ck-

On 16/02/2024 at 21:15, oodledoodle said:

We were also the first ever team to be top of any league in history, after winning game 1 in the first season of the football league.

...you'll never sing that.

I think Preston were top after that first game weren’t they? Goal average was used for the first few seasons, so their 5:2 win gave them a goal average of 2.5 whereas our 6-3 win gave us a goal average of 2. 

2 minutes ago, Srg said:

It's 2024, are we still perpetuating this "bulk up" nonsense in football?

Maybe bulk up isn’t the right phrase. Learn to position himself better so as to not be wrestled off the ball. 

I like Sibley but I think there are things he needs to learn:

Control the ball better. His first time control is poor. That’s learnable. 
Shield the ball better. That also learnable. 
Explosive pace into space. Probably not learnable, but the other two might mitigate it. It may also improve as he gains a little strength. 
 

I also think he’s quite physically immature - he still looks like a boy rather than a man. As he’s still only 22, he has time to bulk up a bit. It will then take him time to adjust to that - I recall something similar with Bird a couple of seasons back.  

Taking all that together, I still think there’s time for him to develop. We need to forget about him having been around the team for ages and think of him as a young player just getting his first chance. Encourage the heck out of him, forgive his mistakes, and accept that it will be a while yet before he reaches his potential. 
 

1 hour ago, Caerphilly Ram said:

@Carl Sagan is this the angle you were waiting for? 

Given one of my criticisms of Sibley (I like him by the way) I’m not totally convinced he wasn’t trying to control it. 
 

… but the avoidance of doubt, that’s supposed to be a joke, but seriously it is an area I think he needs work on. If he could control it quicker and shield it better, we’d have a heck of a player.

1 hour ago, Archied said:

Nope ,, he’s never been that lucky🤷🏻‍♂️

He expected to go to one 🤣

11 hours ago, Jourdan said:

a good manager showing tactical flexibility and finding a way to get results.

Pay the same way regardless of how the game’s going: no plan B

Change the game to match the circumstances: doesn’t know his best formation. 

He can’t win can he?

I took a long time to warm to Warne - I didn’t really like the David Brent like aspects of his interviews. But that seems to be happening less, and his interviews now are interesting to listen to with some real insight.  

What I especially like is that he has fostered a never say die attitude amongst the players, and we seem to have a character that I’ve not seen in Derby teams for a while. We are able to recover from setbacks in a way that we haven’t in previous seasons. Lose a game? Pick ourselves up and win the next. Come up against a team of thugs? Stand toe to toe and then bring out the flash of skill to take the win  

It’s not always pretty but I can usually find something to enjoy in a game. 

7 minutes ago, MACKWORTHRAM said:

How can you either be out for the season or fine for a game in 2 days 😭😭

Because it depends on whether it’s bruising, a partial ligament tear, or a full ligament tear.

 You’d expect a full tear to be possible to diagnose via the amount of movement in the joint, but swelling can mask that. 

i speak from personal experience of having had PCL partial tear, ACL partial tear, medial ligament partial tear, full ACL tear requiring reconstruction. 

In each case, only a scan or an arthroscopy could truly determine the extent of the damage. 

1 minute ago, Turk Thrust said:

Just shows that you can’t read too much into the match stats. Possession Exeter 70% us 30%;  shots them 13  us 9

Shots on target: them 2 us 6

Just now, DiggerB said:

Adam’s. Simple immense 

Was beautiful wasn’t it? Clear shot on goal open to Exeter and then suddenly Adams comes sliding into view. 

Barkhuizen can’t finish. We just play hoofball. We can’t play it through the middle. 
I love sarcasm

3 hours ago, Crewton said:

OK, how about "we learned that Adams isn't Bob Malcolm"?

You beat me to it!

3 hours ago, MaltRam said:

I'll expand on my 'no' comment.

There were positives yesterday, but nothing new to take from the day.

Adams, for instance, was aggressive and looks a solid addition...but we thought that after Charlton anyway.

But that is something new isn’t it?

He’s played well in a home game in front of a large crowd.

He’s played well for a second game as opposed to being the second coming of Bob Malcolm who looked world class on his debut and … not quite world class thereafter.

We confirmed that he’s still not match fit for 90 minutes so we need a plan for that.

20 minutes ago, sage said:

Their goal was offside but it was very tight. VAR would have saved us but its so tight you can't blame the lino

Genuine question as I seem to have lost my understanding of what counts as offside with all the “interfering with play” considerations. But who was offside? The ball was played backwards to the player who scored so it’s not him. They had a player on the line, but he was behind Wildsmith so not obstructing him. Pretty much in the same way that Hourihane was for our goal. 

It’s amusing how the posters on here regularly accusing the players (the ones who’ve got us firmly in the play off spots) of being bottlers are the very same ones who can’t handle a single bad result without screeching histrionics. 

30 minutes ago, MadAmster said:

Depends on whether it's at the front or the back of the foot... 😉

I’m not sure Heelium would be strong enough

4 hours ago, Carnero said:

There's something awry with this version of table too.

In the 16 games since Stevenage away, we've W12 D2 L2 which is 38 points, not 35 points.

I like it when I’m wrong and the right answer is better! Cheers 🍻

Something awry with that table above. It gave us an extra win somewhere. Taking the last 16 games for us and our main rivals:

From this it is Bolton in first and very close between us and Peterborough for second.  If they win their game in hand, it’s Peterborough on goal difference. If it goes on ppg, we’ll finish less than a point ahead of them, which of course isn’t possible so rounding means we’re 1 point ahead of them. 
Best we can say is that we’re right in the mix. 

Contributing the form discussion. 16 games to go. Let’s look at the last 16. It’s pretty good reading  

He was fabulous against Charlton. Winning headers, getting his body in the way, and looking comfortable on the ball. I’ve been one of those who doubted him - he was getting caught out of position and completely missing headers far too often in previous games.

Let’s hope that yesterday’s Bradley is the one who shows up for the rest of the season. It looks like there’s still a player in there after all. 

Solid win. For all Charlton huffing and puffing, there were no real chances. 
Well deserved. 
Man of match for Charlton probably the ref. 

So sad this Bird has flown. That was a delightful run

I’ve not been a fan of this formation, but at the moment it’s looking very well balanced and everyone seems to know their place in it. 

Disgraceful to not book their player after that on Barkhuizen. 

Just now, DavesaRam said:

Great play by Bird, Collo took too long. 

Bird took too long then put it behind Collins

Aaagh. That wasn’t good by Bird.