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Why Oh why do I keep doing this to myself?

I keep thinking to myself that, surely Derby can't be that bad, the next game will be different.
And, sure enough, I am sat at home, I have paid my tenner to the club to watch online, a cup of tea in hand and it is dire.
I don't care what Warne apologists say, the football is terrible, terrible, terrible...

We've just made Charlton look like peak Real Madrid, although, fair play to them, they have discovered a little hack that I wish we knew, it's called passing the ball.
This is depressing sh!t.
☹️

Nah, just tell her you’re popping out for milk 😉
#Be more B4.

Stuff like this is why people don’t like Maguire.  Skim reading that tweet makes it sound like Quantuma have been charged with wire fraud, when in fact it’s a “company makes profit” non-story.  I’m sure it’s deliberately worded that way as click-bait.

Two key admissions by Warne that both contribute to weakening our offensive play: that we lacked a focal point and the initial shape was wrong.
So, I'm hoping he addresses both. Firstly, we need yo stop the no striker experiment immediately.  We need Brown back purely to be a back up focal point. Neither Gayle nor Waggy can do 90 and it will take weeks before they can, if it all.  Therefore, Brown, whatever his current readiness, is required to ensure we have enough options to maintain a focal point.
Secondly, 4 at the back has to be our starting formation from now on. This allows CBT, NML, Barks and Wilson to rotate in their best positions.
Warne admits he has been caught between defensive or attacking advantages of the formation, but surely now it is clear that 3 at the back creates more problems than this, our overall play is far more suited to four at the back, too many players suffer as a result.
 

Apologies in advance if this just sounds like a load of waffle.
My issue with Paul Warne is that I don’t feel like he’s getting the most out of what he has available. Yes, we have lost our target man but you adjust accordingly and change the style to suit what you have. He seems to have a certain way of playing with very little ability or willingness to tweak it.
He’s a nice enough bloke. I don’t like his interviews and try to avoid them as they often make me cringe. 

I don’t think he has much ability for developing players, if anything it’s the opposite. How many players have been bit parts or seemed to have disappeared, for example Smith and Fornah etc. These are players he’s signed, if they don’t end up in and around the squad he’s basically wasted wages.
Yesterday was hard to watch when we were going toward. First half NML and Sibley were basically playing as wingers, out wide, expected to beat their man, try and cut inside and left with limited options. There was no runners from the midfield. Second half the only threat was Wilson from the right wing, who wasted multiple opportunities to play a ball into the box after doing the hard work.
We seem to have no ability to open team up with intricate passing. Everything is play it out wide and whip a cross in. With no height in the box, unless you play that ball across the floor likelihood is it will be cleared and us put back on the counter. I absolutely hate the fact that we can no longer pass a ball more than four times without losing it and 3 of those passes will be sideways or backwards.
The midfield was all wrong yesterday. Bird and Hourihane were guilty of far too many side and backward balls. It completely neutralises the attack. Get your head up and look for NML and Sibbs who should be waiting to be fed the ball and charge at the defence or hold it up for the midfield to catch up. 

For me, now we have Adam’s covering the middle of the park we have no excuse to not use players like Thompson and Fornah ahead of him to drive the ball forward. Both are capable of carrying the ball and trying to find a forward pass.
If we try and play how we do when Collins is in the team then signing Gayle will have been a waste of time and money.
The Academy is another concern, Paul has no interest in seeing players feed through. Weston for example was bright when he had his chances, only to disappear back to the academy not to be seen again. Fapetu and Robinson as well looked like very good prospects. 
 
I don’t feel like Paul’s using any of the resources he has available as well as he could, the style of play isn’t particularly interesting to watch, I won’t argue that we are in a good position for the final stretch of the season but also feel like this squad is capable of a far more exciting style of football and would definitely compete towards the top end of the league. 

You are solely looking at the results angle & everything about Paul Warne is pure short term focus leaving little else to justify his tenure here. What you're overlooking is his long term unsuitability & that also has to be factored into conversations about whether he stays or not. The quality of football is poor & a sizeable section of the fanbase do not enjoy watching it (with potential knock on effect for future PP crowd numbers), he doesn't particularly improve players, there is a misalignment with Academy pathway (refusing to even use EFL Trophy matches to give youngsters game time) & preferred transfer strategy in order for the club to achieve sustainability. Warne wants the likes of Sonny Bradley & Conor Washington to secure his promotion (and Michael Smith given half a chance)...the club will struggle to be sustainable with these types of signings. We brought in Mark Thomas last year to identify cheap, develop & sell high...Warne is not suited to this model.
Clowes appointed Warne to get us a quick promotion & that was the expectation of everyone when he was appointed (and why Rosenior was let go). To take your most extreme hypothetical scenario, as the pure remit for Warne being here is a short term focus of promotion, then defeat at Wembley would still be complete failure with no guarantee of promotion the next year & need to continue down the highly paid experienced pro with no resale value route that Warne prefers. I suspect Clowes will be considering how much longer he can tolerate that misalignment with the long term DCFC strategy come May should we faill to go up.

Our destiny is in our own hands, no way are we in control 

I really hope that we go up automatically. Over the last few years we simply don’t turn up or know how to win the big games. I’d fear for us in the playoffs. 
Bolton at home and Pompey away are huge games. Lose those and I think autos are finished. 

Yep tend to agree for the rest of the season. 
 
Against Stevenage it was a case of needs must. But Barnsley showed that we can’t look to poo house our way up. We’re gonna have to play some football.

Sonny Bradley is starting to play consistently well, but could this be a double-edged sword for us? 
In order to keep his place in the team, it more or less forces Warne to stick with three at the back.
I feel our best football this season has been played with a back four. I just can't see Bradley in that set-up.
 

What wound me up about the charges (and still does) is the fact that it appeared that they were approved then retrospectively the decision or view changed.
The later charges are a direct consequence of the inadequacy of oversight of the EFL. If we'd known they weren't going to be seen as compliant, then business would have been different. It's not evident in the findings by the tribunals that this was ever considered.
An independent office of football regulation is needed.

I thought it was an improvement on last season’s display at Barnsley.
But it’s another sure sign that when we get promoted this season, we must thank Warne and replace him.
We will have no chance in the Championship with Warne in charge. 

That mentality starts at the top and is my biggest issue with Warne.

Just seen Madley in a pub in Barnsley. Having a pint with Toby Tyke. Wearing full Barnsley kit, cleaning his red cards, and he was practicing how to write "Mendez-Laing" in a little black book. On the dart board was a ram.
Make of that what you will.

Surely there's one answer... make it affordable.

Rooney humiliated a young kid in public, if you have issues with a worker you rollock him in private behind closed doors, mud often sticks and Liam followed Rooney in not giving Louie much of a chance, when Warne took over, plenty of staff are still at the club from Rooney days, and who knows what was said to Warne.
Sadly Cocu arrived at Derby at the wrong time, with all our problems, and wonder what Louie would have achieved under him with his record with young players at Feyenoord academy he brought through into the first team.
 

And this right here is the crux of everyone's argument. Judge him the same way other players get judged. Who seemingly get to play out a bad performance and still start the next game, often for many games in a row. They don't have to score or assist to keep their place when Sibley does.
Someone mentioned Bradley earlier in this thread and it was a decent comparison. He was atrocious at the start of the season. Up there with one of the worst defenders I can remember. Yet he's played a couple of competent games now because he's been allowed to and suddenly people are anointing him - and this isn't a knock on Bradley, this is just the fact he's allowed to play through a bad game to then show he can play. Hourihane... regularly bad. Collins... regularly bad. Smith.... regularly bad. List goes on, and this is just this past season or so. 
Just seems like players come in, be below average and that's fine, they keep playing until they show some worth. Sibley gets judged on a whole different scale by absolutely everyone. I think the days have gone where we thought we had a world beater on our hands, don't get me wrong, but a player who can score like he can from midfield positions could be worth their weight in gold at these levels... so let's find out what we have once and for all and stop bombing him out after a bad 45 minutes.

"No end of chances"? Taking this season as an example, his chances at CM/AM were:
14 minutes as a sub when returning from injury and helped see out a 1-0 win. Injured for thr next 2 games.
2 months until his next 'chance'. A last minute sub when winning 3-1.
3 weeks later, he starts and gets 71 minutes. Starts the next game, gets an assist and is subbed at half time (we were losing 2-1 and eventually lost 3-1). Unused sub in the next game. The following game, he came on for the last 10 minutes when losing 2-0 to Crewe, then assists our 93rd minute equaliser.
Over 3 weeks until his next 'chance' at AM - a 95th minute sub. A start in the next league game (2 weeks later) and scores. Subbed off at half time in the next game (0-0, game finishes 1-1). 24 minutes off the bench in the next game.
6 weeks until his next game at AM. Subbed off at half time against Bradford (score was 0-0, we lost 1-0).
A couple of games later he gets another start at AM, followed by 27 mins off the bench a few days later.
3 weeks until he gets another chance. This time 13 mins to see out a 3-0 win. 9 mins a few days later and scores the only goal in a 1-0 win.
 
Maybe if he was given a consistent run of games in his favoured position we would get some consistency from him? Even so, he's averaged 1 goal contribution every 88 mins when playing central. The problem is he's played at LB or on the wing 75% of the time.

I'd start Sibley over Hourihane every day of the week.
Adams CDM with Bird and Sibley in front. 

And yet we offer this scenario to Barkhuizen time and time again.
 

Its the same old arguments. I agree that Sibley hasn’t developed his full potential, but in terms of having the chance to, his path to success had been littered with trip wires at every stage. UnlikeTom Lawrence who in each match where he played well was then given 6 freebies. Similar with Hourihane, who has shown flashes of talent here or there (as has Sibbers, of course). But unlike those two, the only positions where Sibley hasn’t played are CDM and goalkeeper. In his best position he has only managed a maximum of 40 - 45 minutes, and apart from Left Back all he gets are bit parts.
We did the same to Weimman. He is a central striker, so when he got the chance to play, it was stuck out on the wing, where everybody decried his lack of goals. But when he went to Bristol, they played him down the middle and funnily he started scoring for fun. 🙄
Despite the fantastic run we are on and the great stats, Derby County make a habit of wasting the potential of the players we have, with young Louie being a case in point.

A goal that was a huge moment in the race for promotion. The movement and anticipation for the goal, then the execution, are the highest level. Absolutely magnificent.
Yet it's likely Sibley won't start next week, or if he does he'll probably be first to be hooked around half-time if we're not winning, or will simply be shunted to left back. I hope I'm wrong. I would *love* Warne to prove me wrong. 

Thank you again everybody for talking about Daniel and feeling the gap he’s left. I’m feeling the loss tonight. Still don’t think it’s hit me fully yet. 
But if you have read a previous post by me, I told you about how I wound up Daniel making out he loved turtles. I tried to put a small plastic turtle on his seat at the Shrewsbury match. Unfortunately the packaging ripped and I sent 20 plastic turtles flying over the east stand 😂 Also hurt my ankle again climbing over three rows of seats to pick them up 🐢 

This is what Daniel would have thought to the match ♥️