Dex

I’ve got to say I’ve just read and enjoyed the exchanges between @Ghost of Clough and @Dex.
To a degree I think they’re both right. Warne has prioritised results and minimised the risk associated with that by limiting youth minutes. That’s fine but it does somewhat sacrifice youth development and in particular any ‘fast track’ development.
Considering the investment in the academy it is an interesting discussion. Nobody is suggesting Warne’s hopeless or needs to go, so it’s a bit disappointing to see people suggesting it’s a stick to beat Warne. 
 

All right. I'll do last season, and counter with the season before last the young lads were a year younger, and we'd just had our academy ravaged having come out of admin. If they weren't good enough for last season, then they wouldn't have been ready the season before either.
 
In the first half of the season, we had a three goal lead 6 times. Half of them had late goals (after 60th minute), and of the remaining 3, two were against decent opposition (P'Boro and Barnsley) and the other game we did bring on academy players.
12th August Burton 0-3 Derby (6' 78' 84') - Late goals.
26th August Peterborough 2-4 Derby (all 4 goals in the first half, but against some decent opposition).
31st October Derby 4-0 Northampton (All 4 goals pre 49'. I'll give you this one but we did bring on both Fornah (68') and Brown (77')).
11th November Derby 3-0 Barnsley (goals scored by 63rd minute, again against decent opposition).
5th December Derby 3-0 Fleetwood (FL Trophy game, two goals scored after 77')
9th December Leyton Orient 0-3 (last goal scored in 79')
So in the course of the season, there was really only Exeter and Port Vale where it would have been reasonable to blood a youngster. I can't speak for the decision at the time, but I stand behind my point that there really wasn't much to go for especially considering we were hunting down automatic promotion.
 
 
 
 

Without wanting to get dragged into a rabbit hole here, since January we have been 3 goals up 4 times. Of those, two of them we scored our third goal in the 85+ minute.
 
Feb 13th: Exeter City 0 - 3 Derby (Bird, 24'; NML 52'; Barkhuizen 62')
March 2nd: Derby 3-0 Port Vale (OG 5'; Gayle 44'; Sibs 58')
March 9th: Bristol Rovers 0-3 Derby (Gayle 55'; Barkhuizen 58'; Waghorn 89')
Derby 3-0 Leyton Orient (Wilson 10'; Bradley 18'; Bradley 86')
 
The rest of our games were draws, losses or a win by 1 goal (with the single exception of Fleetwood Town away on January 6th which we won 1-3).
It's not a lot to go for.
 
EDIT: And of course Carlisle at Home. No  idea how I missed that one 😄

Really insightful data there, and it definitely tells a story.
The only thing I'd suggest counter to this in Warne's favour is that the job he had vs the job Rooney had were completely different and our appetite for risk was very much different.
 
Are you going to risk giving youth talent a go in the first team when you're pushing for promotion and risk finishing third, or when you literally can't play any other players and are practically relegated anyway? I don't think many Derby fans would have appreciated the long game in starting Oduroh over Nyambe or Wilson at the back end of last season when we were trying to make a gap over Bolton.
 
I suspect that if we have a good season in the Championship, and end up well out of the relegation zone so that it frees up some games where we can play youngsters 'risk free', Warne would take it. I'd be interested in knowing at what point in the season Ozoh, Chirewa and Springett picked up their time in the first team as I suspect it's when Palace, Wolves and Norwich had nothing much else to play for. I have done no research on this though, and I'll leave myself open to ridicule for being wrong 😄 - just a feeling.
 
Edit: Thought about it a bit more: I suppose even if they got minutes earlier in the season, those clubs haven't had as much riding on the outcome of the season as well established clubs in their respective leagues. Their academies also hadn't been ransacked and so they could be more certain that the players could come in and do a job. 
I think we're just in a place where the good youth players that would have come into our first team around about now were sold by Quantuma for 50p and a Twix, and it could be a year or two before we can redevelop a new batch of good youth players. At the same time, we "should" be able to establish ourselves as a Championship team that can afford to take the risk with a  youth player.

The point made by @Tyler Durden (and many others, including myself), is that we could have done more in the foreign market to avoid competing with richer clubs for the same players. It has also been shown how Warne is reluctant to introduce yougnsters into the first team (odd minutes here and there). @jono chose to ignore those comments completely, and focus on the "Until we get extra financial backing..." part which preceded it.
On the foreign market
The club made an active decision not to look abroad for a forward. Instead, gambled on competing with other clubs for domestic based players. This was a gamble which ultimately failed, resulting in us to looking at other options.
On producing home grown players
Brown was an unused sub in 3 league games, then brought on in the last minute vs Bristol when 3-0 up. He also started on the bench vs Barrow, when it was the perfect opportunity for him to show the club what he can do. We gained nothing by giving Collins 60 minutes. We need to do better at giving our brightest talents more of an opportunity.
In 21/22, Thompson got 1521 minutes across 23 league games under Rooney. He then got only 160 minutes under Warne across 10 games in L1 (22/23), and was effectively pushed out the door by bringing in White. His game time only increased to 708 league minutes in 23/24
Minutes to others has also been extremely limited. Excluding games vs U21 sides, these are the minutes given to academy players under Warne in all competitions:
Cybulski - 90
Robinson - 45
Oduroh - 44
Aghatise - 14
Bardell - 14
Radcliffe - 11
Fapetu - 9
Weston - 6
For comparison, Ozoh got 183 mins for Palace before he got loaned to us. Chirewa got 152 mins for Wovles and Springett 240 mins for Norwich. All played the majority of those minutes in the PL. Whereas for us, Brown's the only academy player to have featured in the league under Warne (only 15 minutes!!!). Oduroh (19 mins) and Fapetu (7 mins) are the only other academy players to have featured in a competition other than the EFL Trophy.
As demonstrated by pretty much every Cat 1 club, youngsters get a tast of the 1st team environment (100-300 mins), and are then either loaned out to continue their development, or they step up permanently to the first team.
I'll reiterate a previous point - Warne needs to do better at bridging the gap.

Steve Bruce replacing Keogh at Blackpool.
Give a 'listen' to his final post match interview
 
So yeah... Listen.... Like you say... Yeah... Listen.... So yeah... Listen.
Some things never change. 😆
 
 

He's our keeper
A mighty keeper
He's Sweden's number 1.
 
He's our keeper, 
A mighty keeper,
Jacob Widell Zetterstrom
 
Zetterstrom Zetterstrom Zetterstrom (to infinity or repeat :D)

I think we might be forgetting just how ravaged our academy was through administration. We're probably not blessed with the levels we need to even be worth putting them in the squad.
We were forced to sell the players that would probably be just about be ready to make the first team such as Kaide Gordon (now 19 years old), Omari Kellyman (now 18 years old), Dylan Williams (now 20 years old) and even Luke Plange (now 21 years old). They'd been in the academy system long enough and might have even broken into the squad earlier than expected. 
Without those talents though, we're having to rebuild from around the U16s. I always thought it'd take about 3-4 years before we started getting some players back through again. Dajaune Brown is showing some signs, but it's still early days.
I just don't think we should rush it.

Steve Bruce replacing Keogh at Blackpool.
Give a 'listen' to his final post match interview
 
So yeah... Listen.... Like you say... Yeah... Listen.... So yeah... Listen.
Some things never change. 😆
 
 

Steve Bruce replacing Keogh at Blackpool.
Give a 'listen' to his final post match interview
 
So yeah... Listen.... Like you say... Yeah... Listen.... So yeah... Listen.
Some things never change. 😆
 
 

Steve Bruce replacing Keogh at Blackpool.
Give a 'listen' to his final post match interview
 
So yeah... Listen.... Like you say... Yeah... Listen.... So yeah... Listen.
Some things never change. 😆
 
 

He's our keeper
A mighty keeper
He's Sweden's number 1.
 
He's our keeper, 
A mighty keeper,
Jacob Widell Zetterstrom
 
Zetterstrom Zetterstrom Zetterstrom (to infinity or repeat :D)

I think he was air waving for a yellow card for a nothing foul in midfield.
Then proceeded to whinge about everything and everyone throughout the course of the game.

I think he was air waving for a yellow card for a nothing foul in midfield.
Then proceeded to whinge about everything and everyone throughout the course of the game.

I liked how calm Zetterstrom was. I noticed he was calmly communicating with players around him when the pressure was on. Bristol’s goalie started making mistakes under pressure. Even when Zetterstrom dropped the save, he was straight back on his feet and there was good team work from Cashin and others to defend the goal and it still felt calm. As much as I didn’t want to see Wildsmith go, I think his reaction would be more frantic. Joining in with Ozoh’s celebration was a nice touch. I’m loving what I’m seeing of the new players so far. 

Agree to a point but they think they should have been a couple of goals in front and we would have given up but their shots were blocked or were saved by our players - they weren’t good enough and we were better at defending - great post by the way 

I said to the guys around me in the East Stand that once we scored, Bristol started to look 'ratty' all across the park.
And it's not too surprising. They are an established but progressing Championship team and were coming to a newly promoted side who have spent a lot of time this season on the back foot. They were all over us for 20 minutes, should've scored at least once and everything was going to their plan until we change our midfield position and pretty much immediately scored. Then we just started smashing them in midfield and they looked perplexed. I think Bristol came to Pride Park with an arrogance that it was going to be an easy game, and just lost their heads when it started to slip and they couldn't get it back.
It surprised me as well though - we haven't been that dominant in midfield in years. I don't think anyone saw it coming.