Tamworthram

28 minutes ago, ap04 said:

Not sure how you define "good football", I define it as creating plenty and allowing little at the back. I repeat, first half was roughly +2.5 aggregate chances away to a mid-table side or better. Over 90 minutes that would be +5. Away effect say +6.5. To give you an idea last 10 years the best PL side averages about +5.5, in our league it's probably much less as it's closer. So we weren't just good, we were off the scale good.

Yet we gave away a goal, an open goal, a 1v1 saved by Wildsmith's legs, and should have given away a pen, in 55 minutes (so defended relatively poorly) at the same time creating very little (so couldn't have attacked any worse). Again adjusting for home advantage and opponent that's almost relegation material.

Wow. So not creating much (interestingly, and I don’t know how accurate their reporting is, but according to the BBC there were only 4 attempts on goal after Pompey scored their second: “83 minutes - attempt missed by NML, 81 minutes - attempt missed by CBT, 81 minutes - attempt missed by Collins and 79 minutes - attempt from Adams saved”) conceding a goal, our goalie saving with his legs (last time I checked goalies are allowed to use their legs and it’s not desperately uncommon), and arguably should have given away a penalty away from home against the team sitting top of the league (that have the best home record in the league and had won their previous 5 home games) is almost relegation form?

That’s nearly as laughable as saying we were amazing in the first half against Wycombe.

1 hour ago, IlsonDerby said:

Not necessarily but it can’t be overlooked that Warne was brought in to bring promotion. If Clowes wanted to give time then you might as well have stopped with Rosenior. 
 

I don’t particularly want him sacked either I just want to be excited by some of the football played by us. 
 

Im not one of those misers that haven’t been able to enjoy this season - I’ve loved every goal and every win this season and will keep backing them to get us over the line. 

Depends on whether DC thought Rosenior was likely to get us promoted and if so, how much time he might have needed. Perhaps he thought PW was a much safer bet even if it did take 2 or 3 seasons. Rightly or wrongly, only time will tell, DC chose PW because of his record of getting teams promoted out of league 1 whereas LR had no such record. It’s easy to say with hindsight that LR seems to be proving himself as a very capable manager but of course he had no such track record at the start of last season. 
 

My theory is that DC appointed Warne at the start of last season with the hope that we’d get promoted straight away (although, given we’d still be under restrictions this season, perhaps it was a good thing we weren’t) but the expectation that it would be difficult given the traumatic start, the business plan restrictions and change in personnel. That would then give PW a season to establish himself. I think promotion this year was probably a genuine expectation for Clowes. If we had failed, and not even made the play offs, I reckon Warne’s position would have been very precarious. As it is, if we fail, we will have at least made the plays off. On that basis, I think Clowes will be disappointed but not sufficiently so to sack Warne.

9 hours ago, DiggerB said:

Really not looking forward to this one tomorrow. Sister-in-law, her boyfriend and her son will be in the away end. I’ve never met her bloke. They’re coming back to ours for the evening afterwards.
 

Please don’t lose!

Please don’t lose!

Please don’t lose!

Please don’t lose!

Surely him coming back to yours for the evening is dependent on Derby winning. Haven’t you made that clear?😀

8 hours ago, ram59 said:

Although statistics suggest otherwise, 3rd place wins the play offs more than any other.

You beat me to it but then I thought, maybe it’s true but on many occasions, the team 3rd is actually better than those in 4th, 5th and 6th (as suggested by the league table). Perhaps the psychological advantage partly offsets this but more often than not not by enough. 🤷🏻. The worry is, if my random theory is right, we’re not noticeable better than Barnsley and Posh/Bolton.

12 minutes ago, Nuwtfly said:

Aside from the occasional one or two, I don’t think anyone on here actually thinks the football club should sack their manager with three games (maybe a few more) to go.

I do think however that there’s a good chunk who don’t want to see another season of his football, even if that season is spent in the division above. 

I think you're right. Probably those that believe he should stay or go next season (now that we're guaranteed play offs at least) are fairly evenly split. Even most of those that don't want him around next season would probably concede he's unlikely to be sacked in the summer even if we lose in the play off semi finals..

1 hour ago, IlsonDerby said:

I think that the language he used didn’t have to include ‘failure’. 
He could have said we gave ourselves a real chance but in the end we couldn’t quite get over the line. 
 

I don’t suspect he’ll be gone this summer regardless of what happens. I think he’ll be given a summer unhindered by restrictions and Clowes will reassess during the season. 
 

it may not have been with 11* games to go then but ultimately we were in a position last season where it would have taken an awful run of form to drop out. That’s what happened.
 

So you think he should be sacked for wearing his heart on his sleeve and saying he failed but, if he'd been a little more measured with his response (which I believe was given immediately after we'd just lost the last game of the season) it might be a different story? I don't get that at all and he should be applauded for recognising his part in our failure to get promoted (but not necessarily sacked for saying it).

With regard to our end of season form, our most comfortable position was 9 points clear of Posh but still with 39 point to play for so, I wouldn't count that as "hugely secure".  We did indeed have a bad spell in March (losing 4 out of 5 between 7th March and 1st of April) which, unfortunately, coincided with Peterborough's purple patch. However, those defeats included Plymouth and Ipswich, it was immediately preceded by our own purple patch (that included only 2 defeat in 21 games) and was followed by a run of 6 games without defeat. 

So, if you want to take that Month in isolation, yes we fell away. But, if you look at the bigger picture (including our fantastic run immediately prior and, to an extent, our bounce back afterwards) it wasn't such a mighty decline as you may think. 

1 hour ago, LeedsCityRam said:

There seems to be an increasing narrative on here that Warne's last stint in the Championship was a success & somehow negates the 3 relegations he'd previously suffered at that level.

Below is the Championship table as at 17th September 2022 - 5 days before he left Rotherham for Derby. Rotherham were in 8th place & had won 3 out of 9 games - all at home. A decent start sure but reality is they were still only 4 points above the bottom 3 & very far from demonstrating they would have been able to survive that full season under Warne.

To show just how this table is misleading in predicting performance over a full season, Wigan were only one point behind Rotherham at that stage but were ultimately comfortably relegated (even if they hadn't been deducted 6 points). Same situation with Reading who sit in 3rd at this stage with 18 points but only accrued another 32 points on the pitch from the last 36 games. On the flip side, Coventry sit bottom here but ended up in the playoff final.

I would also ponder the question that if Rotherham had looked so strong at that point, why would he have considered dropping a division & not wait for an offer from a bigger fellow Championship club? That's what Steven Schumacher did this year swapping another small yo/yo club in Plymouth for a better resourced gig at Stoke.

It’s a relatively valid point but if you’re going to highlight how close they were to the relegation zone, in the interests of balance, you can’t ignore the fact that they were only one point off the play off places with a game in hand. 
 

As you say the reality is, same with LR, it was way too early in the season to form an opinion as to whether he/they were doing well or not.

1 minute ago, IlsonDerby said:

And yet Warne himself labelled it a failure? 
If we didn’t go on the run that we did I’d agree with you but ultimately we were hugely secured in the play offs with about 11 to play. 

What did you want him to say? “We didn’t get in the play offs but that’s OK, we’ll go again next year”?

There aren’t many industries that are cut throat enough (and football is one of the most cut throat) to see an individual sacked for achieving an improvement (in terms of results) in year 2 from year 1 but still narrowly failing to hit a key objective. I know some people will point to what happened to Darren Moore and John Eustace but I don’t think many of us would entirely agree with their sackings.

With 11 games remaining we were 4 points clear of Wycombe and 7 points clear of eventual play off achievers Posh but they both had a game in hand. I wouldn’t describe that as “hugely secure” given there were 33 points still on the table.

Just now, IlsonDerby said:

I think that due to having one of the highest wage bills in the league last season needed us finishing in the play offs. I think losing in the play offs would have been acceptable. It’s the nature of the drop off that concerned me last year. 

I don’t agree regarding last season (and presumably neither did DC) given despite our wage budget we were restricted to who we could sign.

5 minutes ago, IlsonDerby said:

Im hoping that Clowes has his business head on because it’s clear he’s a huge personal admirer of Warne. 

 
Promotion = job done and par for our wage bill. Warne (whatever you think of him and I’m very critical) deserves to try and hit par next season too. 
 

No promotion = a second season below par. Would you keep someone in your business that wasn’t maximising the resources at their disposal? 

You might do if you accept that year one was a difficult year for all concerned and if year two some element of improvement (in terms of outcome) was achieved despite some challenges still remaining. if that someone only narrowly failed to hit their key objective (if that’s how it pans out) and you had believe that, with any challenges further reduced, they may achieve their objective in year three.

Now that play offs as a minimum is guaranteed, I am convinced that DC will stick with PW. Let’s hope we get promoted and DC’s faith isn’t put to the test.

40 minutes ago, Key clubber said:

Abysmal was probably a tad unfair, but if we’re going to criticise CBT, Washington has to be questioned as well, for an international player to put a ball in like that which should be a straight forward pass should be addressed. 

It wasn’t exactly a straightforward pass. Washington had literally run half the length of the pitch and crossed the ball between the defender and the keeper to CBT. OK, in an ideal world it would have been rolling along the ground but I think Washington did pretty well. If you insist on apportioning the blame I’d say it was something like 90% CBT and 10% Washington. 

1 hour ago, Key clubber said:

I expected  Derby to win, we didn’t , doesn’t always turn out how you want it. 
I was simply saying if you want to give someone the best chance play a ball along the ground. 
I’ve lost count of the times a fullback gets a ball neck height from a keeper or a centre passed passed a ball at his face from 3 yards out. 
A Famous Derby player always use to say “if you can’t pass you can’t play” this was pretty apt last night , a simple ball was all that was needed. 
Plenty of better players than CBT have missed easy chances than that over the years.

  
 

And been criticised for it. Doesn’t mean CBT should be criticised as well. I’m sure he’d be the first to admit he should have done better but let’s not hang him out to dry for it.

As for Washington, I thought the cross was decent (of course, they can always be better) and I wouldn't be pinning much at all of the “blame” on the missed chance on him.

3 hours ago, Key clubber said:

Finding it’s target doesn’t mean it’s a good pass, the pass was abysmal, it needed rolling across the floor,  CBT could have sat down had his dinner and still got up and scored if the pass was what you’d expect.
The fact is the pass was dreadful along with an attemt at a finish. 
All said and done you’d expect CBT to score he didn’t , and it could be costly.

I don't think the pass was "abysmal". If it was that bad CBT wouldn't have got anywhere near to it.

Maybe Washington could have done a little better but he had to get it between the keeper and defender and in front of CBT at a height that CBT could strike it. In that respect, Washington did pretty much as well as he could.

27 minutes ago, ap04 said:

Yes, and yes.

I already touched on this, the estimated difference between the two is 3 chances at best.

Forgetting that at Portsmouth after our early-ish second goal we were equally 'awful', allowing 4 big moments and essentially creating fa.

You reckon 3 or 4 chances to 1 (including on top of the obvious ones 2/3 killer corners in case you missed those), in one half alone, away, against a mid-table side, is not amazing and top of the league stuff? Not sure what you are expecting in order to be amazed then.

So I repeat the question. Did you actually watch the games and, if so do you genuinely think the first half against Wycombe was “amazing”? There were a few corners that created challenges for their keeper but they were hardly “killer corners”. Amazing for me would have been to play good football and actually convert a chance or two (or at least force a save).

I reckon, if you took a poll of every Derby fan that watched the game last night, the total that would describe our performance in the first half as amazing would amount to one.
 

We weren’t awful against Pompey after our second goal from my recollection. 
 

9 minutes ago, TheRamOfSwad said:

We will get automatics! and we will get promoted!!

We have it in us to pull these remaining results off but we need to get behind the team 🐏 

Not being hysterical at every miss kick and bad result!

Not using ridiculous and visceral vocabulary and start praising the players you don't build player confidence and motivation by talking down about them, they are humans too! They read social media and stuff online. Maybe even this forum? think about that 

I've cant believe how reactionary this fanbase has become! I get the performances haven't been total football but we aren't there yet! we are a work in progress, you know?

We will deal with next season when we get there but for now, 3 games to go let's get out there and support and clap the lads on and off the pitch, comment on the socials with words of motivation and togethernes ❤ that's what's gonna bring us over the line.... plus I'm sick of looking at heaps of negativity on here 🤣

We are 2nd , remember. Start of the season we'd have paid money to be here 🙌🏻

and vibes are real, they'll feed of us it's all frequencies and vibrations ✌

Come on Derby, time for promotion 💪 🐏 ⚽️ 

I'm not worried about players reactions to comments on social media (other than some of the stuff total muppets post which you don't generally see on this forum) - I'm sure they're well used to being criticised in such places especially after a poor performance. Maybe a few folk go a little over the top but by and large the criticisms on this site after games like last night are justified. 

What is important is that we keep supporting them at the games and try not to get on their backs during the actual matches even if things aren't going quite so well. I'd much rather folk let off steam (even though I often don't agree with it) on this forum than when actually at the game. 

So I would say, praise but only when it's due, and criticise but keep it sensible. The best policy is probably to imagine you're saying it to their face. In which case you'd probably still be saying to CBT - "you missed a sitter there and should have done better" (I'm convinced he'd agree) but you'd probably not say to Washington "it looks like you won a competition to play football" (as someone has said).

37 minutes ago, SuperDerbySuperRams said:

We are still the favourites for second (so say the bookies!!!!)

Keep the faith. It was never going to be straight forward. We wouldn’t love following this club as much if it was. 😀

I guess a neutral, just looking at the remaining games, would expect us to win our last three whilst it's not unreasonable to think Bolton may drop a couple of points either Saturday or away at Posh. 

We're perhaps a little less optimistic (having suffered some dreadful performances recently). 

51 minutes ago, ap04 said:

There is nothing perplexing, if anything yesterday was better. Portsmouth -2.5 chances agg, Wycombe +1.5, difference between Portsmouth and Wycombe give or take 3 chances. Both amazing first halves, poor second but decent overall and bang in line with what was expected. Everything else is kneejerk, bandwagon and outcome bias.

Did you actually watch both games? If so, are you seriously suggesting we played better against Wycombe than we did against Portsmouth?

You seem to be obsessed with statistics and ignoring the fact that 1) Portsmouth were a much tougher proposition than Wycombe and 2) our good chances against Wycombe came quite early on but for most of the game we were pretty awful. Against Pompey, we may not have created as many chances (but then you wouldn't really expect us to away at the team sitting top of the table) but we played better than we did against Wycombe. The first half against Wycombe certainly wasn't "amazing".

54 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

Really?!

Fair enough, looking at that still he may have been able to control it with his left then side foot it with his right but I don’t think a still picture proves anything. At full speed it doesn’t look quite as simple as you are suggesting. I’m not disagreeing that it was a bad miss but I don’t think he could or should have taken a touch first and then side footed it in. I reckon 99% of professional footballers would have done the same - tried to slide the ball into an empty net rather than risk taking a touch first.

10 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

He really did, if he's anything like a competent footballer. 

The keeper was a good 6 feet away from him when the ball arrived at his feet

Well we’ll have to agree to disagree. In my opinion he really didn’t. Regardless of where the keeper was, if he’d tried to take a touch and then side foot it in, it would have narrowed his angle. He would probably have had to control it with his left foot and then side footed it in with his left foot. I don’t think that would have been easy and, IMO, he made the right decision (as I believe pretty much every other player would have) to try and direct it into the goal with his first touch. He got it wrong though.

1 minute ago, G STAR RAM said:

Agree with this that it was the touch before the cross that was poor.

Don't agree with this, he had all the time in the world. Just a complete lack of concentration. 

He had enough time to strike the ball better but not take a touch and then side foot it in.

Here’s a drinking game that will help soften the trauma of the next few weeks. Every time someone says “bottled it” you have a drink.

There, you can have that one on me.🍻

26 minutes ago, Rich84 said:

Still had time ro take a touch and then sidefoot it in, no excuses, shocking miss that set the tone for the evening 

Just watched the incident again. He should have done better but there is no way that he had time to take a touch and then side foot it in. 

18 minutes ago, Jayram said:

He should have stroked it across the box, not fizzed it at 90mph. Washington bottled it, like he did the chance he had against Blackpool the other week. 

Is “bottled it” the phrase of the moment now we’re nearing the end of the season? He neither bottled it nor fizzed it at 90mph. His final touch before he crossed it was poor which meant it got stuck under his feet a little and his cross therefore wasn’t as clean as it could have been.

4 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

Except the had three shots on target to our none. Wildsmith pulled off a very good save, you didn't notice?

Wildsmith made a good save low down to his left but we’d all have been very disappointed if he hadn’t made it. A good save but not a worldie. I don’t think either side really looked like they were going to score last night. Wycombe were OK but didn’t create many particularly good chances. We were awful but were presented with some great chances that we couldn’t even force a save from.

8 hours ago, Sean said:

That game turned out exactly how I thought it would and yet everyone on here is stunned. Wycombe are horrible to play against. CBT should have scored but I still think we can do enough in the last three games.

I don’t think many of us were “stunned” especially with the result. I reckon most people thought it would be an ugly (actually Wycombe played better football than I expected) and difficult game that we’d probably have enough to win but the result wasn’t a shock. We’re (well me anyway) not stunned, just bitterly disappointed at such an inept and disjointed performance. Yes we had some great chances early on but these were largely down to breakaways aided by some poor defending. Once those opportunities had gone I don’t recall many occasions when we really looked liked scoring or putting together any sort of prolonged passage of play. It was all too frantic which I put down to tactics, formation and players individual performances.

I don’t think either Bolton or Posh will win all of their remaining games but the question is, can we? I see Orient being a difficult game that’ll well probably just scrape over the line in. No game is easy but we probably couldn’t have asked for a much easier final game. Based on our performances against Wycombe and Northampton, the Cambridge game worries me a lot.