chadlad

Did you see where he was for Cheltenham’s last gasp free kick? He was caught in no man’s land and they could have, should have scored….

Did you see where he was for Cheltenham’s last gasp free kick? He was caught in no man’s land and they could have, should have scored….

Not going to knock Josh, as I think we are fortunate enough to have two very good keepers at this level, but Joe has the better all-round skillset for me. I worry about Josh and crosses and I think Joe also edges it in terms of distribution. Both are excellent shot-stoppers, but again, my slight leaning there would also be to Joe. If Joe's on the naughty step then we should probably get him off it and get him and Nyambe back into our defensive unit ASAP.

Did you see where he was for Cheltenham’s last gasp free kick? He was caught in no man’s land and they could have, should have scored….

I've argued that Warne is not the right man for us consistently for quite some time now, and in that time Ive tried to condense my argument down in to something as concise as possible in an effort to make it simple to understand.
I think it's as simple as this, do I enjoy watching Derby County play and do I feel like the personnel we have in place are suitable for the short, medium and long term ambitions of the club?
I currently do not enjoy watching Derby play. The performance levels are among the worst I've seen in my life outside of the 11 point season. In terms of our ambitions I will concede that in the short term Warne might get us promoted from L1, I believe that would be in spite of him not because of him. In the medium/long term I have absolutely no faith in his ability to take us beyond being a lower end, relegation threatened Championship team and we surely want more than that?

I've never had a downer on Warne.
I was up his arse for a good few months... and personality-wise, I still like the guy/his humour etc, unlike many.
Any hint from me re Warne Out has been 100% "Tongue-in-cheek"/"WUM", call it what you like.
Even now, I'm not at the "I think it's time to go" stage.
Even if and when I get there, it will be more out of rueful realism than full on rant.  That's just my make up, I guess.  I'll just shrug my shoulders and plod on.
But even for a home-only attendee (Lincoln away aside), I very much agree with @sage with his "Hard work to watch" comments.
I don't currently envy our stalwart home and away regulars, that's for sure.  Nor even the home regulars that have a bit of a trek to get here!  
It's hard work to motivate myself to take the 30 minute stroll to get there.
It's hard work to skip up the steps to my seat, with even the slightest hint of optimism or excitement.
It's hard work to bellow out a "Come on Derby".
It's hard work to even truly believe "We'll win this" before a ball is kicked.
For me personally, it's even hard work to work out whether it's Warne's fault, the player's fault, or a combination.  
...But it's definitely a hard watch!
Points (and subsequent league position) just about trump performance for me, but there will always be a cut-off point.  I'm not there yet, and I've no idea how close I am.  I suspect if that comes, it will be a bolt out of the blue moment?  
But I'm not enjoying the watch.  I'm not shouting from the roof tops that I'm a Derby fan.  It's now't to brag about... unlike 14/15.
As winter isn't over with yet, it's even hard work for me to proclaim that I'll attend every remaining home game this season.  There's still the odd "Bitterly cold winter's mid-week evening" to come yet!  
I missed a few of those in Young Nigel's latter days.  It may come around again this season yet.
Of course, my absence (should it happen) won't matter a jot, as I'm not important, and my money's already in the coffers.  And regardless of how this season pans out, I'm not currently planning to forego my ST renewal for next season.
... But it's definitely a hard watch. 
4th, yer say?  Touching distance of auto's, we cry?
Cling on folks... there may just be some entertainment around the corner!
🐏

Pretty sure I commented during the match saying Bird was quietly having an effective game. 
There were a couple of occasions first half were a misplaced pass or sloppy touch gifted Burton a chance to counter and Bird showed the awareness and athleticism to get back and snuff out the danger. There were also some points he picked the ball up in midfield and drove at their defence, he hesitated with one when Barkhuizen was free in the right side channel and by the time he made his mind up the defence had found their shape BUT the second time he did it he played the pass to Barkhuizen on the left of their area and Bark’s touch let him down. 
I’d like Bird to take games by the scruff of the neck as he’s capable of doing, but the way we play doesn’t lend itself to that, so he does his role a solid 7 most weeks in my opinion, doing the simple work that allows others to go and get the glory. 
 

Living fairly near to Motspur Park, I went along to the game tonight.  While it's certainly disappointing that we were on the way to three points after 93 minutes and were going home with none after 97 (part of the first team ethos the academy certainly seems to have taken on board), I don't think we should get too downhearted.  Overall Fulham probably deserved their win, dominating possession for the last third of the match, and we were a bit reliant on their poor final balls and inept finishing at times.  That said, we matched them for long periods and I don't think anyone would have seen us as being two divisions below them, as we are of course at first team level. 
Of the individual performances, four stood out for me for different reasons.  In the first half at least Fulham had no answer at all to Dejaune Brown, who simply bullied their rather large centre half as if it was the easiest thing in the world.  DB saw less of the ball in the second half, but he took his goal nicely.   Hopefully he will not be another Calum Ball type who struggles when up against more experienced and tougher opponents.  His overall game - touch, awareness, positioning etc - all seemed good to me.  This last point holds true for Lennon Wheeldon who really seems to be growing into the no 10 role.  Ryan Bartley had an excellent game at  centre back, a calm, reassuring presence who read the game well.  And then there was Darren Robinson, who I was particularly keen to watch, in part for some of the reasons discussed higher up in this thread.   I thought he was really good, passing the ball quickly and accurately with the minimum of fuss.  He was unlucky not to score when after a great run, he hit the post with the keeper stranded. He certainly likes a tackle.  One particular pole axing of a Fulham player was spectacular, with many in the crowd seemingly sharing my surprise that no free kick was given.   
If it was up to me, I'd see DRob as a better bet for the first team than Tyrese Fornah, particularly as a CDM.  But it is of course not up to me at all, and DRob may have some mysterious Elsnikesque shortcoming which means he never makes it.    However, he seems to be ahead of Fornah in areas such as positioning and knowing when to release the ball.  This is not to slag off Fornah, who certainly has some talent but to me he plays more like an 18 year old than someone who is 23.  In parenthesis, as we used to say in the Ossie End, I do wonder whether this might be to do with where we got him from.    I recently saw a little documentary on Oliver Burke, who the Red Dogs managed to stiff RB Leipzig for about £13m back in the day.  The documentary made the point that Burke had a certain degree of raw talent, but the Leipzig coaches were surprised at how poorly he had been coached meaning that he was deficient in all sorts of basics.  Still, if you can get £13m for somebody that poor, you must literally be laughing all the way to the bank.
 

Player Ratings after 22 Games
Thanks once more for providing your player ratings after each game. Table 1 and Fig 1 give a summary of how things stand after the most recent game away versus Wigan. Curtis Nelson heads the pack with an average rating of 6.99, closely followed by Cashin on 6.78. The Top 5 comprises 4 defenders so we can see what this season has been based on hitherto. Wildsmith has done very well to gain an above-average rating of 6.32  (6.0 is "average") given that of late he has had very little to do so limited opportunity to score above a 6.0. I'm currently working on some charts to show relative movement across the season; for example Wilson has shown considerable improvement of late, as too Hourihane and Collins. The data generally shows few surprises - I think the data has good "face validity" in that this picture will fit in with most fans' "intuitive" view of whom our best performers are.  I'm a tad surprised that NML isn't higher but I often think that some players who set a high personal standard sometimes get marked down when they don't quite reproduce that. 
Going forward, I will try and keep a more up-to-date analysis, but please bear in mind that over the last couple of days, I have spent nearly 9 hours mostly punching the data - it's quite time-consuming. I've also still go to do some analysis that some posters have asked about specifically. That will come if it shows anything of note.   
 

Chadlad Posted January 30, 2021
Surprised with this and feel that it’s too early to make this judgement. Give him another season to develop and who knows what level he could reach. Ability wise he has a lot in his locker, I just hope we have a substantial deal, fee appearances and sell on fees.
As others have said, he need to bulk up a little and have a little more aggression. A potential 20 goal a season championship striker IMO!
Difficult but not impossible!

Something as simple as liking him as a character as much as a player 🤷🏻‍♂️ 
I’m a paid up member of the Max Bird fan club. I think he’s a good footballer and has an impact on games that’s maybe not as tangible as his statistical output, we’ve struggled in his absence when injured the last couple of seasons. And as I’ve said before on here I think he’s an admirable young man having lost his dad so young he shows a level head and emotional maturity in the way he comes across. 
 
I’d rather we keep Max Bird at the club, then in the summer thank the likes of Korey Smith and Conor Hourihane for playing their part in the resurrection of the club and wish them well in their careers as we sign shiny new players to play alongside Bird, Fornah and Thompson in our midfield. 
 
That’s just my silly little idealist views of football though, sell him to Hull or Birmingham in Jan who clearly don’t know enough about football for wanting to sign a player who doesn’t score or tackle….

9 points. We need to be confident. Stop these silly tackles in our box. It’s do-able. 

Honestly… I think we need to win all three. 
To get top two in this league you have to be relentless. It’s such a poor league that any dropped points end up costing you as everyone around you wins. We had a woeful start to the season so we have to recover that now to get back to the magic 2 point a game mark. The recent run has gone some way to achieving that, but we’re still a little way off.
It won’t be easy, but getting wins against some of your main promotion rivals would go a long way to making up for those early season mistakes. They’re not called 6 pointers for nothing. Playing tough opponents during a busy schedule isn’t ideal - but we have as much (if not more) quality, and should be fresher than the opposition given we played yesterday rather than Saturday. 
There’s no reason at all why we shouldn’t be able to beat any team in this league. We should go into these games with that mentality and aim to win all of them.

Why don't they just given us the trophy now ey @David
That kind of misplaced confidence never screwed us over before...

W ⚓

Guilty as charged. 😂

And some people say “Just promote us now” . Which completely cocks the season up.

I was at Port Vale last night and the last word I'd use to describe it is boring! 
There was a great atmosphere among the Derby fans from kick off. We were brought together by the shared endurance of traffic jams, crap facilities (again), lack of organisation and over-officious stewarding pre-match.
I thought we played well and always felt confident of the win. Yes, they had some possession in midfield with neat and tidy play that contributed to a good game but they created very little,  whereas we looked dangerous every time we attacked - direct and strong. Their goalkeeper was clearly man of the match (didn't he have a stormer against us at our place last season, too?) Another night, one of those early chances goes in and the scoreline would have looked more comfortable. As it was, I felt sure we would score eventually as they tired. 
Wilson is rapidly becoming one of my favourite footballers. You can tell he's revelling in being fit and playing in front of the biggest set of fans of his career. But everyone played their part; I don't get the hate for Collins as he worked his socks off again and could have had two on another night.
What a dollop that Ikpeazu is! Referee should have booked him early for his wrestling/diving, would have cut it out. Instead it just gave Cashin an opportunity to make him look clumsy, which he did with aplomb. 
Hourihane needs to let someone else onto set pieces occasionally as the lack of delivery is noticeable.  He worked hard across the rest of the pitch though against their busy midfield and closed down well.
What a classy goal to decide the game. Barkhuizen's harrying won the ball back, a peach of a low cross from Mendez-Laing and JJ finished with aplomb. Anyone else would have took a touch and the defender  cleared it. But that young man has quality and he showed it just when needed. In his celebration right in front of us he looked quite emotional,  another player hoping to put his injury demons behind him. I hope he does, because if he can keep fit he could help fire us to promotion this season.
Come on you Rams! ⚽️ 

Chadlad Posted January 30, 2021
Surprised with this and feel that it’s too early to make this judgement. Give him another season to develop and who knows what level he could reach. Ability wise he has a lot in his locker, I just hope we have a substantial deal, fee appearances and sell on fees.
As others have said, he need to bulk up a little and have a little more aggression. A potential 20 goal a season championship striker IMO!
Difficult but not impossible!

Derby lead after a fine strike by Hawkins. Well deserved.

1Wildsmith 7.5: That 5mm of glove material that Joe got on that goal-bound shot on 44 minutes to deflect it onto the right-hand upright was as significant in terms of the result as NML's surging drive into the back of the net on 90 minutes. Fine margins indeed.   
24Nyambe 6.5: Solid, firm and forceful. let's hope he likes the Derbyshire countryside & chooses to stay around come the New Year. 
35Nelson 7.5: An outstanding presence, but defence must take a collective -0.5 for allowing what we all predicted pre-match.  
6Cashin 7.5: Blocked, headed tackled. Always an offensive threat at corners with his rabbit-like spring but must learn to time it so his headers are not gentle lobs to their keeper.
17Sibley 6.5: Solid in defence albeit beaten on a couple of occasions. Switched position and arguably should have finished off the 1v1. Needs a run of games as any player does.   
4Hourihane 6.5: A couple of lovely balls into the box from corners but we need more defence-splitting passes as an option 2 rather than constant balls outside to the wings.
7Barkhuizen 5.5: His cut inside and sideways running is becoming habitual. Needs to re-set his own game-plan. 
2Wilson 6.5: Should've been introduced sooner; showed his obvious threat quickly and helped to unsettle Gas defenders.
12Smith 5.5: Too frequently bossed off the ball I'm afraid & provides insufficient amends elsewhere. 
22Fornah 7.5 Power, big appetite and great assist for the winner. If Rams are to continue upwards trajectory Fornah has to start. No question. 
8Bird 7.0 The CPU of the Team; some delightful and often subtle contributions that go unnoticed. Central to our fortunes. 
5Bradley 6.0 Some sky-scraper hoofs late on to kill off the resistance. 
11Méndez-Laing 8.5 MoTM Burned the Gas defence off with pace and power when pushed further forward 2nd half. NML is the new McDick and his fitness and wellbeing is crucial to Ram's season. 
9Collins 6.0 Huffed and Puffed in vain.
10Waghorn 6.0 Late legs to see it out.
 
This game will always be in my memory for B4 who epitomised and personified what supporting a football team means. May his memory and example live on in perpetuity.  "Always remember this our club".  

If it came across I was meaning that and trying to slag off Clowes, then it's crossed wires.
Regardless of owner, we've never really sold when at the top value. Look at the deals for Rob Hulse and Kris Commons with GSE, before that Barnes and Nyatanga had big interest we reportedly turned down. Further back the deals for Riggott and Christie, then back again for the likes of Stimac. Still baffles me why we agreed to lose nearly £1m on him. 
The main reason Brentford and Brighton have made it to the premiership and maintained their positions is through smart investments and knowing when to sell. This has then enabled then the invest in their stadiums, training facilities etc. 
Steve Mac mk1 had it right in investing in young up and coming players like Thorne, Dawkins and getting the loans of Wisdom, Bamford and Ibe. Just a shame we couldn't make it up then. The waste of money on Butterfield, Jozefzoon, Anya etc is what caused this mess. 
We need to get back to signing assets that will appreciate in value, the likes of Wilson, Fornah and Nyambe (if he stays) is a good move in that direction. The likes of Washington and Bradley will leave us for no regained value. It'll take time for the rebalance for sure. 

Derby played well today and it would have been unjust had they not got the draw.
It was great as I was sat right next to the Derby bench, so was able to have a conversation with Cash and a quick few words with PW.
Couldn't have wished for a better draw if we want to make some money on a  cup run.
 
 

I'm not a firestarter, I try not to be a boo boy and I'm definitely not a fervent happy clapper. I'm just a regular supporter, always proud and cheering for my team and like the more fickle among us I get quiter when it's s*** and louder when it's great.
Well unfortunately I'm going quiet, very quiet. I've actually already stopped tracking our fixtures and results now. I literally can't be bothered. Warne has a small club mentality and an incapacity to work in a different way to what he knows. We are going and continue to go backwards, anyone who thinks playoffs are a possibility this season should seriously think about supporting the gumps with that level of delusion.
I don't mind us losing, it's always going to happen. I just want to be entertained and go into every match believing that we can win or at least play entertaining football. We are so far from that right now, it makes the early days of Nigel Clough's tenure look like Jim Smith's finest.
What angers me most is that CryptoBro's bessie Garry Cook has essentially gifted us a genuinely promising manager in Eustace by carrying on with the fantasy that Rooney is a football manager. Now we're going to squander that opportunity because something something stability.
Never mind eh. Someone wake me up when we start playing football worth watching 👍🏻

My Mrs says she doesn’t want to go anymore, despite having a season ticket. We have both been ST holders for many years but neither of us is impressed with the anti football that Warne seems to want his team to play. How many others feel this way? How many young potential ST holders will drift away to the red side of the A52?
We are Derby I hear at every home game, it’s in our DNA. Yet I see very little on the pitch that reminds me of our great traditions of attractive passing football.
I will still be going to every home game but more in hope than expectation. Until Warne is gone I can’t see things changing anytime soon. I was shocked and surprised that LR wasn’t given more time, I already think that PW has been given too much time. The damage he is doing to our club will be long standing if he is allowed to continue in his job for very much longer.