nottingram

Doubt he’d play if every single one of our other midfielders broke their leg so I wouldn’t worry

Who’s?

No issue with this at the moment. That will change if we use the cash to bend over to Sheffield Wednesday. This money should be going on a young forward with upside.

Announcing Adams today means there’s almost definitely a forward, otherwise I reckon they’d have saved it to try and quell the disappointment tomorrow. How quickly this came out the blue means it’s hopefully someone not mentioned yet as the names don’t really inspire so far.

Presumably Fornah on his way? Glad the midfield is being addressed, albeit I do think Fornah has been decent in his limited minutes.

I think autos is 2 from 4. Us, Portsmouth, Bolton and Peterborough. Probably Peterborough and Bolton I think. Despite that I think we could easily drop away but we’d have to be really bad not to finish top 6. Huge pressure to win the play offs then. Not getting promoted this season would be a huge failure in my opinion. Teams coming down will be in much better shape next year and Wrexham coming up will throw money at it. Expect Warne would stay but there really will be no excuses by then.

I don’t think there is any bind, to be truthful. Almost everything that happens football-wise is incredibly short term. This is just another signing we make that anyone on this forum could think of within 5 minutes of being asked. Maybe he’s still alright, maybe he’s not but I find it incredibly uninspiring either way.

Signing Gregory would be a relief. Was just starting to worry we were getting close to the squad’s average age dropping below 30.

Very good crosser but like you say can’t defend so can’t play right back in a back 4 and doesn’t score goals to play on the wing in a front 3. So 3-5-2 or 4-4-2. Not a bad signing if we persisted with 3 at the back for more than 5 minutes but at this point simply doesn’t have a place.

The difficulty is that the wins do not necessarily quell the concerns so any praise is then forced, or would be from me anyway. I personally have no real concerns Warne will get us out of this league. It really should be this year but if not then there’s a few contracts expiring in the summer and he’ll have some wiggle room (but would absolutely need to be recruit better this summer than last). Where I do have concerns is how we still look against the better teams in the league. Peterborough looked a level above us at PP, we couldn’t string two passes together v Bolton even at 11 v 11. Did play well v Barnsley however. So beating up some bad teams at this level doesn’t really move the needle for me. The crux of my issue is he has a 4 year deal and so the expectation must be that he will lead us at some point in the Championship, however hard I try I just cannot imagine that working out and I can’t simply tell myself “well let’s just get promoted first” because I think that’s the wrong way to look at it.

Covid hit just as we were hitting a head of steam. We beat Blackburn 3-0 with Sibley scoring a worldie on his full debut which was near enough the last game in this country before everything stopped. We then weren’t quite the same when things resumed coinciding with tough fixtures as well. The next season was awful and he had to go, although he didn’t have the luxury of using Bielik or CKR before he went. Do wonder where Sibley and Bird would be if he’d been allowed to ride it out. Sibley certainly was not handled well by Rooney in my opinion. And it’s not like we got much better.

Depends on context clearly but based on ones since I started going regularly: 1. McClaren 2. Lampard 3. Wassall 4. Rosenior 5. Rowett 6. Cocu 7. Rooney 8. Warne 9. Clough 10. Jewell 11. Pearson Forgot Clement and can’t be bothered to change the numbers so he can go between Warne and Clough. Mostly highlights what a grim time it’s been.

The only mitigation I think he has at this stage is the best number 9’s at this level have cost their clubs fees - Charles, Bishop, Clarke-Harris, May etc. and he does deserve credit for the tune he is getting out of Collins. That said not many clubs at this level could sell players for £3m-4m tomorrow if they wanted to which could (presumably) fund the filling of the big gaps in the squad. That’s making an assumption we are allowed to reinvest fees in that manner which I obviously don’t know for sure before anyone asks for Harvard references on that.

And didn’t promotion without worrying about performances work out brilliantly then

First half today I had absolutely no idea what was going on. On paper I assumed a 4-2-3-1/4-4-2 but Bird was so high up almost level with Barkhuizen and Hourihane was holding the CB’s hands. Near enough a 5-5. Wilson gave the ball away 3 or 4 times as he had no options and there was 30-40 yards of space in the middle of the pitch with no Derby player in it. As with the other night I think when everyone in an area of the pitch looks crap it is hard to point it down to individual performances. Let’s hope the coaching staff have learned they cannot set the team up like whatever that was today again. Bird, Thompson and one more please. I’d like Sibley to get a proper run in there in a functioning midfield but I don’t think that will happen.

Thought it was surprising how both Bird and the team looked 1000000x better when he was played in his proper position as a deep midfielder allowed to control the game. I don’t mind Hourihane but I’ve no idea why he was expected to play in midfield on his own in the first half.

Yep don’t disagree with that at all but guess my point is even though they divide opinion (personally I like most of them as players) but we have failed to improve on them despite making a fair few signings who are presumably on pretty hefty wages themselves. That makes it pretty difficult for me to swallow an argument that he’s particularly hamstrung by the conditions he’s working in, is all. Which was my original point. I can accept it’s probably tough to improve up front without being able to spend money on a forward - as in players like Bishop, Charles, Adeboyejo have cost their clubs fees. But any other issues in the squad I can’t really accept as an excuse at this stage personally.

I don’t remember making any comment about Rosenior’s signings or the academy players in truth. So not really sure how that is my logic to be honest. The issue I think is two and a half windows in and Nyambe, Nelson (both very good signings to his credit) and maybe one of Wilson and CBT would be Warne signings who get in our best 11, in my opinion. Maybe one of the forwards he’s signed if any of them could stay fit for more than 5 minutes.

It’s something I do struggle with a little, in that the messaging from the club about the long term seems to largely be at odds with football based decisions. Things like hiring a promotion specialist who (on all evidence so far) struggles at the level above on a 4 year deal, resisting bids that would really allow a rebuild for players on expiring contracts. I guess where I differ is that I think Warne effectively has the keys to the club and we keep them because he wants to, even though it makes little long term sense. IMO, which means little and like you purely speculative, it’s not a sensible way to operate. Selling assets at the right time needs to be how basically every club outside the Prem + Parachutes should run. Leaving that in the hands of someone whose role is short term by nature is daft.

Fair enough in that case. Not to move the goalposts too much but I’d be surprised if the players signed by half of those were on our radar, and two of them sold players in the summer for (for them) significant transfer fees. Which brings us on to paragraph 2 of my previous post… Ultimately it’s a pointless discussion as he’s not going anywhere, but imo he is doing at very best about par. I just really really struggle with the argument he is not backed or is working with his hands tied. In my opinion it is fantasy designed to excuse what so far is a transfer record that is crap if you’re feeling generous. I wonder how much it comes to when you tally up the wages we must be spending on his signings that so far look to be pretty poor either due to a bad initial fit, abandoning 3ATB after 3 games or just that they don’t seem to be very good or he doesn’t trust them anyway.

How many clubs at this level are in a position to spend fees on players under contract? 3 or 4? Including us as however you want to paint the CBT deal, we have paid a fee for him. Which I’ve no issue with by the way, I think it’ll be a good signing. But don’t think we need to pretend he’s working with two hands behind his back. I bet it’s even less than 3 or 4 who are in a position to resist 7 figure bids for players. If finances are tight then recruitment has to be bob on. The summer window was terrible.

Bird has been part of a midfield who control games at a higher level than this. Hourihane too but I grant his legs may not move as his brain wants them to anymore. We’re into our third Warne window. There has been ample time to address it. We are not scratching squads together anymore. We are buying (loaning) players for fees that plenty of clubs we play against week by week couldn’t dream of.

Happy clappers may not be the right term because it’s naturally divisive but there was, rightly or wrongly, a significant number of posts on our good run sneering at any one who dared to question the manager or want him gone during the highs of defeats to Shrewsbury and Stevenage, as if good results masking at times sub par performances does anything to convince people who have long term doubts about the manager. Performances being less than convincing even during good runs is a large part of why he has been questioned, certainly by me anyway. In most games we get by because we have better players than the other team. I don’t see a huge amount of the effects of good coaching, I don’t see many tactical tweaks that gain us an edge. We look like a team who have a bigger budget than the majority of teams at this level, and not much else. I think our manager’s level is about where we are now, which worries me. But alas he is here to stay.

We cannot possibly expect our rag tag bunch of players thrown together on a shoestring budget to compete with sides like Reading

Wouldn’t mind it on a loan until the end of the season to help us over the line. Anything longer than that and I’d have some concerns.