Millenniumram

Just now, McMuffin said:

I thought we had the best defence in the division now? 

Been an excellent investment at the complete expense of our attack 

But, but, but…. League one Guardiola

That’s him going to Charlton then

Because Wigan played football. We just ran around all game. It kills your energy.

Because our manager is a fitness coach in a bobble hat whose only tactic is to run and smash the ball in, the average squad age is 76, and we’ve replaced David McGoldrick with Martyn Waghorn who’s scored one goal this decade. 

Oh, and our budget to do anything about these things is £2.50 and a bag of quavers.

But apart from that, everything’s fine. HMS piss the league and all that 

If there’s other teams interested, rule us out

8 minutes ago, jameso said:

Thomas was credited with identifying good young players for Oxford. If he's been given the same brief here, how fast would you expect clear results?

That's not to say I have any reason to think he's doing an exceptional job - I wouldn't know.

I mean I’d expect us to be signing some good young players? Rather than 37 year old Billy Sharp?

28 minutes ago, Jubbs said:

A lot of our recruitment seems to be very Warne, not very Thomas, based on Oxford's signings over the years. 

I’ll do Mark Thomas’ Job for whatever he’s being paid. Doesn’t seem to be doing anything 

Christ, we really as desperate. Our recruitment has been utterly depressing this summer.

4 minutes ago, jameso said:

You've covered yourself with the first sentence, but then how is the second one relevant? Bradley could have been one of only two Derby players on the pitch as long as the second one was Wildsmith and Bradley passed the ball to him correctly.

Watch the goal again. Bradley is under a lot of pressure because we only have two players back, and Wigan have three up on the press. I’m not excusing the absolutely terrible pass, which was his fault and no one else’s, but it would've been easier for him if he had someone else to pass to. Both CBs were so high that wasn’t an option.

33 minutes ago, Andicis said:

Last season was fine. I know you like to operate under a ridiculous persona on here, but if we're honest it wasn't great but nor was it catastrophic. Just fine. We now have a clean slate, a new season and Warne has signed his own players for the first time here. It's pretty reasonable to look at just the current season. Like I said, if we're not playing well in 10 games time I will probably have some doubts on whether he is the right man for the job, but we've only played one game, and the defensive mistakes aren't Warne's fault. They severely altered the tempo of the games due to the timing of the mistakes.

Since you've been on this forum, you've never supported a manager. Support how you like, but I find that embarrassing personally. 

I’m not directly blaming Warne for the goals today - they were stupid individual mistakes. But at the very least the first one was contributed to by his overlapping centre backs tactic, which leaves Bradley hopelessly exposed through the middle. A disaster waiting to happen really - and it very nearly cost us again 10 minutes later!

Im not trying to build any persona, I’m calling things how I see them. I don’t think there’s been a good manager in charge of Derby County since Steve McClaren, hence why I’ve not been a fan of them - perhaps Gary Rowett excepted. I mean look at their careers afterwards, was I wrong about them? No. And I won’t be wrong about Warne either. He’s a small club manager with a small club mentality, insistent on turning us into Rotherham. He won’t be here by Christmas.

This season is not a clean slate, last season showed Warne’s managerial deficiencies. Irrespective of whether they were his players or not, that’s still very much relevant. You can keep your head in the sand all you want, but the rest of us won’t.

Just now, Mucker1884 said:

The fat lad?  It's ok, I can say that, cos he was!

Yeah saw him as I sauntered down the steps.  I remember thinking "Who is that fat lad on the pitch, what is he up to, and why the eff is no one bundling/rolling him off"!

 

Didn’t know Wayne was over to see his cousin

4 minutes ago, Andicis said:

Last season is gone. He did alright, not amazingly. History. He's now signed some players and shaped his squad, if we're still playing like we did today in 10 games time, fair enough. 

Let's be fair though, even if we sacked Warne and brought someone new in tomorrow you'd be on their back if we lost next week.

Last season is not history, it’s still very much relevant in terms of judging a manager. And it wasn’t good enough. People have a right to be concerned that certain themes are continuing - lack of control in midfield, exposure to counter attacks, overemphasis on crossing early etc.

I support any manager I think is right for the job. Unfortunately, not many of them have been since McClaren. Warne certainly isn’t.

18 minutes ago, Andicis said:

First game with a squad he's built. It's pretty customary to give the manager a chance. Try it for once. 

So it’s impossible to do a good job with players you didn’t bring in? We should just ignore last season? I know Warne is like your dad, but come on, that’s b*******.

FWIW, I’m not calling for his head, that would be stupid at this time of the season (though imo he should’ve gone at the end of last season). But concerns about the continuing tactical suicide are not without basis.

43 minutes ago, Andicis said:

If some fans are giving him up on our manager after 1 game, they are s*** fans. Who cares what they think? 

It’s not just one game though is it? He’s had 46 in charge now.

1 hour ago, enachops said:

Waghorn at the match today

Scouting for Blackpool 

Team without a goal scorer can’t score goals. Who’d have thought?

To be fair, we’re just being fair to team like Wigan. Giving ourselves a points deduction until we sort our recruitment out.

18 minutes ago, deanoakaram4life said:

Are the ITK’ers here to clarify what’s happening with Rhodes, didn’t X1 say he’s wanted x2 years and more money last weekend? 

He didn’t show up for his Medical. Perhaps there’s a genuine reason for that, but it doesn’t reflect well on him.

24 minutes ago, Andrew1 said:

Or trying to lamp a pensioner… nasty nasty nasty…

Depends if the pensioner is a bamford

2 minutes ago, Tyler Durden said:

I've worked a number of times with recruitment consultants. You give them a brief about the candidate you're looking for, qualifications and experience required then you give them the salary band that you are looking to pay.

They will very quickly come back and say you're not going to get that for the salary you're offering. So what you can do is either increase the salary (in our case that's not possible) or instead of a time served engineer you're trying to recruit you have to look at getting the next level down maybe a newly qualified apprenticeship.

The consultants will know this as they are fully aware of the current employment market. 

Warne said himself then he doesn't want bodies in unless they're better than what he has, so why does the above sound so unbelievable? That we've given our recruitment team a brief that's so narrow it's virtually impossible to achieve.

What they may have done is go back to Warne and tell him this is what you do get and Warne as quoted might have said nah I'll stick with what I've got thanks.

That's just where we are. 

Beefing about it isn't going to change things one iota. 

I don’t dispute how the recruitment will work. I dispute us not having the budget to find a striker that improves on our current (frankly awful) forward options. Clowes himself has said we have a budget capable of securing promotion. It shouldn’t be impossible to find a player who improves on James bloody Collins with that sort of budget. 

Warne certainly isn’t happy with sticking with what we have either. You can hear in his interviews that he’s concerned about our attacking options. He knows as well as I do that they’re not good enough to achieve promotion. It’s not good enough from the recruitment team that’s we’re in this situation one week before the season starts. This isn’t just a minor signing we’re missing, this is the most important signing We’ve needed all window - a replacement for McGoldrick.

7 minutes ago, Caerphilly Ram said:

What makes it a desperate situation? That’s the bit I’m struggling to see. I understand the quality McGoldrick brought to our forward line with his touch, poise, vision, footballing IQ, that’s hard to replace. His goals, potentially less difficult to replace, especially if you subscribe to the theory he only did his goal scoring against the rubbish teams.

Can you, or anyone else who feels the same, clarify what makes our current situation such a desperate one please? I’m open to other views but don’t see it as bleak as others do so help me to see it from your perspective please?

You sum it up in your first paragraph really. We have to replace McGoldricks goals. Look across our squad right now… where are the goals coming from? Mendez-Laing will get some, Barkhuizen maybe if we get something more out of him, Hourihane will score a few screamers, Washington will grab maybe 10 at best. But beyond that, you’re hoping for Collins to somehow find his form from years back. I just don’t see it happening.

We don’t have goals in midfield, so in the 3-5-2 pretty much all our goals need to come from the front 2. At the moment, I’m struggling to see more than 30 goals from our existing frontline in total. That’s nowhere near enough. It’s all well and good having this new and improved defence, but you don’t succeed in football without scoring goals. We have to get improve our strike force or we’ll be languishing in lower mid table imo. Time is running out, and so are the options on the market. The fact we’re scrapping around for the likes of Waghorn and Rhodes shows we’re getting desperate. You can see it in Warne’s interviews how frustrated he is.

5 minutes ago, Bald Eagle's Barmy Army said:

The season hasn’t kicked off and you haven’t a clue how we will fair but you still spout this rubbish all the time. 
 

I swear to god you just like to see us fail just so you can spout negativity. 

I’m pretty sure how we will fair with the current attack, and Warne knows too - it won’t be promotion.

I don’t want to see us fail, but that’s exactly what will happen unless we sort this recruitment out. That’s not rubbish, that’s where we stand.

53 minutes ago, Gisby said:

I

36 minutes ago, Wignall12 said:

Go and see Nanny , she's probably got some sponge pudding and custard to take the nasty taste away 

I see the happy clappers are as fun to talk to as usual.

1 hour ago, jono said:

And you think Warne and crew haven’t been trying like hell to address it ! It isn’t disappointing it’s a fact of life. What you really seem to mean is “why can’t I have what I want !” 
 

It’s not Warne that I’m moaning at. It’s the recruitment teams whose sole job for about 5 months was identifying targets for the summer. They haven’t done a good enough job, and we’re left in a desperate situation. It’s not what I want, it’s what the team needs.

16 hours ago, mwram1973 said:

TBF Mcgoldrick wasn't exactly setting the world alight in the years before signing for us, many on here wasn't that impressed when he signed and last season was his best ever at 34 years old.

We are not going to get a CF that'll score over 20 goals, they cost money, a lot of money.

Imo I think Waggy could easily hit 15 in this league. Only my opinion of course and depending on how much game time he gets.

For a free signing, I don't think there's anyone better out there at the moment.

 

McGoldrick scored 8 goals in the Premier League two seasons before joining us. Waghorn could only dream of that. Two seasons ago, Waghorn scored 1 goal for Coventry. There’s no comparison between them at all in my opinion - I for one was delighted when McGoldrick signed, everyone knew his technical quality (something which Waghorn lacks). 

McGoldrick hit 22 in the league after signing for free, so that’s definitely not true. Alfie May hit 20 last season and 23 the year before - he’s gone for 250k, not exactly a lot of money.

Personally I’ll be absolutely astonished if Waghorn hits double figures. He wasn’t a good finisher when he left 2 years ago, god knows how bad he is in front of goal now.

FWIW, I somewhat agree that there aren’t many good options out there at the moment. Waghorn is probably marginally better than Rhodes because of his work rate, but that really is clutching at straws. My annoyance is how we’ve let it get to this point. We’ve known for ages that we needed to replace McGoldrick, yet we didn’t seem to have any plan of how to do so. Barring the first few, most of our signings this summer have felt very opportunistic. That’s extremely disappointing given how long we had to plan for this window, and I’m quite annoyed to be frank with our new recruitment team, who haven’t identified anyone 90% of this forum couldn’t have done. The striker position is such a key signing and should have been addressed weeks ago.