Andrew3000

When the PW Derby are playing at their best, I think it’s good to watch and on balance likely to get us competing for promotion.
We are missing a couple of players to be able to hit the level more consistently. Probably it should be realistic that we can get these types of players either Jan or summer.
I personally thought that to play the Rooney/Rosenior method well enough, we need to improve/replace more players and these players may not be obtainable as the teams that play this method well are at higher level than we are.

I can’t fault Southgate this time. We didn’t take our chances.

If Knight is fit enough to play, it seems unfathomable he's not yet on to give us more control of the midfield and match. I hope it doesn't mean he's off in January, so Warne is trying to operate without him.

Get in Collins great header..

Surprised. Thoughts Roberts would come in for sure. 

Have the officials been yet to confirm this 

About to set off. Hope its not called off
 
 
 
 

Let’s all meet up in the year 2000.
30 years of hurt (more like 56 now). 

King Colin doing King Colin things 

I clearly listened to the new Everything Everything album a hell of a lot.

Well, I made it! Thought it was an ok game with odd bits of decent football. As has been said many times the officials were dire. I usually give them a bit of slack as I used to watch my dad reffing local games but this lot were beyond the pale. I thought we just shaded it but we don’t seem to get out of the habit of taking one touch or one pass too many.
I did look for @Anag Ram on the station platform but there were rather a lot of men in Derby scarves and I really didn’t fancy getting a reputation for accosting ‘strange’ men! I thought I’d recognise his nanny but I didn’t see her either!
I’m so pleased to know I can manage a whole day including travel on my own. A bit tiring though as I slept nearly 12 hours last night! But well worth it to know I can do it.

Ah yes, as opposed to Rosenior’s high tempo, free-flowing, chance laden stylings. 

More of a battle than a football game.
Weds came with a game plan which was effective and overly physical. We kind of dealt with it but the ref did us absolutely no favours at all.
Defence we’re the star performers with Fozzy the pick of the bunch. Midfield were ok, but our front two were poor, part of that was lack of service, part was both seemingly having an off day. Definitely a day where defences were on top!
It was one of those games you just have to accept as a point gained against a rival and move on.
Better performance is needed in the final third if we want to keep our position in the play off mix

I think if we play “Didzy”, “Dobbo” and “Grumpy” up front . Then throw in a bit of “Pantomime Defending “ from Shef W.    We should be in for an entertaining afternoon.

We need to get ‘behiiiind’ them.
There’s always plenty of boos for the bad guys and we have a team that’s been assembled for buttons. 
 

By the time this lot play again they will have been in the relegation zone for 5 months. 
They could have achieved that without spending £170M, lol 
 

Oh dear ?

Japan's new flag

I've been really pleasantly surprised by young Will, I had judged him off the odd one or two youtube videos and thought he was just a runner with pace but no ball control.

Yes he's still very raw but I can now see he's got all the attributes to be a top end champ/lower Prem striker, wishful thinking but i'd love for us to be able to sign him permanently.  

Forgetting personnel and formations for a moment... the biggest issue with the way Southgate has us playing is the tempo. It's walking football at times. It was painful against the US and it settled into that pattern early against Wales. We go side to side with such speed that any low block is more than enough to make breaking the opponents down very difficult. We saw it in the Nations League, which was the reason were so dreadful, and we've seen it in the last 2 games of this World Cup.
Now, the big question mark is if that translates to actually a good thing against better opposition. Ones who will have just as much, if not more, of the ball than we do. We can counter using those attacking players well, and the deficiency in being ball dominant in the back 4 may not be as big of an issue. It remains to be seen, but I am not holding my breath with Southgate.

Credit to Newport in the first half. Ok we weren’t great but to some extent they stopped us playing. The game was more open in the second as Newport tired. Interesting how much we committed men forward - maybe Warne preferred anything to a draw. Good to see 2 wonderful moments from Sibley. Fozzie and Wildsmith very good. Good subs by Warne. Apart from that not much to write home about 

Not sure I'd have played Cashin and Rooney under THAT aerial bombardment, so I can understand why he played Fozzy in the middle of them. All 3 of them looked uncomfortable today though. Bird and Hourihane together in a game like that was harder to understand. I agree that both Smith and Sibley struggled defensively today.
Ultimately, however, Warne rang the changes, the 2nd half was a big improvement, the team showed some cajones, and we're in the drawstring bag for the 3rd round.
JOB DONE ?

Really? Into the next round because we won, came back from a losing position to win, avoided a replay with the win, goal and assist for Sibley leading to a Derby win, more great goalkeeping from Wildsmith to make sure Derby won, no further injuries suffered during that win, more minutes for recovering players during that win…. Plenty to be happy about for me, but then I am a very simple man 

Fair play to Warne for changing the system at half time and making some subs to change it.
Gareth Southgate take note please