IlsonDerby

Currently Bristol City are a bigger and better prospect for players than us. They’re building a young decent side to have a crack at the play offs. All you who think if we do manage to scrape up this season we’ll be aiming for play offs next season are in absolute dream land. we’ll be avoiding relegation with all our might.

Well come on then…

State of this grenade. Literally tagging him in it.

He hasn’t forced a move? He’s told them he won’t sign a new deal and Clowes has accepted a deal he believes to be good value which is probably just under tribunal fee (a discount for it not being a drawn out affair?). Some derby fans are such babies. ‘turned his back on us’ ‘forced a move’ ‘don’t come back’

But we have other fringe players we could get rid of first? Bird likely off in summer. Hourihane the same. New lad unproven really above league 2 level and is only a loan. We can’t just plan for the next 5 months. Smith clearly surplus to requirements. Leaves Fornah, Thompson, Robinson? Smith, Ward, Bradley are likely the players to try and loan out/move on to free up wages and get minutes. Perhaps not even Bradley as we’d be thin on the ground at CB.

Lose a younger player with potential for an older player on loads of money who isn’t guaranteed to score outside of that posh side?

And yet he got 18 goals in 42 league 1 appearances last season for a promotion winning side who were top for chunks of the season. Collins is on 13 from 29. I hope Smith is an improvement. I hope we get him in and he can do well but not at the risk of having to hand out a 3 year contract or anything silly

I don’t think we’re gonna get an upgrade on a guy with 18 goals with a third of the season left to play. Probably going to put score McGoldrick this year. Best we can hope for is good cover short term with a longer term replacement in the summer.

Dave Jones left foot was something else as well! Plus going 1-0 up against Portsmouth in our first premier league game back at pride park before Andy Todd’s diving header to rescue a point. It was very very good before it turned sour but the reason people put less emphasis on the football played by that team (because it was quite dull quite a bit of the time) is because the players were not a promotion squad and yet he had them up there punching well above.

Can’t believe Clough is that far down! when he took the leash off we were superb, the issue is one bad result and we’d go back to draw first win second mentality but some of the football under Clough in the aforementioned leash off short bursts was unreal. The small number of games we had bueno, Commons and cwyka behind Kuqi were liquid football.

I say quite successful. You could say ‘very successful’ I would reserve extremely successful for someone who manages to build a team that doesn’t come back down like the titanic? anyway that was a small point in my overall post. Why is he persevering with 2 in mid when it’s clear we’re losing the battle ?

It would take an absolute idiot to keep watching our lack of control and continue to play 2 in the middle. I don’t believe Warne is an idiot - he’s been quite successful in this division so why on Earth is he persevering with this rubbish idea? You’ve got arguably 2 of the most technical midfielders in the division and they look awful. They’re not awful players but they’re being made to look bad by being crammed into a system that doesn’t suit them.

The issue I have with this is football is a lot about momentum and it just feels like after a run where momentum was fully with us it has now swung in the opposite direction. Wins against relegation zone sides are massive uphill battles rather than routine wins that you’d expect a top 2 team to manage. I hope we can repeat our past 15 results but what’s to stop us repeating our first 15?

I think in the context of the league we are in, the current squad is stronger than any Clough had except for his last. There is quite a big drop off from championship to league 1. Warne has had money to spend.

The easy thing to do to back up my argument is to say yes but it’s more nuanced than that so I won’t. If it was a great performance following on from the recent matches then I’d be frustrated with the loss. If it was a great performance following on from a run of great performances where we’d got the results we’d hope for then I think I’d be fairly happy still.

on top of the obvious Burley and Mac… When things were good under Clough jnr I enjoyed that. Disappointed he was sacked - I’m not trigger happy with managers. when things were bad under Clough jnr I accepted that he was resorting to the football we were playing because he’d trimmed us down to a bottom 6 budget and just wanted to secure safety. Warne doesn’t have the same excuses.

Honestly wish I’d have been doing wedding prep. This season would be class if all you do is look for the results rolling in on final score. The fact is that player for player we are better on paper than probably 20-22 of the teams in this division. Now football isn’t played on paper but it’s the coaches job to ensure that the position of the club is at least par with the budget the club has compared to the rest of the division otherwise he’s failing. If at the end of the season we don’t finish top 2-3 then we’ll have performed under par. That doesn’t necessarily mean you sack someone but if in the next 17 matches we can’t string together at least 10 convincing points performances then I’ll be questioning what we are actually building towards because he’ll have had over 1 and a half seasons and 3 transfer windows. By this point things should be coming together. it should be getting clearer and clearer to see what his ideal football blueprint looks like and us getting closer to it. The last 180 minutes of football haven’t been that. It isn’t black and white is it? If we’d played well but the same things in the match unfolded - ie we go in to half time at 0-0, then go 1-0 down early in the second half before coming back and winning 2-1 then I think the fans walk away content and happy with the result. For context I was happy enough with the Burton game (my bar isn’t that high) - felt daft mistakes let them in but otherwise we were in control of the match for 75 minutes. How much of the match were we in control for yesterday? When people demand better performances we’re not being entitled. You’ve literally got the manager saying the performance wasn’t good enough in the post match interview - is he entitled? The only difference is - Warne thinks he’s the man to get us to those excellent performances consistently. I’ve seen enough over the last year and half to know he can get us to perform well but I’ve seen absolutely nothing to suggest he can get us to do it consistently…

It is difficult to be that positive despite the league position. The run of form has been brilliant but it feels like it’s built on sand. There’s the saying ‘title winners know how to win when things aren’t going their way’. This is fine if it’s the minority of games where this is happening but it feels far more often than not that we win in spite of our performances. What changes? What can change? We’re pretty much staying as is until summer.

Bloody hell are you not happy with Warne anymore????

Stuck 2 midfielders next to him who can actually move…

Come on now!

Permanent transfer pot: £0 loan pot: nominal manager pay off pot: ? 👀👀

I’ve no idea but I still enjoy watching him for the most part (his frustrating free kicks he gives away apart). Think he’s one of the few players we’ve got that can take a ball past a player in tight spaces. Doesn’t rely on pace. Feel like he’ll never make it here though - too many managers used him as a utility player. Will watch with interest where ever he ends up next though.

Brilliant run from Sibley. Tried an intelligent ball to Hourihane into space rather than an aimless cross. Shame it didn’t come off. The run deserved it.

If I was Sibley I’d be employing a specialist defence coach. Think he could be a solid solid left back if he just works on a bit of positioning. He’s got the technical ability to get out of tight situations and try passes that aren’t completely aimless.