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Andrew3000

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    Match Thread: vs Bolton Wanderers (H)

    in Derby County Forum

    Posted

    9 hours ago, Rampant said:

    Saturday 16th March

    vs Bolton Wanderers

    Pride Park   KO 1500

     

    This match as a song by The Smiths: Some Games Are Bigger Than Others

    Opponents Bio: I had the honour of starting the match thread for the reverse fixture so may be repeating some of these nuggets of insignificant trivia. So in the hope that the forums' collective memory is worsening here we go again.

    Bolton Wanderers are, like ourselves, proud to be one of the twelve original founder members of the Football League. Not only that, the opening round of fixtures back on 8th September 1888 saw the two clubs meet for the first of 136 encounters (129 league, five FA Cup and two League Cup). Furthermore, Bolton winger Kenny Davenport has the distinction of being the first scorer in English Football League history as he netted after just two minutes of the game. The Rams did come back to win an opening day thriller 6-3 at Pikes Lane, Bolton in front of an estimated crowd of 3,000. 

    Bolton can proudly boast that they have spent more seasons in the top flight of the English game than they have outside of it and have seen giants of the game like Jimmy Armfield, Nat Lofthouse and Michael Ricketts sport their colours over the years.

    Bolton are commonly known as one of three nicknames; The Whites, due to the colour of their home kit, Wanderers, as it's their name, or The Trotters, chosen by their first owner who made his fortune selling laxatives.

    They have former Ram Ian Evatt as manager and also had a run of three successive bosses with Derby links between 1992 and 1999 as they were led by Bruce Rioch, Roy McFarland and then Colin Todd. Players who have represented both clubs include Franny Lee, John McGovern, Jeff Chandler and Andy Todd.

    Opponents Dangermen: Chief threat is 13-goal Dion Charles although he is doubtful with a knee injury. Victor Adeboyejo has ten goals but is likely out for the season which leaves Bolton with three principal goal threats; Jon Dadi Bodvarsson, ex-Ram Cameron Jerome and Aaron Collins whose five goals and ten assists make him a man to be wary of in our third. Josh Sheehan also poses a threat from midfield.

    Opponents Recent Form: Wanderers will rock up at Pride Park in third place, one position and one point behind ourselves and buoyed by an impressive 5-0 demolition of playoff chasing Oxford on Tuesday night. They are, however, winless in their last four away fixtures since winning 2-1 at Cambridge. Defeats at Blackpool (1-4) and Wigan (0-1) followed that victory and their most recent away games have seen them draw 2-2 at both Barnsley and Exeter. Whilst we're looking for positives, they have conceded at least once in their last eight road games. Their overall away record for the season is decent enough with nine wins, five draws and five defeats.

    Derby vs Bolton History: Derby have had by some margin the upper hand in the head-to-heads with Wanderers. In 129 meetings our record stands at W64-D23-L42. One statistic stands out in the meetings on our turf though and it is this:

    Bolton have never won at Pride Park.

    There, I've said it. 

    Since we moved to Pride Park, Bolton have visited us ten times in the league and drew on their third, fourth and fifth visits but went back up the M6 with nil points on the other seven occasions. We are P10: W7-D3-L0 with 24 goals scored and just five conceded when the Trotters come to town. They haven't scored more than once in any game at Pride Park and, alongside two victories by a one-goal margin, we have merrily spanked their chubby Lancashire backsides 4-0 twice, 4-1 twice and 3-0 once. Now if that isn't tempting fate I don't know what is.

    Expected Rams XI: Possibly same again do we think? Maybe Smith for Hourihane if the latter is still feeling the affects of Yiadom's brutal tackle in midweek.

    My Tuppence Worth: I mentioned it elsewhere but we have winnable looking (I know, I know) games against Blackpool, Orient, Carlisle, Northampton, Wycombe and Cambridge to come in the run-in. If we can do the business in those then a couple of draws in the games against Bolton and Portsmouth will be enough for an automatic place. What I'm suggesting is that given the respective fixture lists of ourselves and Bolton, a draw wouldn't be such a bad result on Saturday. If it's a must win game for either side then, in my opinion, it is more so for Wanderers than it is for us.

    Other Fixtures of Note: It's a significant round of matches as apart from second versus third in our match, it's fourth against first at London Road.

    Peterborough vs Portsmouth

    Barnsley vs Cheltenham

     

    COYR

     

    You are a class act. Bravo! And thankyou.

    Derby County Financial Accounts

    in Derby County Forum

    Posted

    1 hour ago, BramcoteRam84 said:

    As others have said, quite sobering, he’s effectively paid more for a league 1 club in disarray than Mel paid for a really well run club on the brink of the premier league - that with better management from Mel should have got to the premier league. To say he’s gone above and beyond is an understatement and any other owner wouldn’t have gone to these lengths, it’s why Mike Ashley wouldn’t buy the club for example. Without Clowes we’d have either gone out of existence or faced further points deductions and potentially further relegation to League 2. We owe him a huge debt of gratitude forever. It’s not his style but Pride Park should be named after him, he at least deserves a stand. He’s probably made the biggest contribution in the history of the club, bigger than any league title wins. 

    It’s also eye watering how much money we’re losing, the category 1 academy is clearly a huge drain. However a wage bill of £7.3m for playing staff while competitive in this league is by no means at a level to guarantee promotion considering the lack of money we’ve spent on transfers. For context Ipswich playing budget last year was £16m and they spent c.£7m in transfers, dwarfing the rest of the division - although doing what they’re doing this season in the championship with that sort of budget is incredible. 
     

    It’s clear we have to be smart about how we do things if we want to return to the premier league, we don’t have a fat Greek who will bankroll us for £300m from Ill gotten gains. Hopefully the academy will bear fruit but we need to be identifying the right talent in the lower leagues and abroad. Then the quality of the coaching will be the difference between being in a position to compete for the premier league in the next 3 years (Luton, Ipswich) or the next 5-7 years (a return to the Nigel years).

    Bit first things first get this squad promoted then rebuild. Either way I think this summer will be a major rebuild. 

    Some great points.  Clowes has secured his place as one of the most important people in our history and will eventually be immortalised in some form.

    The academy status is a dilemma. They have an obvious emotional appeal, but are they actually worth the investment over the long term? Anyone got any evidence either way? 

     

    Sibley too good!

    in Derby County Forum

    Posted

    3 hours ago, MadAmster said:

    Obviously deliberately chosen to replace "Like I/you said" which he uses much less these days. Whoever does the media training needs replacing. As a retired English teacher, I'd take the job on.

    This leads me to another pet hate... I hear more and more people unable to pronounce the "th" letter combination correctly. Think becomes "fink". Bother becomes "bovver". This becomes "dis" or "vis". Do they not teach articulation these days at school?

    You must uv loved Gary Rowett ven.

    Paul Warne

    in Derby County Forum

    Posted

    12 hours ago, Millenniumram said:

    From what I’m told, Clowes absolutely loves Warne and wouldn’t sack him within the term of his contract, no matter what happens. HOWEVER… he’s about the only one at the club who feels that way. Many other senior figures lost faith in him long ago. In fact, I was told the other day that Warne is likely to resign at the end of this season irrespective of promotion, such is the strain of those other relationships.

    If true, this would reflect very badly on those senior figures. Its one thing to have an opinion, quite another to let that damage working relationships.

    Derby County v Charlton: Player Ratings

    in Derby County Forum

    Posted

    1Wildsmith 4.5  Like @Comrade 86, I felt Wildsmith was the better of our two keepers and felt much more comfortable when he came back in, but now I am confused and worried.  My attention was drawn throughout the first half to a furious Richie Barker, bawling, gesticulating and shaking his head at our unresponsive keeper who was seemingly not releasing the ball quick enough.  I was speechless at his ridiculous charge out of his goal, when covering defenders were clearly present and the lame kick at their forward to concede a completely unnecessary penalty.  Following this, he then fluffed a clearance, slicing it in the manner of my wife swinging wildly at a beachball after several generous long island ice teas.  In mitigation perhaps, the game had already become a farcical and frenetic game of pinball played by a hyperactive toddler and so perhaps he merely became infected with the moronic miasma that had first enveloped the referee, then the players, coaches and finally everyone in the stadium (one guy in front berating Wilson being a good exemplar).  I certainly felt 25 % stupider upon leaving the ground.

    24Nyambe 6.5 Was looking strong and decisive before his injury.  A couple of good raids forward and a silly long range shot.  Any serious injury is a huge blow to our campaign.  Why aren't we allowed to have full backs any more?

    7Barkhuizen 5.5 I was surprised that he came on when he did and didn't notice him much after that.  His body language is generally miserable and weary, much like myself!

    35Nelson 7  A warrior who always takes responsibility.  He even managed to sling a few decent balls into their box.  I didn't see the altercation with their player, just the aftermath and he seemed extremely frustrated at the wrestling during set-pieces but was giving as good as he was getting.

    5Bradley 6  Generally defended ok as far as I could tell, bar a few dodgy clearances, possibly panicking due to their press.

    6Cashin  7.5  A baffling decision to play him left back was almost made to look reasonable by Cashin.  I felt embarrassed for Warne when he explained that he simply wanted to keep all of his best players on the pitch and this was the solution.  Just stop that now.  He nearly got done for pace a few times and most other teams would have exploited this unnecessary flaw and roasted him.  Instead, Charlton played quite narrow and Cashin used his nous to read the game. The fact that he looked like the best footballer on the pitch is in no way an endorsement of him playing full back.  His sheer power and determination took him through a crowd of players to head in the opener.  Sometimes the raking balls forward did not come off, but without him trying to start the play we look lost. 

    2Wilson 5  A real off day for Kane got worse when he was needed to revert to right back.  The sight of him and NML taking people on inside our own half is terrifying.  He played a dozy ball back to Adams which put him under pressure (although what happened next was totally unexpected as Adams ingested a big gulp of moronic miasma and lost the ball underneath him in a way which look harder to do than not).

    12Smith 6.5  I liked much about this display from Smith.  He seemed sharp and snappy.  He won several headers after majestic leaps and hit a pea-roller than was just wide.  He was guilty of one moronic moment in the first half when he pinged the ball straight to their onrushing players.

    17Sibley 5.5  I had to remove half a point because he too succumbed to the miasma with that gormless shot high into the South Stand.  Apart from that struggled to get involved but tried his best.

    32Adams 6  His entire Derby career so far seems to have entailed enduring repeated manslaughter attempts by the opposition and being punished by the referee instead of protected.  He is entitled to feel persecuted and generally tolerates this somehow without losing his mind. Merits the miasma induced minus though for dummying the ball to set up their second goal.

    27Blackett-Taylor 6 Did not see him really, not enough time to get going.  Thought he should have come on instead of Barkhuizen if we were insisting on doing that kind of thing.

    11Méndez-Laing 6 In open play nothing really came off, despite his usual impressive determination and effort.  One moment, when he raced sideways across our own half, was particularly emblematic of the whole affair.  Some really good set pieces though, one of which was the corner we scored from.  This is encouraging, because it means we don't have to perpetuate a dependence on Hourihane.

    8Bird 🐦 6 He had the world-weary look of Barkhuizen and I think must be one of the "gassed out" gang that Warne referred to afterwards.  Didn't execute the right passes and seemed to waft about on the periphery at times.  A couple of good interceptions got us driving forward in the first half.

    25Gayle 6 One the few encouraging sights of that evening.  Admittedly, he didn't get the ball much but he when he did, he used it well, with one neat flick to a team mate that stood out.  He looked sharp and very motivated.  He pressed and made menacing movements.  Whilst he may have lost some power and pace, he looked sprightly and I do think he is highly capable of scoring and otherwise offering us real attacking instinct at this level.

    10Waghorn 5.5  It was so good to see him.  His playful, fatuous demeanour is itself a real tonic, the antitheses of Barkhuizen (and myself generally tbf).  One pathetic prod when well placed to score, but he will get sharper with each game obviously and adds a muscular presence and some free kick options.  So good to be able to balance his fitness and Gayle's.

     

    WARNE - I've kept positive generally but his decision making was very frustrating.  He did however speak afterwards about the players needing to slow the game down at times in order to manage it better.  I was relieved to hear this because sometimes he seems to justify the pinball.  However, if he wants more control than is on display, he needs to find a better way of communicating this and facilitating it to happen, because it rarely has this year.  This match was a marker for me - not quite a final straw but a significant sign that I cannot shake off, no matter how much I want him to succeed here.

    ATG - although after the equaliser, I think I left my body so as not to get caught up in any wasted excitement or stress, as we smashed the ball around desperately as per usual.

     

    Barnsley FC v Derby - Match Day Thread

    in Derby County Forum

    Posted

    Two key admissions by Warne that both contribute to weakening our offensive play: that we lacked a focal point and the initial shape was wrong.

    So, I'm hoping he addresses both. Firstly, we need yo stop the no striker experiment immediately.  We need Brown back purely to be a back up focal point. Neither Gayle nor Waggy can do 90 and it will take weeks before they can, if it all.  Therefore, Brown, whatever his current readiness, is required to ensure we have enough options to maintain a focal point.

    Secondly, 4 at the back has to be our starting formation from now on. This allows CBT, NML, Barks and Wilson to rotate in their best positions.

    Warne admits he has been caught between defensive or attacking advantages of the formation, but surely now it is clear that 3 at the back creates more problems than this, our overall play is far more suited to four at the back, too many players suffer as a result.

     

    Barnsley FC v Derby - Match Day Thread

    in Derby County Forum

    Posted

    4 minutes ago, TomTom92 said:

    Warne’s only real big decision was Gayle or no Gayle. Clearly he thinks he’ll have more of an impact in the last 25 minutes. 
     
    Hourihane and Sibley both get on the scoresheet so maybe the line up isn’t as negative as it appears first glance.

    3 at the back not a big decision?  I think it changes things very significantly.

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