ck-

Looking at just the league table its been an amazing year by any reckoning. Amassing 92 points, securing a record number of away wins etc. Pompey had to come up with something pretty special to beat that. And yet, it seems weird how there is still a feeling that there were so many unnecessary points that we seemed to drop. Obviously, that's just the way it goes and you can't win every game but in amongst the excellent wins, there were definitely a decent number of soft points dropped.
Just glancing down the results list - failure to see a poor Cambridge off at home, conceding a gutting late equaliser vs Pompey, really poor official decisions at Bolton, drawing at Cheltenham who hadn't scored in 12 games, conceding a 98th minute penalty equaliser against bloody Wycombe, the late collapse at home against Peterborough from leading the game at 84 mins to losing it, chucking away a lead at home to Charlton to leave empty handed, conceding 87th minute equaliser against Shrewsbury at home. You then realise how many points we could have actually ended up with - well North of 100 which would have been truly remarkable by any means !! 😃

Sure, there were times when I'd loved to have seen a bit more swagger and flair but by any standards, the relentless points accumulation was hugely impressive, and ultimately it simply broke the spirit of the chasing pack. PW and the lads earned that.

I don't think it's predictable he left for those reasons, but it is a possibility.
I agree it's slightly sad. 

It has - but only because it’s given an insight into how great the group of players are. Celebrating with the fans from the final whistle all the way through pubs in town. Genuinely nice blokes happy for themselves, the club and the city. 
 
Compare with other stuff I saw this week with Leicester players celebrating going up by gathering in the safety of one of their mansions and having a few drinks around the kitchen island. Soulless and removed from the fans. 
 
Really shows what Warne has built and hopefully he can keep the spirit even through squad changes over summer. 

I would like to see a minor tournament played by pro teams without any offside, just to see how it panned out. It might be a total disaster, but I would like to see how it worked. The argument against is that it would encourage goal hangers, but it's up to the opposition to mark them. It would certainly spread out play and would put a stop to one of the most contentious issues in football.
Would the benefits outweigh the negatives?
On a side note, 5, 6 and 7 a-side games are played without offside and fun to play in and to watch, with far fewer disputes.

You can thank me later, but there is a young midfielder at Bristol City that looks decent - not made a first team appearance for them yet, so could get him on the cheap. 
 
I’ll do some research and see if I can get his name…..

Haha, I love Fozzy but I wouldn't put him in the upper echelons of League One centre halves.
I think Wildsmith is a good goalkeeper, and we could do a lot worse than him. I also think we could do better if we wanted, but I'm not sure if I'd make it a priority. Whatever happens, he'll always be a Derby hero.

Spotted him in a Thunderbirds episode.
 

Honestly guys, that last 20 mins was horrendous, my poor heart haha
One positive I can take from it is that we got the job done despite never really playing well in either playoff game (partly because barnsley arent great) and also that I think Oxford suits us better than Posh (and tbh as much as I'm desperate to win, if we do lose, I'd rather lose to Oxford than Darren Ferguson).
 
Fingers crossed we turn up and get it done. Our last 2 trips to Wembley are Bolton 4-0 Plymouth last season and Bolton 0-5 Stoke in the FA Cup semis about a decade ago so could literally be anything based on our history.
 
Got some Rams fan mates who were at your QPR Wembley trip that I sympathised with and was gutted for at the time so I hope more than anything we don't experience that kind of pain and we get a good day out, the boys give it their all and make us proud

A bit niche, but I have always had a soft spot for “He’s round, he’s round, he’s round he’s round he’s round, Steve Round”, which I remember ringing out from the away terraces at Barnsley, many moons ago.

In the name of God and all things holy, not that term again

Regardless of budgets, we will go down as our best manager in history in terms of points return and our most successful since Billy D.
 
Succeeded where the lines of SM and co failed, give me another season of his football (which I enjoyed) and a promotion over anything served up on all of Mels tenure. 
Also one of very few that didn't bottle it going into the final part of the season, didn't panic like those before and deserves all the plaudits for doing so.
Get that statue built 😊

Having the biggest budget in the league is no means a guarantee of success. Look at ourselves at Championship level under Mel, or Man Utd in the PL.
It does help though.
Anything other than promotion this season would have been a disappointment and arguably an underachievement.
Especially given that there was no Ipswich, Sunderland or Sheff Wed this time around.
The true test of Warne’s coaching ability will come next season.
 

We coped ok through the last fast.  I'm sure we'll be ok if there's another at the start of the season.  💪

Bit of a contradiction there Bris. First, you describe a big part of tactics and in the next sentence, you dismiss it. 
To answer the original question:
I'm not sure if talking only about Warne is fair as coaching is strongly a team effort.
 I've seen Warneball being called physical, so why did he have a midfield of Hourihane and Bird for about half of the season? Or that Warneball is putting crosses in? What kind of tactics would you choose if you had Collins upfront? Crosses maybe? Or the other way around, did Didzy score countless goals because we put a lot of crosses in? Nope, we played to his strengths. If I'd describe Warneball to an outsider, I'd call it pragmatic, fluid, and mixable while using our strengths and making the most of our opponent's weaknesses. Attention to detail is a strength when we talk about football management.
Just to highlight how fluid our tactics are: I've seen us defending with 5-3-2, 5-4-1, 4-5-1, 4-4-1-1 all in the same game. Well, we all have because it happened often when Bradley was brought on. 
I think he has only two aims when setting his tactics. Firstly, how to get the most out of the striker (how much Didzy, Waggy, Collins, and Gayle have scored, I think he's got that right). The second aim is how to help our keeper to keep a clean sheet. (The least goals conceded in EFL is some achievement). If these two are not about tactics, then what is? And tactics need coaching. With confidence and some experience, I claim that is not an easy part of coaching. 
So, tactics are a massive part of coaching and they have excelled. Another would be increasing the player's ability and that's tougher to measure. I haven't seen as fit team as the current one is in ages and it's part of improving the player's ability. Yes, it may have caused some injuries, but that's football. Also, they managed to teach Sibley to play as LWB. On the first try, he was horrible at it but played okay as fullback when he had a player in front of him. It's a testament to Sibbo and the coaching team, and during the run-in, his performances as LWB turned out to be one of the developmental highlights.
It'll sure be an interesting summer ahead. Will we build a midfield like Hourihane-Bird or Adams-Smith-Thommo? They don't have much in common, but the question is, will they continue to be the ones who'll be sacrificed when we aim to be at our best in both boxes?
I think Warne has shown to be an excellent manager, who seems to be able to build a bunch of individuals into a cohesive group and I really appreciate that. At the same time, my personal preference would be much sexier, quick short-passing champagne football. Maybe it'll come when we have the players for it.

It seems that the vast majority of his signings get off to a sluggish start. Then, after a period of time their performances improve considerably.
Proves that as a coach he is more than capable and is ability to get his message across to the players.
He couldn't get a tune out of Kane, Ward, Sonny at first and then they contributed significantly. Sibs and Tommo got better as the season went on also.
Proves that we have a strong coaching outfit at DCFC
I fully expect CBT to hit the ground running next season as will Elder
 
 

If Wildsmith played for say Portsmouth and had just won the golden glove with a clean sheet every other game, is at a good age and was being released, Derby fans would be saying straight away we should sign him up....

"I'd release Smith, Wildsmith, Waghorn, Hourihane and Gayle." I'm being pedantic but, isn't releasing someone getting rid?

I'm not against signing a better 'keeper, I guess I'm just a little irritated (I'm sleep-deprived) with a few vocal posters who have decided Wildsmith (L1 Golden Glove winner) is crap and are very sure that there are better options just waiting around to join Derby! Christian Walton or Marek Rodák could well be an upgrade, who knows. Neither of them played this season, and that's typical of the free agent goalkeepers. Do they even want to sign up? Is a new goalie a good use of limited resources? They'd certainly be good signings if Wildsmith decided to leave.
It's just my opinion, but I think we should keep arguably one of our best 4-5 performers over the last 2 seasons.

Was it this one? 
 

Someone needs to tell laddo he's dropped his flag in all the excitement.  

That’s exactly the same amount of pies sold while I was there. We must have been entering and leaving the ground at the same time.☺️

Agreed. However, we should, IMO, temper our expectations. Clowes has been clear from day 1 that the club will be run sustainably and be self sufficient. i.e. he's not going to throw millions at it. We'll spend what we can afford and no more than that. If it takes 2 or 3 seasons to start challenging for the top 6, so be it.
Obviously, top 6 is where I'd love to be this time next year. I'm just not going to run that particular flag up the pole as it's a perfectly normal wish but not a likely probability. Midtable would do me fine under the circumstances. If we do better, you won't find me complaining about it. 

@DavesaRam The lift was right 🙂
On the PW front, I'm expecting to see more of his post 3rd promotion with RUFC football than that of the first 2 he had with them. In the weeks leading up to us nicking him, their fans were waxing lyrical about the results and the style of play being served up. An expansive style. I hope my expectations become a reality.

Another thing I would like to say in praise of the management team is that in past seasons, there seemed to be very few goal scoring options.
This season I think we had 19 different scorers. Nineteen!
Just shows that confidence has risen in the squad.