Bris Vegas

The referee’s performance is reminiscent of a classic Howard Webb game at Old Trafford. That said, Derby have played some decent stuff tonight. Gayle upfront and Barks in a free role adds far more fluidity to our play. We have been unlucky with injuries this season. But the forced signings of Nyambe and Gayle has made us stronger.

Derby boardroom discussing the referees bonus for tonight.

Never a penalty. Ref is the biggest homer I’ve seen in years.

Reading down to 10 men after a Hourihane dive. People complain we get decisions against us. We don’t.

I don’t know why, but City always sh*t the bed when they go to Anfield. They clearly have better players with half of Liverpool’s first team out injured, but they made so many mistakes in possession. Harvey Elliott, Gakpo, Diaz, Nunez, Endo, Gomez, Quansah, Bradley, Kelleher… I mean, they are decent players, but they’re not players you should be so terrified of playing against that you end up in panic mode every time you touch the ball. Is that Klopp’s magic? That even the best teams enter sheer panic mode when they face Liverpool, regardless of whether it’s Liverpool’s B team or in the case of the cup final, their U19s?

Still some twists and turns to go. I know Pompey didn’t win, but they will be delighted with today’s results given Bolton and Barnsley slipped up. Games are running out. Given the inconsistencies Pompey are probably only 5 more wins away from promotion. 89 points will be enough for second place. Avoid defeat to Bolton and win 5 of the last 8 + a draw and that will probably do it.

Derby’s best performance this year.

Brilliant goal 0-2 game over promotion here we come.

Well we certainly can’t complain about decisions going against us here. The referee has been very pro Derby in this game, and that goal was both a handball and a clear foul on their defender trying to clear it.

I think the tactic seems pretty obvious to me. Get the ball wide to Ward, whip it in, hope for the best. You are right in that we are lucky Rovers are poor. I can’t see them being this bad again.

Derby dominating but an xG of 0.02 tells you the story, we haven’t created anything other than a speculative NML effort from outside the box.

He is just backing his mate. He said similar about Carl Froch, after beating Bute, seemingly forgetting Andre Ward was undefeated and beat him prior. Usyk is the best around and his two wins against AJ look all the more impressive as AJ flattens everyone else. We all want to see Fury vs AJ.

Posh will only be a point behind if they win their game in hand.

xG isn’t any more of a meaningless stat that attendance figures. Yet fans in England harp about about attendances as if it were trophies.

And you can appreciate the goal 🤷‍♂️

I don’t think xG was created to aid betting. But let’s take out City and United. If I was a gambler, and I saw a team 0-1 down but with those stats, I’d find value in backing the home team to win (despite losing) due to the quality number of chances they are creating. There is a reason why all the best and most successful teams use it. You as a fan may think it’s cobblers because you don’t work in football analytics and it’s therefore no use to you. But if you are involved in a football club and work in coaching or analysis and don’t use it, then you are a dinosaur.

If that is related to xG, I’m not sure what the big deal is? xG measures the quality of chance created. Rashford’s 25-yard stunner wasn’t a chance. It was a pattern of play that would result in one goal every 100 times. Haaland, meanwhile, missed an open goal from 3 yards which you’d expect a player to score from 99 times out of 100. I caught the half-time stats only and it showed City 0-1 United, 17-2 in shots and an xG of 1.7 - 0.3 or something like that. When watching the highlights later that made total sense. Rashford’s goal was scored out of very little and City had several good first-half chances.

Haaland misses just as many easy chances as he scores. He isn’t any better than Darwin Nuñez in that respect. Even against Luton in midweek, he scored five but missed another 3 really good chances. A prime Ronaldo upfront would score 60 PL goals a season in this City side.

Tears in the home end. oh dear.

6-0 incoming. Port Vale remind me of a lower half Scottish side playing at Celtic or Rangers. Dreadful.

It’s pretty crazy to think that we are second in the league table, heading for around 90 points which would be our best points tally in my lifetime at least, yet it’s just not enjoyable - I’d go as far as saying most weeks it’s a miserable watch. Imagine if we were in Reading’s position? I don’t see where we go under Warne. If he can’t make 2nd in the league and 90+ points enjoyable, how will he possibly win the fans over in the Championship? I reiterate, I think Warne gets us up. But if we stick with him, next season is going to be such a nightmare to watch as we won’t have the results to cover up the painful football.

I think it’s evident Warne isn’t a good coach. He may be a decent manager, but a coach he is not. His motto will be to work harder than the opposition, and then let your natural talent win games. But that only works when the opposition aren’t set up well. The moment we play higher calibre coached teams we get found out. Warne would be a disaster in the Championship with us as we might be able to work as hard as the rest, but we won’t have more talented players and we won’t be well coached.

Derby v Bolton will be fun. Two teams fighting it out to see who can bottle it more.

Sorry, this game has my head spinning.

That’s an insult to both Stoke and Pulis.