Carl Sagan

If you read back I said "a shame Warne has no ability of his own, or contacts in the game, to attract players", which was shorthand for comparing him to our recent managers: Liam Rosenior, Wayne Rooney, Phillip Cocu, Frank Lampard, Gary Rowett, Steve McClaren. All of whom were well known, highly respected figures in the world of football. All of the above added something extra to the equation and could bring extra players to Derby as a result. In contrast, surely it's indisputable that Warne is a nobody in terms of his standing in the football world (he can't help that)? He doesn't possess the X-factor to separately bring players into the club. We have the most fans and the best training facilities in the division, and we're at the right end of the table, so of course players have signed for us. But none of these signings are surprising or special. It's not like Mason Mount coming to join Derby County, or even David McGoldrick and Conor Hourihane dropping down to League One to join us. I just wish he had more personal pull because, when we have no money as you say, that could make a big difference. I didn't "have a go" at him - I said it was "a shame".

People saying we're stronger now at the end of the window, but before it opened we said we needed a striker, we've since lost our only two backups in TJJ and Brown, and only have one fit centre forward at the club. People joked as we went along that we'd reach this point and say "we tried but couldn't get it over the line", but I didn't think anyone was serious. For that to be the eventual outcome smacks of a remarkable level of incompetence. Is the recruitment guy still in his probationary period? Surely not worth keeping on. And such a shame Warne has no ability of his own, or contacts in the game, to attract players.

It does make sending Brown out on loan baffling. I'm pretty sure we've loaned people out to the National League outside of transfer windows before, so presumably we could simply have waited to have bodies in before agreeing a deal. Even when TJJ was fit, Brown was still also getting on the bench. An 18 year old academy product isn't the answer to our striking issues at this time, but he could have been one of the pieces in the jigsaw.

I thought you were volunteering for the marquee striker role for a moment. Be careful - if the club see this post, with that age and injury profile, you might be getting a late night phonecall!

Genuinely top info thanks. But I had to laugh when I read his wiki page - a ruptured hamstring tendon, a recurrent calf injury, and has never scored in his games for Wales or Birmingham. But, to his credit, he has played for Wales. I'd love us to buy Langstaff from County instead.

Isn't Collo due a new contract? Has that happened already?

We absolutely need a striker having sent Brown out on loan. There's only three hours to go. If we were hoping for Ennis, as we should have been, but he's now gone, we should be ready with a back up. And I'm sure Reading will be grateful for the cash for Sam Smith. That's the obvious deal to get done as we simply need a body in the building, and it's way better than paying massively over the odds for some Sheff Wed has-been.

Word is Sibbo's wages are too high, which I'm pleased about as I'd hate him to go there and shoot them to promotion and be sold for millions to a lower Prem team for Peterborough to profit. Maybe they want Wardy back?

The more I think about the Jonson Clarke-Harris thing, the less likely I think it might happen. Their chairman is all mouth, and boy does he love himself. It may well be we think we're deep in good faith negotiations to sign JCH before the deadline, but I would not be surprised for a second if MacAnthony turns round at 11pm and says "of course I'd be mad to sell a star striker to our promotion rivals - I was just stringing them along so they didn't buy anyone else". Time will tell...

Probably a daft question and comes down to the resources of the two clubs, about which I know nothing, but I can't help wondering why Birdy hasn't gone to Hull? They're doing well, he liked playing Rosenior-ball and Liam liked and wanted to buy him. I hope if we decided to sell, the very least we did was tout Max around in the hope of more money and finding a better home for him. That he hasn't gone to Hull suggests we got a fee that was too good to turn down from Bristol City. Let's hope so anyway.

It's not a bad idea, but is he prolific enough? Only 48 career goals by someone just turning 26. I think it will be JCH if we can't have Ennis.

I'd have presumed we'd sold Bird to buy Ennis. Shame if Ennis is off the agenda, in which case I hope we're bringing in someone else to be excited about.

That's a weird thing for Bird to agree to. I'd have thought he'd have a few suitors when out of contract at the end of the season, at which point has been repeatedly said, we'd get very decent compensation for him. To do this deal now, we must be very keen on money now to bring a striker in. We've discovered that the restrictions of the business plan we're having to work to mean we cannot buy any players unless we sell, hence CBT had to be a loan until the end of the season. I suspect Bristol City will have got him on the cheap by us getting the money up front now. If we use the money on Smith, we're fools. It's just so short-termist and so short-sighted. If we use it to bring in a promising striker with the likelihood of flourishing for us in the Championship after helping us towards promotion, then it's clever business.

Not had chance to go back far through the thread, so apologies if already discussed. Seems legit we've been turned down for Liverpool's Bobby Clark

Maybe, but they know we're desperate because our recruitment is so hopeless, we can only look at old Rotherham old boys or, when that fails, go back to the same club for even older ex-players. Come tomorrow night they'll probably be laughing all the way to the bank.

Last season, par would have been the playoffs and we failed. This season par is automatic promotion. The playoffs would be failure, even if we still managed to scramble up (in which case the failure is not considered too bad). To "slide out of the playoffs" this year would be catastrophic.

Just looked and I can't start a poll either. Meanwhile... 6th place and out in the playoff semifinals.

Because across the entirety of the known football world, our only strategy is to get the Rotherham band back together. It beggars belief.

Apparently we've snuck in a new midfield signing that's gone completely under the radar: The young midfielder from Wigan must have had a very impressive debut! 🤣🤣

From the Sky highlights here's what people are talking about, the Cheltenham number 6 back-heading the ball off our goal line with 30 seconds to go after Vickers deliberately lowered his arms to leave the ball and let it drift over his head. Miss of the season. Very bad goalkeeping right at the moment we needed Vickers to be strongest. As mad as Wildsmith's rush of blood penalty against Oxford. I guess we have two League One keepers, though I feel Wildsmith exudes more confidence, which rubs off on me and the defence.

Bolton 2.11 ppg Portsmouth 2.03 ppg Peterborough 2.00 ppg RAMS 1.93 ppg Barnsley 1.86 ppg Stevenage 1.81 ppg You say we're 3 points off top, but that's a skewed view of the table without taking games played into account. To catch Bolton given this differential we probably need to win 6 or 7 games in a row, and there are only 17 games left. We will need 3 or 4 wins in a row from here to move into second place. We have never got over 2 points a game this season (even Warne talks about that) and it's clear we need to be above that to become likely for promotion. PS There's no such thing as "joint third on points" ;)

In the close season, when McGoldrick moved on, it was hard to see where the goals would come from. Collins has been immense. For his scoring, for his defending, and for his staying fit when all around him are injured. I would love it if he makes it over 200 league goals this campaign, as he should. Probably not many of them have been better than yesterday's volley which, according to Wiki, took him to 192.

What would make Fraser any better than Dajaune Brown, who I think is more prolific in PL2? And that's saying something when he's playing for us, after everything our academy has been through. Not criticizing, just am genuinely curious.

I think we're under par in the league table - not by a huge amount because there aren't top sides away over the horizon like last season, but the pre-season poll on here was an expectation of promotion and with over half the season gone we're only 4th. We should be doing better.

It's been said before Yesterday Warne said "They played the pitch better than us". If the pitch is genuinely becoming unusually bad, we should be more used t this than our opponents and taking advantage of it.