. Fanboy only by people saying "I don't want to come across as a fanboy" or similar. Deluded? There's one example of someone applying it to fans with concern to a scoreline flattering us. No examples of it being used to describe anyone's support of Warne. I repeat, nobody has ridiculed for the act of supporting the manager. I'm sure there are some who take criticism and ridicule of the manager himself as ridicule of their support of him, but that's not the same thing.

Literally nobody has been ridiculed for supporting the manager.

It is luck though - we were lucky that their player was so stupid to launch an elbow for no apparent reason. Had the sending off been because we'd had a nice bit of play that forced their player into making a foul it would be different.

Correct. You most certainly aren't wriggling out of it. At least not successfully.

Are you going senile? "If any other clubs had our squad, you would look at it, laugh and ridicule them for having a team full of average players" Laughing at the squad. Laughing at how average it is. Same difference. Stop trying to wriggle out of it. Most teams in the league would love to have our squad. We have players who can do things those at other clubs can't, who have the quality to force and take advantage of the mistakes made by the opposition - when we make mistakes pretty much every team we face doesn't have the quality to take advantage.

Just ignore the bit where you said any other club would laugh at our squad then. Clearly they wouldn't.

What battles? Most teams aren't even putting up a fight (except for when they stupidly elbow one of our players and get sent off) For the most part it's like we could leave backdoor wide open and put a big sign in the street saying "come on in, free TV, free sofa. There's £30,000 in the safe, combination 1884" with the only catch being that there's a big step in front of the door, no ramp, and any would-be robbers are in a wheelchair. All the while the opposition leave theirs open with a sign saying "beware of the dog" and an image of a rottweiler, but in actuality their house is being guarded by a kitten

Plane with a banner over PPS next home game? (Whenever that is). One might not be enough though

We have a squad of above average players for the league, as has been proven massively by our recent form. You're not getting out of calling the squad laughably average that easily. I couldn't care less whether you want to crow about recent results or not tbh. We're achieving results at the level we should be with the squad, no more than that. That doesn't make people's concerns about the long term under Warne any less valid, just because you're focussed entirely on the short term .

Taking the high ground, are we?😅 Trolls gonna troll

Bird probably won't be playing that deep though, he'll be much closer to Sibley than he is to Hourihane. Everyone ahead of Hourihane pressing high so they don't have time to play it out neatly, resulting in long inaccurate passes which the defence mop up with ease. The inherent danger being the times the opposition do manage to deal with our press and end up having a run at Hourihane, leaving us exposed. ...but we'll pretty much always get away with that because the opposition invariably don't have the quality to do anything to take advantage of the situation, with the sheer quality of our defenders (especially when Niambe is playing) acting as a further barrier to them causing us any real stress.

Championship table when Eustace was sacked Championship table 8 games of 'fearless' football under Rooney

Speaking too soon also goes both ways and doesn't just apply to negativity. There were similar themes banded about when we went on the unbeaten run last season, with some calling others out for their doubts and criticisms earlier in the season as if they'd been proven wrong by our good spell. Surely you have to wonder if those people have learned anything about speaking too soon, too? Although I'd suggest it's the opposite and the number of people looking to use our positive form against other posters has actually increased. I think it's perfectly possible to support the team during games, want them to win and be happy in the short term (even if it's just in the immediate aftermath) with positive results and performances, while still holding the belief that the manager has serious limitations which will hold us back in the long run, and feel that he isn't developing tactically or actually building anything toward a more sustainable future, be that the playing style, meaningful minutes given to Academy players or whatever else. I believe a winning streak was always likely to happen because the league and most teams in it are terrible (even 'good' ones are nothing special, as we've seen when we've played them), because we've got a better squad (even with injuries, even with some signings offering little) than most, and because the manager we employ is a promotion expert who's seemingly being allowed to focus purely on achieving just that, and I mean just that, making his job pretty straightforward. If I was assessing Warne on the sole criteria of "do we look like mounting a serious promotion challenge?" (which is the least we should be looking at) and was to cast aside any thoughts about his overall suitability for the longer term challenge of establishing ourselves back in the Championship then IMO he's performing at a solid 7.5-8/10, and I'd probably agree that all we need is patience.

Only in the sense that it didn't happen last season, so the time for it to be instant has already passed. Promotion this season is an entirely realistic proposition.

Don't fart into the heated seats all summer neglecting the fact that when winter comes and you turn the heat back on you'll be releasing all of those trapped odours.