BPV

Blimey, has he only been here 4 games? It seems more like nearly a year... 

I don’t think many of us expected top six, however expectations shift throughout the season. Think went 16 unbeaten in the league and looking very much up rather than down. Got to fourth and touching distance of teams above. 
 
At that point we all expected play offs, think was almost a foregone conclusion to be honest. The form after thought was terrible. With no real sign of improving.reasons were given that people seemed to accept, small squad, aging, restrictions, lack of pace, lack of prep. We identified these but then seemed to not rectify them.
Move forward to this season, less competitive looking league, looser restrictions. Fans start to think of top six as a minimum. Four games in though and looking in a worse place than last season.
Personally think we’ll give him until ten games, see where we are and any signs of improvement. If there aren’t any I think clowes will make a change. Can talk about finances and a four year plan. Tuesday was awful, many more home games like that and becomes impossible to stay.

The problem is that it's hard to believe, but impossible to ignore, and depressingly difficult to argue against. Even things which would normally be mitigating circumstances are problems largely of his own creation.
With all the will in the world the list of reasons we should persist consists pretty much exclusively of:
- hoping for an improvement (and even that's just to reach the same standard as last season)
- hoping that he can replicate his successes at Rotherham (and then finding a way to keep us up)
- a fear of repeating past mistakes and the subsequent financial implications for the club / impact on the next manager
....but there's a feeling we've already seen everything he has to offer tactically so there's little to cling onto there, and we don't have and can't get the players needed to make his Rotherham blueprint work here, so what's left?
Vain hope and crippling fear.
What a position to be in after all we hoped for going into the summer.

Although I think signing a right back and playing 4 at the back is the right move, it doesn’t half get on my t*ts that Warne couldn’t see the players he’s splashed all our wage budget on wouldn’t fit that system. So needs to now spend our remaining budget signing a 3rd player capable of playing on the right hand side of our defence. 
Either that or Wards injury is a bad one. 
 
Yet again another player over the age of 30 with absolutely no resale value or room to improve. I just don’t understand what is going on with our recruitment this year at all. 

🤣

It would be pretty funny if we've got to two weeks before the end of the window before we've thought "s***, we better start recruiting for 4 at the back then."

Max Bird is the last remaining player in our squad who can actually play football. He is calm under pressure and can pick a pass.
It’s not his fault he’s surrounded by less talented players.
He is one of those who will be a better player elsewhere. He was at his best learning from Rooney. He won’t get better in a hoofball side.
I’ll be gutted when he leaves but I guess it’s all part of our transition from a chrysalis to a slug.
 

What, that’s not good news?

As I heard Romesh Ranganathan say today , hope is a p**** in disguise.  For me, a summer (?) of hope has rapidly deflated to reveal an ugly mess. In that sense, it feels very similar to the summer Cocu and Co. rolled in, because the difference between the expectation that had built and the grim reality once the season started was huge. Many differences in tbe context of course, and the scope of those expectations.
Others have given detailed observations about the concerns about the individual players, system, tactics etc, so I won't repeat.
I suppose my point is that after a humbling reset we are again in shock at how a long preparation period that promised so much has achieved seemingly very little and in fact we may be starting again with formation, tactics etc.
We are supposed to be a stable club intent on progress. Its baffling how we got here.
Compare this to, say Reading, who are a chaotic basket case and have started well and seem to be recruiting as well or better. Comparison is the thief of joy of course.
Have the club mis-managed expectations? They need to sell us the dream to some extent of course, but this seems a spectacular shambles.
Hopefully, all will become clear over time and good honest people will be open to their mistakes and rectify them. 

I agree the lack of quality is the worst I have ever seen in 50 years 
I don't think we have one player who has the skill to do something special to create a goal 
its also far worse than last season Mr Warne from your recruitment 

Our own players have more goal assists for the opposition than us tells you everything about this team. 

If I was DC I would sack him today. Results since March gave been very poor.
Signings v poor
Style of football v poor
Tactics????

His multiple promotions from league one came from being unable to keep Rotherham in the championship… funny how they’ve managed to establish themselves in that league after he came to us

I thought he should’ve gone when we failed to make the playoffs. However, was willing to give him a pre season to sign some players, and see how we started. 
 
We’re way, way worse than we were before. There is absolutely no excuses now. He’s prioritised defenders that are making mistakes left right and centre, leaving us with nothing to sign attacking players. Playing a system that doesn’t work for any of the players we currently have and is making them look way worse than they collectively are.
It’s not working at all. Enough is enough for me.

Can't see how we can afford to sack him - so for the next three years, I'm going to be sticking pins in my eyes just to take the pain away from watching the worst Derby County side in the last 57 years (that's how long ago my first season ticket was - I can't go back further than that). Christ, even Docherty's side, Billy Caskey, Vic Moreland and all, was better than this shower.
Come back Phil Brown, all is forg......
ok, forget the last bit.

We lost Martin, Bent, Mascarell and Eustace at the same time. The starter and direct cover for probably the 2 most important positions in the system we were using.

In a league above. 
 
We literally brought in a league 1 promotion specialist and he spunked a decent lead in the play offs away. 
 
 

that collapse was largely the result of an injury crisis that battered our squad tbf

You can't rely on set pieces to win games at a professional level. We lacked anything from open play, devoid of quality or dangerousness they looked utterly comfortable. 

I cannot believe you are spending what's left of your evening defending that performance.
We were unbelievably poor and created very little.

The club that was run so badly it almost went out of business?
Yeah, you’re right, I should’ve been more supportive of Mel.

1 win in 9 at home. That’s frankly shocking for a club with goals we have. 

Frankly the bloke is clueless.  Clowes should act decisively. I would use what remains in our transfer budget to pay him off.

Do you see any patterns in play which make you think results and performances will improve once we've 'gelled'?
We may still be under financial restrictions, but we still have a top 6 budget (if not top 2), yet we're getting bottom 6 performances.

We were never close I agree.
But that's because those of us who knew, knew, that our success was based on playing s*** teams and that it would likely fall apart as soon as there was a run of games against teams who occupied any position above (being generous) 10th. And so, sadly,  it proved to be.