BPV

So they are down to a squad of 39 now? How will they cope?

I sometimes think that the EFL won't cease and desist until they've put every member club out of business. Quite whose interests they actually purport to serve has become a total mystery to me ?‍♂️

Sunderland losing today is exactly the proof needed that going down can be disastrous. 
Next season will be their 4th down there, imagine how long it could take us to get out of league one...

Sunderland losing today is exactly the proof needed that going down can be disastrous. 
Next season will be their 4th down there, imagine how long it could take us to get out of league one...

There is minimal difference there. Minimal. Bogle for Byrne is comparable, Lowe for Buchanan is too. Malone likely wouldn't have played for us, Jozefzoon and Marriott the same. Rooney chose to sell Holmes and Evans. Huddlestone and Rooney himself were both incredibly washed up by the end of the season.
Realistically, we side graded on fullbacks, offloaded 5 deadwood players, 2 players that were on the way out retired and Davies got injured and Martin left. And then we brought in a better keeper, and let Rooney sign 5 players on loan as well as getting Jozwiak. 

He took the job when we were in a relegation battle. He knew what he was signing up for. He did not take the job out of ''duty'' haha, he's been eyeing up the job since he joined us as a player. Rooney caring about duty when he regularly played for Derby whilst being hilariously out of shape and barely showing any effort, don't make me laugh. 
 

In what way ''didn't he anticipate it being like this'' he knew the exact position when we took the job, in fact he was one of the reasons Cocu got fired with his dreadful performances, so let's not use that excuse for him. Cocu got these players 10th. Without Bielik. If Cocu who ''failed with this group'' can do that, why can't Rooney? 
Why are the players going backwards? 
It's Rooney. We'd look better overnight without him. 

Who has had half a season??? Bit confused who you are referring to....Wazza will have had 35 games.....

Cocu is a 3 times Eredivisie winning manager. Wayne Rooney has overseen us losing 6 games in a row, playing some of the worst football Derby have ever played. There was proof Cocu had done a good job elsewhere. Rooney is failing spectacularly. 

People are saying he deserves financial backing. People are saying he deserves a transfer window. People are saying he deserves his own hand-picked coaching team.
If it had been a closely contested battle all the way down to the last day, I could understand this point.
If Rotherham and Wednesday had produced incredible form to keep us in danger, I could understand this point.
But it wasn’t always close. At the end of February, we were 9 points clear of Rotherham and 10 points clear of Wednesday. It’s down to 2 and 3 points respectively now.
But Rotherham and Wednesday haven’t produced incredible form. Wednesday have picked up 12 points in 13 games since. Rotherham have picked up 12 points in 14 games.
For us, it has been a capitulation of the highest order and any signs of optimism from Rooney’s early tenure have vanished faster than a burger from my plate. 
And some of us want to reward Rooney with more time in the job? I can’t believe what I am reading.

Despite the eccentricities of some on the forum, and massively passionate emotions - and despite knowing how terribly upset so many of us will be if we get relegated - we are lucky to be able to have this forum to get the stresses off our chests. 
But I have just realised that with relegation being a real possibility - and with lockdown associated isolation, reducing the resilience of many - that for a few Derby County fans, they may be at much greater risk than would be usual when a team gets relegated.
Derby County goes to the core of some, and for anyone more vulnerable than they might normally be in normal times, the risks may be higher for those few. (There will be some left feeling bereft by relegation - with this being on top of other problems - and with relegation pushing them over the edge - maybe.)
Maybe the club might want to arrange counselling for the worse affected fans! Or something!
Truly, maybe the club could subscribe to a helpline service for a few weeks - and advertise the number somehow - even during the match - in case of relegation!
This is not a normal season, when the gut wrenching moment of relegation would be shared with thousands of others. For some, it will be felt alone. And for some, it will be on top of having vastly reduced resilience.
It is a good job that we have this forum - for us lot to get Derby related stress off our chests! But, there'll be some isolated fans out there with no release!
I know that I spout nonsense sometimes - and have terrible attempts at humour - but I don't think we should laugh about this.
I might be worrying too much - but if others agree - and there is sufficient consensus - maybe David could pass on any such consensus to the club.
I don't think that I am being unrealistic or over dramatic ...
We fans all go through highs and lows - from minute to minute in games - match to match - season to season. That's part of being a fan. 
I just wonder if lockdown might make it dangerously worse for a few fans out there? I doubt that it will include people on the forum.
Maybe others can see the risks more clearly, or have good ideas about how best to reach out to anyone that might be at risk of we get relegated.
(Basically, I have noticed how forum members are seemingly protecting themselves mentally - preparing themselves for the emotional roller coaster that would come from relegation. Many say that relegation is inevitable. They will be delighted to be proved wrong. But, they will cope with relegation better if it happens, I think. But, if so many forum members are doing things like this ... it made me realise that there will be some, out there, in a far more vulnerable state after a year of isolation - and I suddenly worried about how they will cope if we should be relegated.)
(We are less likely to be relegated than the other two teams - but there is a significant chance that it will happen.)

Talk about over-exaggerated optimism on here. Perhaps we should rest a few players against PNE, Birmingham and Swansea so they are good and ready for the Owls if need be. 
 
Should be fine being as our remaining opponents are planning, for various reasons, to give us a free pass.
 
 

I reject this. Wayne Rooney is not Derby County. He is a temporary custodian.
The club has existed a long time before his arrival and it’ll exist a long time after he’s gone unless of course the new owners are as inept as our forward line.
Maybe I’ve got my grumpy pants on today but this unconditional support tosh isn’t washing with me any longer. It’s a two way street as far as I’m concerned. Give me something to be proud of and my support will be vigorous. The halfhearted bilge I’ve endured in recent weeks is unacceptable as is our hoping for other teams failure to cement our safety in a weak division.
 

If we can’t beat Birmingham and Wednesday at home and hold off Wycombe’s late charge, we will totally deserve League 1 football.

Hiring a rookie manager in a season like this one was our big mistake. One roll of the dice too many from Mel Morris and it’s coming back to bite us. It’s the reason we are where we are. Whether we go down or not; hiring Wayne Rooney was the wrong decision.
Fantastic playing career, sensational player, worked with some of the best managers of all time and I don’t buy the idea for one second that he isn’t smart. 
But the reality is that nothing in his playing career has prepared him for a scrap at the battle of the Championship. This is a person who has known nothing but success in his career. Why he is even at this club in the first place is something but a mystery to me...unless of course you give credence to the idea that he was promised to inherit the reigns from Cocu...
The blame for all of this lies at door of the person who hired him. 

What a shame. His performance in the 5-0 against Forest must be amongst the best debuts ever for the club. He was quality in the 2015-16 season too. I'm convinced we'd have got past Hull in the play offs if that Ipswich clogger hadn't managed to snap his leg in a nothing game at the end of that season.

Is it just me who has never been impressed by Max Lowe as a player? I was really surprised Sheffield United took him. I always found he was one of those players that always flattered to deceive. He has the physical attributes to be good and is nice on the ball but defensively he's always looked extremely suspect and isn't good enough to be a winger. 

All in good time some still need to recognise that the risk is real.  Certainly better than it looked under cocu but by no means safe yet

Imagine being accidently @ed by the (for now) leader of the free world. It's something @Sean could only dream of.

Talking of managers getting one over another team. I think if Nigel Clough stood in for every manager that played Leeds, it would take them less than 3 years to go bust. 
I believe we had 10 wins in a row against them and barely laid a glove on them since (apart from that one all important game). 

I wasn't a huge fan of Billeh (the man not the manager) but I can understand why some of the fans still fawn over him. Compared with basically every other manager we've had since Paul Hart in the early 00s he's done pretty well. Plus he clearly enjoyed getting one over on you lot which always endears a manager to the fans.
In fact on the subject...I can't be the only one who misses the good old days of about 10 years ago. When both sides seemed to be chocka with former players of the other, or players who were from the other city (Barker, Osborn etc) and both managers and staff were linked to the other side and clearly there was needle between them.
When I watched the game the other week it was just a non-event, not just because there were no fans but because the players were just detached from the event, there are no villains anymore like Camp, Commons, Savage or Tyson and apart from Rooney and Waghorn I'd barely heard of a single Derby player nevermind get angry just at their very presence on the screen.