IlsonDerby

Thinks it’s wrong to say we didn’t deserve the win. We did. 3-0 probably flattered us as contrary to what some on here would have you believe they didn’t ‘pass without creating owt’. They had a number of good chances. We had more good chances. I guess when it comes down to it us having better players mattered when it came to those chances and it led to an enjoyable performance.

As I mentioned above - their shot goes in rather than hitting the post and we have to come out a bit more leaving more space. Us going one nil up allowed us to stick to a game plan and execute it perfectly but at 0-0 they looked better than us. We relied on a piece of magic from Bird. They don’t have a player anywhere near as good as Bird. You replace their CB with Cash, their midfielder with Bird, their forward with Collins and get them to play that type of football and it’d be very very effective whilst looking easy on the eye. We did well but as mentioned it I had to choose a type of football I’d enjoy theirs more over a season particular with our squad ahead of theirs.

Football matches last the best part of 100 minutes. Our goals combined took about 8 seconds to score. It isn’t weird of fans to focus on the other 99 minutes of the match otherwise why not just switch on the highlights an hour after it’s finished? It’s frankly ridiculous to suggest they were doing pointless passes. They were getting it through the lines well but didn’t have the quality to do anything with it. Remember the difference in the first half is Max Bird wonderfully dribbling past 4 players before pinging it in from 20 yards. They crafted a well worked opportunity for a shot from 20 yards out and it came back off the post. I enjoyed the win but to say Exeter weren’t playing good football is just disingenuous. With better players that type of performance gives us a hell of a lot of problems. Luckily for us we have better players as you’d expect with our budget.

Yeah he was playing a bit like he wasn’t 100% so wasn’t surprised he was taken off at half time. Why is it so controversial to acknowledge that Exeter knock it about really well and were playing the better football? Our higher quality showed over the 90 but imagine what it’d look like if they had our squad/budget and were coached to play football like that? We played really well on the break.

Best goal difference in the division…

Kinell if he’s injured that’s the season fxcked

Some lovely passing football by Exeter. Who’s coaching them these days?

I think ultimately due to the NDAs we’ll never know how much SP just accepted what Mel was doing vs whether he pushed back. Think the amortisation stuff is a bit harsh to beat him with. He found a loophole within the rules at the time and exploited it as many curly haired prats from Tyneside have done with tax losses previously. I also think unless he knew that Mel was planning on stopping funding us and placing us into admin that he was working within the budget set by the owner. I just can’t imagine DC keeping him around if he was guilty of anything really bad.

Rubbish. Shots on target/shots assume each shot is just as likely to go in which leads to people assuming ‘more shots = better performance’. xG rightfully builds on that over simplified view and looks at the quality of chances rather than just quantity of chances. I can’t see how anyone can say it’s not a useful metric. Surely moved past smarmy pundits giving it the ‘the only stat that matters is the goals scored stat’ large. It was clear from xG that despite derby not having the results we’d like under Rosenior we were creating quality chances that we simply weren’t taking. (The eye sight test would tell you that Collins had a howler of a start to last season but xG took the emotion out of those claims that we were a boring team that didn’t attack. We did. We attacked very well. We just couldn’t hit a barn door). Whereas Rotherham were massively over performing against their xG at the start of last season and eventually started falling like a stone with only the over performance at the start of the season keeping them up ultimately. They regressed back to where their underlying stats said they should have been.

But bought in 3 full/wingbacks, the cb he’d been courting all summer, a better back up keeper. Dobbin wasn’t getting a start, Davies has been replaced by the better Nelson (hurts saying that), McGoldricks goals have been replaced by Collins and NML stepping up. Forsyth has been solid and I genuinely think Elder is an excellent player at this level who will win fans around. Knight the real loss in the middle but spent just as much time at right back last season and I’d argue Nyambe is a better right back. There’s no doubting for me that we are a stronger outfit than last season and a fit back up striker away from being arguably the strongest squad in the division.

So is he saying he fluked landing on a squad capable of doing what he wanted back then because I don’t know why he hasn’t been able to with double the money

Completely forgot about the home game! @Jourdan we were battered by Plymouth at home and as Jubba says I have no idea how we went 2-0 up!

I’ll be honest - my problem is not Warne and has never been Warne. My problem is performances and that more often than not we still feel along way away from what he thinks his football should look like at full flow yet he’s had 3 transfer windows and a very healthy budget to work with. I’m pretty sure that our budget is higher than any of the Rotherham sides he took up. If we were playing the football I think he envisages his teams playing then yeah it’d be a bit of a change from the possession based stuff we were a bit more used to but ultimately it’d still be entertaining to watch but in a different way.

I disagree. I really do. We didn’t have a shot on target against Ipswich away. It was the first time I really understood just how bleak Warne’s football could be. There’s nobody in this division we shouldn’t be mustering a shot in target against. That was embarrassing. I have to assume it’s because they had so much more quality than us than it being part of a game plan. Plymouth always looked like coming back against us after our unexpected opener - you talk about them being fortunate. Look at the state of NML goal again against them 😂 never seen owt like it. Wednesday as I said - didn’t feel great against us but they consistently did it against the cannon fodder in this division (ie anyone below the top 8). 2 teams achieved over 100 points last year in a more difficult division (in my opinion). We have improved our squad. The only place on paper we were weaker is up top but Collins has stepped up and replaced McG’s goals and NML has upped his output too so that hasn’t actually been an issue. I know we are worlds apart on this. I’d see not going up this year as a failure - even if we lost in the playoffs because I genuinely think our squad is top 2 quality. This isn’t me having blinkers on - I listen to the podcasts that discuss league 1 football and they all had us for top 2 before a ball was kicked. Bookies had us heavy favourites too.

Ipswich and Plymouth both looked considerably better than us in our matches last season even if the results were close. Wednesday didn’t but they were proper flat track bullies and beat who they should have been beating.

Give them a budget that means they can sign players that 21 of the clubs in the division could only dream of attracting?

It is though if you care about the more long term. The only people happy to swallow this are the ‘up at all cost’ opinions regardless of what happens afterwards in the championship

Vile defending

That tackle from Hourihane was stupidity. Very lucky not to be sent off. Show some experience ffs

Look a yard quicker than Shrewsbury since the goal!

Please don’t be Bob Malcom. Please don’t be Bob Malcom. Please don’t be Bob Malcom. Please don’t be Bob Malcom. Please don’t be Bob Malcom. Appearance #1: optimism at 10/10 from me. let’s hope he kicks in and doesn’t become BM mark 2.

Seemingly outplayed by Buxton? adult football is so so different to academy football. Most of these lads are nowhere near first team ready yet (and that’s no criticism) so the constant hankering for them to be given first team minutes right now is frustrating.

It’ll be some poor old receptionist on minimum wage who will have written that up 😂

Make some changes. We are just waiting for them to equalise at this rate. Be proactive!

Not shown up to the second half. Very disappointing. Too many passengers currently.