May Contain Nuts

12 minutes ago, BPV said:

Find it incredibly frustrating that Fornah and Ward are being linked with leaving.

They're only really being linked with leaving by posters on here though, aren't they? Nobody in the outside world has identified them as the players on the fringes we may move on.

1 hour ago, Jourdan said:

I am not sure that’s true. In recent times, Cocu, Rooney and Rosenior all received praise and a level of understanding even though results and performances were often less than ideal. Lampard too. Rowett far less so.

For some, Rooney, for example, could do no wrong. He could unmask Rammie and destroy the innocence of five year olds everywhere and someone somewhere would be chanting Rooney! Rooney! Rooney!

Is equal praise and criticism really a pipe dream, or are fans who are turned off by Warne more likely to be reluctant to dish out praise? During any good spell we have had, there has been a clear effort to dismiss what’s happening rather than give credit for getting the job done. It’s not always easy as we can see with other teams in the league having mixed results.

How often have we had a settled side under Warne? Not very often. But when it is, I would say more often than not, you can see something emerging. Again, perspective is everything. I would say with better players and more money to spend, there is no reason Warne can get us playing better football even in the Championship.

It’s not impossible for a League 1 side to deliver a coherent style but surely you understand the lower down the pyramid you go, you are working with less talented, less consistent, and more error-prone players so the more complex and more time consuming that becomes to achieve.

Warne has been here for 15 months. Is it enough time to have everything running smoothly like clockwork?

I'll give you your due, you're slick. An expensive PR team couldn't do a better job of selling the image you wish to portray of yourself on here. You should probably apply to be on the next season of The Traitors, get the money back you've spent on the wedding and then some!

You were absolutely anything but even handed and fair in your attitude toward Cocu. The absolute master of saying "I understand and sympathise with the difficulties" to make it sound like you were being fair, and then not applying that understanding when it came to judgement time.

The way you've backed Warne, hedging your bets after seeing an opportunity to be 'right' about him given the odds of him being a success here are stacked in his favour, again, impressive. The way you went after posters who'd doubted him after our unbeaten run last season rather distasteful, however.

You've recently posted about how you were critical of him after Stevenage and Reading games, all that says to me is you've read the room and waited for a moment where it would be almost impossible not to be critical. Well done. Good game playing.

I agree with the point about Rooney though, A lot of what he said and did was part of a PR game too, and people fell for that! Freedom of the City FML!

The rest of your post is just supposition. Does any manager truly have a settled side? Will having better players remove Warne's tactical blindspots, the ones we keep having to come up with some individual brilliance to cover up? What if, despite our signings, we still have a bottom 3 squad - does Warne have anything in his locker to get them performing above that standard? There's no evidence so far to say he can get a team functioning collectively to a level that belies the quality of his squad.

You're saying that there's a 'clear effort to dismiss what's happening' but don't consider that it works both ways. Most of Warne's critics (previous to our good run, anyway) have been because of what is happening, most of his defenders center on what might happen. There's a clear effort, of which you're currently leading the charge,  to dismiss just how low quality the opposition we're up against this season, and use the results of other teams as a distraction in order to to pretend that Warne has it all on to get a top 3/6 side placed in the top 3/6.

15 months is plenty of time to have things running far smoother than they are, yes. Mousinho at Portsmouth managed (6 months into the job) to get a squad featuring more new signings than ours playing cohesively as a unit right from the off.  They've faltered recently, of course, but they're still top of the table and that's because they started the season with workmanlike and well organised, consistent (if uninspiring) performances.

8 minutes ago, Jubbs said:

It's going to be a repeat of last year isn't it?

No.

Nyambe will be back soon and we won't concede more than another 10 goals all season. Be like a new signing.

Brown will return from his loan a fully formed first team player and lead us to glorious victory with a play-off final hattrick.

53 minutes ago, Animal is a Ram said:

Most teams will do everything in their power to drag you down

...which is fine, but at times it isn't the opposition dragging us down to their level; it's us lowering ourselves to theirs, often intentionally, that grates.

1 hour ago, Jourdan said:

it seems that some people don’t seem willing to praise and criticise in equal measure and be balanced in their views

1 hour ago, Jourdan said:

In terms of meeting expectation, I would say that Warne is around par.

Simpe really. Managers don't tend to get much praise for being 'around par'. Especially when the football they're serving up is regularly so hard to watch.

Praise and criticism in equal measure is a bit of a pipedream and the improper distribution of it is hardly something you're immune from yourself.

The problem isn't that we're not playing scintillating football, it's that on more occasions than a few we've barely even looked like a team at all and that's easily attributable to the way we set up. I'm sure most of Warne's current critics would accept us playing football which is a bit more 'dull', but a lot more organised because they'd at least see how the we take what we're doing forward and build on it to successfully play it at a higher level.

It's why on the other thread you have people rating Cocu above Warne - that certainly can't be because of their respective results on the pitch.

And you can't just write off how disjointed it is because "we are also in League 1 with a squad of League 1 footballers," that's just such a weak get-out, as if it's impossible for a League One club to have a coherent manner of playing. We're not asking for that every single week, but more than once a month would be encouraging!

Levels of enjoyment will surely also depend on what stage of your 'supporting life' you're at. I'm not really sure I was casting a critical eye over the specifics of our play under Davies for example, I was just there for the ride and don't really recall making much of anything in the way of an assessment as to whether it was good football or whether it was entertaining me or not.

I enjoy watching us play entertaining football, sure, but enjoyment and entertainment aren't mutually exclusive 

There have been things to enjoy when watching most managers.

Jim Smith obviously had us playing some lovely football in the PL but it was before I was really attending games, only really saw us on TV. Bloody loved watching players like Wanchope, Baiano, Sturbridge and we were regularly, at least for a few season,  getting good results against some excellent competition while playing some amazing football.

Gregory I have very little recollection of tbh. 

Burley's spell is right near the start of my ST holding days. Enjoyed that for similar reasons as Smith, we had some class overseas signings, played pretty football and were competing for promotion for a place back at the top table. That was ruined by the ownership, without whom we could have built something that got us back to where we had been under Smith.  It was exciting to me.

Brown was a crazy time, we were a mess, he was out of his depth, but it oddly intriguing and I can't say that in some small way I didn't enjoy it.

Davies, on reflection the football wasn't pretty but we had a number of players you could really get behind, there was the iconic Stevie Howard, the graft and experience of Oakley, the skill of David Jones, magic moments from an academy product in Giles Barnes. Big Dave Darren Moore need I say more. Leacock came from nowhere and looked a classy defender. Above all though we were an excellent TEAM and the goal in sight (and achieved) was the Premier League. It mattered not whether it was entertaining.

Jewell oh god Jewell. Still, we knew we were s*** but we made the most of it as a fanbase, before relegation at least. Gallows humour provided some light relief. Second season it just snowballed, even though on paper some of our signings were pretty decent, Commons & Hulse would go on to be bright sparks in Cloughs early days and even though he's divisive, I quite liked having Robbie Savage here.

Clough I have massive respect for given the job he had on. It's such a long period of time he was here it's hard to distill it into one paragraph, but slowly and surely he built the team that McClaren would enthrall us all with. There were bumps, many, along the way but all throughout you knew he was doing it all for the benefit of Derby County, on a genuinely shoestring budget whilst trying to compete with teams with far greater spending power than us. The intent was always there to play good football, but he seemed to lose sight of it too easily when things went awry

He also lead us to 10 straight victories over Leeds and some memorable games against Forest. He'd just taken us as far as he could though IMO.

McClaren I don't think I need to say much about tbh, great times even if we didn't make it up - one bloody kick differently in the QPR game, or George Thorne's knees holding up, or Ibe not being recalled and we were on the verge of potentially another Smith-style era of playing attractive football at the top level.

Clement not great, not awful, we still had most of the McClaren stalwarts so there was still a clear bond with the team, so it was still enjoyable and we still had hopes of PL football.

Pearson simply got it all wrong but his time was brief enough to not leave me with (m)any lasting mental scars.

Wassall knew exactly what we wanted to see, and he got us playing some very enjoyable stuff but he was maddeningly naive tactically. Enjoyment and frustration equal.

Rowett, similar to Davies. Not pretty but again it was all about the team. Not entertaining but still enjoyable, Championship playoffs with Vydra unplayable at times, a massively clinical, goalscoring marvel.

Lampard through sheer quality of loans  was enjoyable.

Cocu had a really good spell before all the rugs were pulled, and his work bringing through the academy players was excellent, it was a delight to see them coming through and showing their worth at Championship level.

Rooney/Rosenior... first season dire, utterly dire but punctuated by the elation. of staying up on the final day. 2nd season the us against the world mentality made for some.memorable and enjoyable games.

Warne... very little of the above applies. We don't play nice football, there's no sense that we're onto something good we can build on in years to come, we aren't a good 'team' despite having some good players, the tactical management is almost as naive as Wassall's and what seems to constitute entertainment is 'going toe to toe' with some piss poor teams so that it's nice for a neutral to watch. That sort of entertainment does not (to me) enjoyment make.

27 minutes ago, Jourdan said:

Who is embellishing things? I’ve never said Warne is doing a perfect job or massively overachieving, just that many fans are overly critical.

To be honest, we are about where I expected us to be. 3rd or 4th and trying to outdo the teams that finished above us.

You are the one that is suggesting he has a simple, painfully easy job to do. All the evidence points to the opposite.

The failure of other teams is absolutely relevant because it highlights if it was such a straightforward league to navigate, other teams that have the ability to compete would not be as far back as they are. 

All the evidence?

All the evidence points to us being able to put in awful performances for a significant proportion of our games and still be one win away from top place. Imagine if we actually had to play well to win!?

That you seem to think the evidence points to it being a difficult league is an example of you embellishing the job done.

I've literally just said it isn't dead simple so please don't accuse me of saying something I haven't.

14 minutes ago, Jourdan said:

I don’t understand why you want to constantly downplay the job Warne is doing.

There are plenty of cautionary tales out there to suggest that this league is not as weak as some suggest.

Charlton have spent significantly in both transfer windows and yet they are 18 points and 12 places from the play off places. Wycombe, a perennially awkward top half side, are having to look over their shoulders at the relegation zone being 19th. 

Blackpool are 8th and Wigan are 13th having just come down from the Championship, and Wigan would only be 9th without their points deduction.

There are three out of four promoted sides from League 2 currently in the top 10 showing that there are fewer ‘bankers’ to rely on.

Just because you have the ability to spend money and outspend others in the division, there is still so much to get right.

We are currently 4th and likely to be three points from 2nd once games in hand have been played. It’s not perfect, but it’s far from a disaster or irretrievable.

...and I don't understand your desire to embellish the job he's doing while using 'cautionary tales' as a distraction.

The expectation from inside and outside the club is that we're challenging for the top two, but the way you talk it would be acceptable / understandable if we were 12th.

The failure of other teams to do what they're supposed to is not our business. The relegated teams have their own s*** to sort out, we've got a year's preparation / 'progress' on them.

I know the league is weaker this year because I watch our games and see the quality of opposition, I see how poorly we can play and get away with it simply due to having just two or three players who can pull out that little bit of class every now and then, while the opposition broadly fail to capitalise on our mistakes.

Who said anything about it being an irretrievable disaster?

10 minutes ago, Comrade 86 said:

Ignored the rest as it's the same spiel you've rolled out dozens of times and whilst not without merit, I'd struggle to get through it all without feeling sleepy. All I would say is that the season ends in May not January.

Fine if that's the way you want to play it.

I won't waste my breath trying to have a proper discussion with you again.

Not really sure what the personal stuff you're going through at the minute is and I hope it works out well for you, but whatever it is it's made you into a right high horse riding arse on here.

4 hours ago, Comrade 86 said:

Salary cap and enforced EFL business plan notwithstanding? Was Clough having flog players like Shinnie for two bob and would he have been able to renew contracts for Jags and the like? I'd argue that coming out of admin and a forced relegation, Warne's brief has been as tough as any in recent memory. Just my opinion, mind! 

Completely the opposite IMO.

Warne came in after the majority of the hard work was done, he was handed what was already a top 8 (potentially top 6) squad and has since been allowed to bring in a good number of players, albeit limited on transfer fees, on wages higher than the majority of our competition can pay.

Added to that, his first full season in charge is one in which the quality of the opposition we face is below standard in an already low quality league, owing to 2 of the relegated teams having points deductions with Reading particularly in a mess.

I can't think of any manager in living memory other than perhaps Lampard with an easier brief. (Should have got us promoted with the standard of loan player we had, but he was also up against teams with even greater spending power)

That's not to say that it's dead simple, that there aren't still challenges we face, but he's not a rookie manager, getting out of League One is his speciality and he should fully be expected to achieve that with the resources he's been given.

Warne is supposed to be our trump card, but at times it's more like he's a joker in the pack 

1 hour ago, Tamworthram said:

I enjoyed the result and I enjoyed two very good goals. However, I was disappointed with our performance for the first 60 minutes. If that makes me a member of your so called “performance police” then guilty as charged.

Think this says quite a bit tbh.

When I read your posts I generally think they're well balanced and always considerate of the opinion of others but you do recognise the posts which are sunny for the sake of false.optomism but you will also call out negative troll posts when they go OTT. I guess what I'm saying is...

47 minutes ago, Dava75 said:

WTF!?  There is zero wrong with what he’s said. It’s an honest assessment of the performance. Some people have an agenda …..it was a shocking first half performance - he’s said as much - but we won - and keep pace with the top teams despite the performance. 

 

It's an honest assessment and he too thinks we got a fortunate victory because we have more class than the opposition.

That's great. He understands us.

Or does he? Or is he just saying what he thinks those booing at half time want to hear? 

Does anything change as a result?

Got it wrong from the off, rescued by a brilliant free kick to equalise, then got it right and won.

Not sure what happens if Bird doesn't drag our arses back into it though.

36 minutes ago, Van der MoodHoover said:

So can we agree that it's ok to be critical of aspects of the team/play/performances, but that personal abuse of our manager ist verboten?

Of course.

That said the level of personal abuse of our manager that actually exists is massively overstated and topic names like this one fool people into thinking it's widespread, and that the nature of discussion on the forum has been abusive off the back of the previous result. See David's post earlier, avoided the forum, but really aside from one or two exchanges (of varying length) the discussions have been constructive. Exactly what the forum should be for.

(Some of the below is actually a little tongue in cheek and slightly exaggerated for effect, but some truth lies within!)

Then you get the posts trying to claim that there's a large swell of people who'll simply never like Warne whatever he achieves, which seems to be mainly from people who just have very low standards and see us getting promoted this season as some sort of miracle and have decided that it's an achievement that ranks up there with what Jim Smith or Billy Davies achieved! (It really really isn't) It's almost as if they've bought into the small club mentality. 

Plus the old "I see the moaners are coming out of the woodwork after a negative result" schtick, usually spouted by people who've actively been accusing negative posters of 'ruining the board' or similar by 'posting repetitive, boring rubbish' when we weren't playing well, essentially telling them their voice wasn't welcome - then acting like those dissenting voices are committing some sort of crime against Derby County when they speak up after a bad performance/result that's come about because of the issues they'd identified all those months ago, which still haven't been and show no signs of being rectified, or indeed any attempt to be.

That one always makes me laugh. You can't tell people to shut up and then slag them off for being quiet! It I do think there are some who just think the forum should be some utopia of positivity.

There's so lovely low-key 'I'm a better supporter than you' vibes at times too.

12 hours ago, EulogyForEvolution said:

I'd like to see us bring in a player who can sit in front of the back four and turn over the ball. Then see Fornah or Thommo play as the midfield engine driving the ball on, and Bird or Hourihane playing between the lines. 

Isn't there quite a simple fix for this though?

There's no reason Bird can't sit in front of the back 4 and turn the ball over, it's what he's done under every other manager at senior level. Fornah or Thommo the engine and Hourihane between the lines as you describe.

I'm not saying it would work if we suddenly dropped what we were doing and switched the players around because it would have to be something we've worked on all season on the training ground.

While I understand that having Bird further forward allows him more involvement in big moments and gives him a nice little stat boost individually, is it really what's best for the team?

Our midfield doesn't look balanced because we're asking it to function normally whilst performing a headstand. It's upside down.

11 minutes ago, CodnorRam said:

When the players play how he wants them to , we look really dangerous. Its nothing new that we are generally very inconsistent.  

If we get out this league we'll get better players and the ones we already have thrive against better playing teams in my opinion.

All I'll say is I admire your level of faith in things going to plan.

1 hour ago, Archied said:

Any chance of a steer on tonight s lottery numbers Meg?

There's a 1 in 45,057,474 chance of winning the lottery (0.000002219388%), so no.

Besides, if I told you the winning numbers, then I'd have to share the jackpot with you.

Opening for Warne? 😉

3 hours ago, CodnorRam said:

Some derby fans seem to be abit entitled. Same as forest fans. Both clubs have a very good history. But both have been crap for years yet think we should win everything and outplay every single team. Aslong as warne gets us out this bloody league i couldnt care less.

Even if a lack of forward planning and a style of play unsuited to the Championship sees us relegated straight back to this bloody league?

1 hour ago, YorkshireRam said:

Has he actually said this? I saw the ''2 touch'' quote but didn't see anything about this?

This was pre-FGR at home last season. It set alarm bells off for me at the time and it's just stuck with me ever since, and I'm reminded of it whenever I watch an opposition stroll through us, or we leave a player exposed as the last line of defence.

"I understand that the way we play sometimes we're vulnerable on the counter attack, but that's the way I want to play. I want to play and watch a team that attacks, are relentless, and tries to create enough chances to score. My one criticisim is that I don't think in the final third we've been as concise as we should be"

While it's not explicitly "I'm not bothered" or "I don't care" it is, I believe (and evidence of how we play would back this up) pretty much tantamount to that.

38 minutes ago, Crewton said:

It's quite confusing when you see people calling for us to play one-touch football and then the same people complaining about Warne asking players to take no more than two touches.......

Quick, one touch football is great when you're a well structured team with good movement and well-rehearsed passing routes, when everyone knows where one another is going to be, when players are closer together and the passses are generally a bit safer.

We're not that team though, are we? We often still look like strangers, there's little cohesion to our attacking play, often our players are too spread around, too far apart because as soon as we get the ball they're urged to haul ass up the field to support an attack, we have fewer options for each pass and they're riskier as a result.

Sometimes we need someone to put their foot on the ball, calm it down, wait for their teammates to get back into position but we don't have / don't do that.

Load of pollocks

1 hour ago, S8TY said:

Fair enough 

isn’t Warne short term though really ? or would you want him as manager in the championship ?if we got up I’d want to be able to select someone who could take us to the next level 

 

Aye, hence 'even more' short terminism. I'd accept Warne as a manager in the Championship if he gets us up, but I struggle to see past some fundamental flaws in his approach which are unlikely to ever change, and will cause us problems, regardless of who we sign.

1 hour ago, S8TY said:

I think a gauge of how well thought of Warne is is this 

( Its not going to happen but )

if it was announced right now that Warne was being replaced with Warnock who has been given the soul objective of getting us top two would most be excited by that or really disappointed?

I know I’d be putting money on us going up because he wouldn’t put up with lame performances like Tuesday 

It would annoy me as it would represent even more short terminism. 

10 minutes ago, Comrade 86 said:

Are you seriously suggesting you've not read anything yourself Sage? Really? Before the run and since Xmas and the downturn in form, Clowes has been copping it all over SM. He's clueless, he's only in it for the money, he'll flog us to anyone who has the cash as he's desperate to get out, he's still in league with Morris, Saint Clowes, yadda, yadda, yadda. There's fukn loads of it. Some stuff gets removed on here which is good, but Twatter and Facebook are fookin grim right now.

Anyway, I'm already wound up today, so I think it's best I just rein it in, as I'm probably just making things worse now.

Think there needs to be some sort of pact wherein we all agree that if we're talking about comments on Twitter or similar that it's explicitly stated in the post, otherwise it ends up looking like you're/we're accusing people on the forum of this behaviour, which leads to unnecessary ill-feeling on here.

Like bringing your problems at work home to a spouse and ranting about them all evening while they just want a quiet night watching telle.

Or that we just acknowledge Twitter for the cesspit it is and don't bring s*** from there into conversations on here.