nottingram

Also this whole manager by trial situation in general is completely farcical. How on earth can a player have any respect for a decision when they know it is as short term as “if you win you’ll get the job, if you lose it’s someone else’s go next time”

I know this is going to sound a bit “damned if you do...” etc but it is pretty funny that Rosenior got two tough fixtures as what seemed to be his ‘trial’ while Rooney is getting what is on paper probably the easiest game of the season.

Your dedication to the Rams is inspiring, I hope you are able to get to games soon really

On the bright side, none of us will have to go and watch the football

There is definitely space for a player like that at this level, but with Knight you get all of that plus being a lot better on the ball. Just feels like we go through this every few weeks. Shinnie plays, looks limited. Gets dropped because he inhibits us on the ball (not that we’re really better without him), fans ask why Shinnie isn’t playing and he gets back in the team. Repeat. I do like him but as I say he feels like natural competition to Knight, who is probably our most effective player.

Shinnie seems to be one of those players who gets better when he doesn’t play. He is great at winning the ball back but he has no clue when he gets it. For me he is competing with Knight who is great at winning the ball back and is then able to actually do something on the ball too. Shinnie causes more problems than he solves. I’m not saying our midfield is a functional unit but Shinnie in there with Knight and Bird would not be good. Sibley, on the other hand, should definitely be playing. Davies I am not bothered about. Can defend but his ability to do that is waning and on the bal

That’s the million dollar question I guess. In terms of wanting to stay, I can’t see any pushing massively for moves away. In terms of affording to keep them I guess it depends what experienced players we could shed ourselves of. We’d be reaching a point where our wage bill would be minimal. I wouldn’t say it’s a chance we want to be taking either way!

I saw Ryan Conway say something along the lines of only having 8 or so senior players contracted past 2022 so in theory we would have a bit of a blank slate to work under, but would obviously lose lots of revenue. I look at a team like Hull down there now who have rebuilt around their young players and who will probably come up in a much better state than they went down and wonder if a season of Bird, Knight, Sibley, Buchanan etc playing every minute and dominating games might be great for their development. But for every Hull there is a Sunderland. It would have potential to be the

I am looking forward to League 1 a little bit

It felt like Cocu had got through to him last season but who really knows Some teams can carry a mercurial player like him, but we can’t and especially not in our position. I’ve probably been his biggest defender but am running out of patience

Lawrence will never learn, sadly

So so poor Lawrence, Wisdom, Clarke so poor for that goal

I think his recruitment was better than we have seen over the last few years but still don’t think it was excellent. That said he was working with very different parameters than his successors. For every Dawkins there was a Leon Best, though I accept that finding a viable Martin alternative was an almost impossible task

I just get a bit confused as to when someone winning silverware means they’re a good manager or not as I remember the poster I replied to being very much anti-Cocu

Cocu was a good manager then was he?