jono

It fascinates me that the gamble is the thing in the championship.  MM was the extreme example but so many owners are rolling the dice rather than building from foundations. I admit that I am a steady Eddy but that doesn’t mean risk averse, just that risks need to be calculated and have a back system if they go pear shaped. 

Just a thought, we’ll have had a week longer break, teams will have lost players to the Euros, we’ll have promotion momentum… 
If fixtures go our way… we could get the ball rolling 👀

It's clear from the Wendies, Brum-bums and Huddersfield's struggles this season that poor recruitment, managerial changes and ownership issues can mean a passable championship squad underperforming. If we get the recruitment bit right, the stability we have from top to bottom in the club now should help.

Our gross revenue will be right behind the parachute brigade, no?,  because of the gate.  (Depending on sponsorship revenue I suppose. )
But our expenditure on the squad will be middle of the pack imo - unless we find an investor who’s minted   
 
WTS !
 

We had rather big crowds compared to other L1 clubs which makes it rational rather than something to flog us with. We are now in a league where our turnover and budget will likely be middle of the pack. Take out some minnows and the parachute clubs. 

Fortunately, we beat 22 League 1 clubs in the only metric that matters.
And yet, here we are again having a debate about Warne's coaching ability one week after those scenes against Carlisle......

Bit of a contradiction there Bris. First, you describe a big part of tactics and in the next sentence, you dismiss it. 
To answer the original question:
I'm not sure if talking only about Warne is fair as coaching is strongly a team effort.
 I've seen Warneball being called physical, so why did he have a midfield of Hourihane and Bird for about half of the season? Or that Warneball is putting crosses in? What kind of tactics would you choose if you had Collins upfront? Crosses maybe? Or the other way around, did Didzy score countless goals because we put a lot of crosses in? Nope, we played to his strengths. If I'd describe Warneball to an outsider, I'd call it pragmatic, fluid, and mixable while using our strengths and making the most of our opponent's weaknesses. Attention to detail is a strength when we talk about football management.
Just to highlight how fluid our tactics are: I've seen us defending with 5-3-2, 5-4-1, 4-5-1, 4-4-1-1 all in the same game. Well, we all have because it happened often when Bradley was brought on. 
I think he has only two aims when setting his tactics. Firstly, how to get the most out of the striker (how much Didzy, Waggy, Collins, and Gayle have scored, I think he's got that right). The second aim is how to help our keeper to keep a clean sheet. (The least goals conceded in EFL is some achievement). If these two are not about tactics, then what is? And tactics need coaching. With confidence and some experience, I claim that is not an easy part of coaching. 
So, tactics are a massive part of coaching and they have excelled. Another would be increasing the player's ability and that's tougher to measure. I haven't seen as fit team as the current one is in ages and it's part of improving the player's ability. Yes, it may have caused some injuries, but that's football. Also, they managed to teach Sibley to play as LWB. On the first try, he was horrible at it but played okay as fullback when he had a player in front of him. It's a testament to Sibbo and the coaching team, and during the run-in, his performances as LWB turned out to be one of the developmental highlights.
It'll sure be an interesting summer ahead. Will we build a midfield like Hourihane-Bird or Adams-Smith-Thommo? They don't have much in common, but the question is, will they continue to be the ones who'll be sacrificed when we aim to be at our best in both boxes?
I think Warne has shown to be an excellent manager, who seems to be able to build a bunch of individuals into a cohesive group and I really appreciate that. At the same time, my personal preference would be much sexier, quick short-passing champagne football. Maybe it'll come when we have the players for it.

Oh come on, we wasn’t able to pay a fee for any players! You can’t tell me we were the big spenders

So it takes no coaching ability at all to achieve 4 promotions from League 1?
Blimey, I've missed my vocation!

I'll leave this one to the drongos.

It seems that the vast majority of his signings get off to a sluggish start. Then, after a period of time their performances improve considerably.
Proves that as a coach he is more than capable and is ability to get his message across to the players.
He couldn't get a tune out of Kane, Ward, Sonny at first and then they contributed significantly. Sibs and Tommo got better as the season went on also.
Proves that we have a strong coaching outfit at DCFC
I fully expect CBT to hit the ground running next season as will Elder
 
 

Smith and Bradley really stepped up towards the end of the season when we needed them most. Nelson and Cash were great for the majority of the season, but I thought Bradley was a colossus over the last month. Similarly, Smith really came into his own around the same time as well. I love that we really carried no one this year. At different times in the season everyone has contributed something.

The consensus on Cardiff forums is largely the same as ours  : £500k would be about right but screw us for more if they can. They're up against it a little on FFP, so it seems there's a deal to be done, unless Vincent Tan is as contrary as Chanserai at SWFC.

Think you are being very harsh on Thommo, he’s more than just a keen runner

This also resulted in Smith playing some of his best football with us.

I didn’t particularly rate him when he first came. He provided balance and was immense as a screen but gave the ball away more than he actually won it.
But as soon as Smith came back in it changed.
Smith was the one sitting a little deeper, picking passes from deep and keeping things tidy.
This allowed Adams to start rampaging forward. He was still the steel of the midfield but he was using his energy to get forward as well as just putting his foot in.
Just something I noticed.

Our season tickets were by the players’ family block and I was talking to Ebou’s mates / family at half time on Saturday. They said he’s really enjoyed it here, but Cardiff want “extortionate money” for him. I don’t know how informed they are, or what extortionate means in this context, just repeating what they told me.
They also said he’s got a year left on his contract but there’s an option for a further year, so I assume Cardiff have the option to effectively make it a 2 year contract and push the price up.
I’m still confident we’ll get Ebou. I think he’ll want to come and there will be a price at which Cardiff will let him go, hopefully within our budget. Just hope it doesn’t become too protracted.

More desperate we look, higher the price tag.
Can stay at Cardiff for me, but if they want rid to raise some money I think we should help them out, bit of charity warms the soul.

I didn't get to many games this season, but did see his debut away at Charlton. The team looked much better straight away and it was also when the 3 cbs looked like it could work.
It took a few weeks for people to realise, but this wasn't 5 at the back. It was 3, but with Adams infront stopping the opposition running at that. As the season went on, Adams started to show he could play a bit too and became more than just a great ball winner. His positional sense is great too, always in the right position.
Regardless of other signings, getting Adams in early would already give us a solid defensive foundation for next season, alongside our exisiting CBs, including Forsyth and Nyambe who could play a back 3 too, plus Wildsmith.
In terms of priorities, Wilson, Ward, Sibley and Elder are decent enough for the wing backs.
We can focus on more attack minded midfielders and centre forwards.
 

I'm so ready for another George Thorne summer saga

In terms of impactful signings, Ebou has etched his name into Rams folklore because without him I don’t doubt for a single minute that we wouldn’t have been promoted automatically. He’s been absolutely phenomenal for us. 
At first there was Osman, then there was Thorne, followed by the trio of Mount, Wilson and Tomori.. now there is Ebou Adams.

I was hoping someone had read the books & started watching the series. I loved the books. It's just a shame C. J. Sansom died last week just before the series started. 

Has no-one realised that Blackburn stayed up today by beating Leicester - one of the results that sealed Birmingham's fate.
This current manager of Blackburn is...?