Patrick Rams

Exactly the same with our Mam...she loved Little Willie.R.I.P Willie! Fantastic last piece of that jigsaw.

Nicely put AW. Of course he didn’t want to lose!!  
But the reason he chose them was in part because he wanted them (not other teammates) to score. The reason he believed they would indeed score is the more complicated aspect…
(All of this reflects btw that Southgate is a deeply decent man ( albeit, as we all know, a one dimensional football manager). )

The racial abuse of black players and Sterling in particular in the run up was well documented and appalling. If you want to know how Southgate felt about it, go back and re-read the Dear England letter. It’s a letter about many things but I believe the reason he wrote it was to deal head on with the issue of racism. I think he felt deeply for the players who suffered - Sterling especially. 

The choice of Rashford, Saka and Sancho as penalty takers was all part of this and was an appalling decision. He had experienced players on the pitch and he chose three inexperienced penalty takers, none of them famed strikers of a dead ball, one a  player who only ever hits a ball sweetly if it’s moving, the second a player who had had a really lousy game and the third a player who had only just gone onto the pitch in the final of a major international tournament. To put it in Derby terms, 3 Kamil Jozwiaks.  It was madness. It reflected how much he believed in them, how much he wanted them to be heroes, how much he wanted to silence the racists. And in footballing terms, utterly feckless. And the result: a mountain of abuse on twitter for the hapless triumvirate. Oh and we lost.  
 
Feckless wokeism 
 

Was remembering that myself, frustrating oppossing players.RIP Willie.

Not sure about 'winger' but he certainly added 'bite' to our midfield. Superb little annoying type of player.
I remember one game at the BBG he actually caught the ball just outside the opposition penalty area (Carlisle ? I think). The ref nor linesman saw it so Willie put the ball down and went on to score !! 🤗🤣🤣
Thanks for the memories Willie. RIP.

Rest in peace wee guy, today is truly a very sad day.

The player who completed Clough's promotion team and made us ultra competitive in Division 1.
RIP Willie.

Went round to his house with a mate of mine to ask if he would sign a banner we had made for winning the second division .
Thought he might be a bit annoyed us turning up like we did ,but he was fantastic about it invited us in for a while and seemed honoured in a strange way that we wanted his name on  it.
We led the parade though town with it it was quite large,a memory ill never forget and a quality player and gentleman ill never
forget either........WILLIE..WILLIE..LA..LA..LA.
RIP Sir.

One of those that started us on our way to become League Champions.
RiP Willie.

Is he’s signing from Brest, I’m sure he’ll have his knockers amongst our fan base.

Yeh, come Derby. It’s “only” 8 weeks until the game, people need to know now. #shambolicclub. 😀

Mine also, my first game.

Because we spent most of the last season being told how useless and tactically naive our manager is?

Had a corker against us at Fulham. 

Its just madness the money and the way the prem clubs are run! I hate the bussiness side of football! I dont see how clubs can really compete unless they go into big debts! 
 
The prem just want to turn it all into a franchise and open shops all around the world and sell merchandise for the so called "big" clubs to get even more money!
They moan theres too many games but f off for tours during the winter beak! They get rid of the fa cup replays but newcastle and tottenham do a 24 hour flight to oz a week after the season finishes to do a tour! Drives me mad 😡🤬😤
I hated the idea of a european super league when it was floated a few years ago but the more i think about it the more its growing on me! Take the franchise clubs and f off on your european greed train and let the proper clubs sort out a proper league where footballs run sustainably! 

Why punching above our weight? 
We’ll be one of the top six supported clubs, in a fine stadium, pretty fanatical support. Great history. 
We’ve had our issues, but so have other clubs. We have a wonderful owner and are on an upwards trajectory. 

Someone along the lines of Dave Mackay, Dave Mackay?

Attendances don’t determine league position. Otherwise, Sunderland would have made automatic promotion (or at the very least the play offs) and Bradford wouldn’t be in league 2.

"Punching above our weight"???!!!
We are Derby County. 
There are no such limits to what we can achieve 🐏 Believe. COYR.

The Championship is a crazy league. I think the only aspiration you can have is to be the best you can be and see where that takes you. There are 23 other clubs who will be fighting tooth and nail so nothing is really a given, for better or worse.
We could be relegation candidates, we could be mid table, we could be top half and we could even be top six.
It’s difficult to predict and difficult to gauge as there are always teams that perform better or worse than their squads / managers / budgets suggest.
Do we expect to compete with Luton, Burnley, Sheff Utd, WBA, Norwich, Hull and Coventry? Probably not, but could we? Possibly. Do we expect to do better than Oxford? Probably, but could we not? Possibly too.
I don’t see the point in getting wrapped up in expectations. We want to see Warne, Thomas, Hale and Clowes with a plan and working well together and doing their absolute best. Surely that’s all we can really expect? Where that takes us remains anyone’s guess.

Coventry should be our model, not Ipswich. They haven't spent a fortune, have a decent if unsexy manager and came up from league 1. In their first season, they finished 16th then 12th then 5th then 9th with an FA Cup semi-final achieved as well. It is possible to be successful in the championship without spending a ton of money but it requires an ethos, properly planned management and consistency.  For my money anywhere between 12th and 18th is a solid achievement. Any lower than that and depending on the budget then questions should be asked. Anything higher than 12th and it's an extremely good season but I'm not expecting it. 

Why can't we expect a good run at top 6? We'll have a good budget and will be an 'attractive' and ambitious club, with a 'successful' manager wanting to prove himself.
Why on earth would we settle for bottom half of the Championship? 

It would be great to sign Adams and even better if he wouldn't be signing of the season.
I hope for a playoff push with more exciting football and as a bonus, more financial stability.

You have to make assumptions on recruitment to be able to set expectations in reality.
In worst assumption no doubt a relegation battle, but it is not unreasonable to expect an outside playoff interest if things go really well in recruitment. Look at when the tree humpers got promoted, they went from relegation battlers to playoff winners, to a large extent on the back off a few top quality loans and a decent manager who got the best of what he had.

The forum equivalent of ‘I have a girlfriend but she doesn’t go to this school and you won’t know her’.

We’ve got to be ambitious 
every Derby team that ever got promoted was in the past. 
it’s a good place to be a positive mind set.
With an owner that is ambitious and wants success because he’s a fan, and because he’s intimated that there is a Championship investor lined up, I think we will surprise a few.
it all depends on the quality of the signings and how they integrate and settle-in to the squad/area/expectations
im betting on Derby strengthening with top end Championship additions. 
 
I think we’ll do very well indeed, without knowing who these additions will be but since I’m expecting some high quality, I’m going for a top six finish. We’re on an upward curve, the crap is firmly pushed behind us. COYR 😃