archram

Great to see Clowes supporting too - hoping the one club approach does wonders for developing the women's too.
Fantastic achievement, up the Ewes!

Let the following be a warning regarding the dire consequences of pitch invasions.
Back in the early '70s when I was about 9, me and me mates went to a night match at the BBG. As was our custom, we paid a tanner to go in the boys end. As was also our custom, come half time we nipped over the fence so as to get into the Pop Side.
As we walked along the edge of the pitch, a photographer was blocking my way, but in going around him, I strayed over the line onto the pitch. Then, disaster! A stalwart steward, spotting my incursion, swooped. Having single-handedly foiled the mass pitch-invasion, the heroic man in the tabbard frog-marched 9 year old me out of the ground and told me to clear off.
As well as having to navigate my way home alone, I also had to tell me mam that I was early because I'd been chucked out.
Now tell me that pitch invasions are a good idea!

Makes me sick with nerves even thinking about it

I have been taking my son to the match since he was 5. His first match was 2018. In the six seasons he's been watching Derby, he's gone to Wembley to watch Derby in a play-off final - one goal away from the Premier League. He's seen Derby play (on Rams TV) in an empty stadium during a pandemic. He's seen Derby escape relegation on the last game of the season in a 3-3 draw with a dramatic twist in the last 5 minutes. He's seen Derby go into administration, docked 21 points and be (as it turned out) 7 days away from not existing at all. He's seen Derby relegated to the 3rd tier. He's seen Derby, two weeks before the start of the season, with 5 registered players. He's seen Derby miss out on the play-offs on the last game of the season with some dodgy refereeing. He's now seeing Derby 1 draw away from promotion.
It's never dull at Derby.

I think we should be thinking about recruitment as an ‘evolution’, rather than a ‘rebuild’. If we do go up next year, I see us having a tough time maybe even being sucked into a relegation battle. I’d say we have more chance by adding a few players of higher quality than we already have in certain positions, instead of having a rebuild and having 8 or 9 new starters next season. The players seem to have gelled really well this season and apart from a number of players, who are no where near championship standard and potentially holding us back, I think we should look to improve out current squad.

Passion! 
BTW, if you're on X, Georgia Knight is well worth the follow. Takes some great photos.

Two of David Clowes’ aims when he took over the Club were to bring integrity and also establish ourselves in the Championship within 5 years. We didn’t get promotion last year, much to many fans angst. On reflection, it was probably a good job we didn’t. We would still have been working to a strict business plan which would have tied our hands in the transfer market to some degree and made the season very difficult.
We have recruited quite a few players this year who will be able to play in the Championship next year. Some recruits haven’t been quite so successful. We will have a reasonable pot for transfers this year we have been told. Probably, Wildsmith, Nyambe, Cashin,Nelson,Elder,Ward,Wilson,Mendis-Laing,Blackett-Taylor,Sibley,Forsyth,Rooney should be ok in the Championship - I personally have more concerns about Smith, Collins, Barkhaizen, Thompson, Fornah, Gayle, Washington, Vickers.  We will lose Bird and Adams (for now?)
I think, with some shrewd business, we should be able to put together a competitive squad.
in terms of integrity, I think our progression has been amazing. There has been hardly any, if at all, negative news regarding our club in the media. The Management team all absolutely appear to be working together to a common goal. We have recruited (not to everyone’s like) good people, who want to play for the shirt, not just here for the money, as in the past. The Academy has made good progress in its rebuild and the are a few players who look to have good futures, hopefully as Derby players.
At our best and most confident, we do play some exciting football, score goals and don’t concede many. Yes, we would like to see more of the exciting times but our main aim has been to get out of this difficult league this year. Too often in the past we have had a soft underbelly and have struggled against strong, aggressive teams. We currently have a side, which mainly, doesn’t buckle against this type of side.
So I am happy with the progress of Derby County this last two years and look forward to what will happen next. David Clowes is a quietly shrewd business man and I think Paul Warne is an intelligent manager, who is a lot shrewder and football wise than many give him credit for. Not only this but he is a fantastic man-manager and team spirit builder.
Can’t wait to see what happens next.
 

If you've only been entertained by 2 out of 22 home games, I think your expectations might have been a little too high, and if you're only attending Derby games in order to be entertained, then I can understand why you're not renewing. But for many fans, the entertainment factor is only one of many aspects that draw them to Pride Park. For a payment of what is effectively only £8/week, I get an awful lot more than entertainment out of it.

Depends on your definition of “sizeable section of the fan base”. It only takes a dozen or so vocal individuals on social media voicing their opinion (which of course they are entitled to) to make it appear as if their views are reflective of a much larger group.
My gut feeling is: a very small majority have total faith in PW’s ability to keep us in the Championship whilst at the same time playing decent football, a small minority want him gone now regardless, some have accepted he is here to stay next season but have already made up their minds that it’s going to be dross, but the overwhelming majority, whilst they may have concerns, think he deserves the chance to prove himself and are trying not to prejudge him.

I am not sure I agree with this angle. We certainly have better players than many; but the best ? I think that is debatable. Look at the midfield. The arrival of Adams has made a huge difference but prior to that I reckon or midfield was average. Bird is wonderfully talented but in this league often got out muscled and his skill wasn’t always enough for him to win those battles … so better or just good  ? Hourihan 6 years ago, yes a better player, but our Hourihan ? The one who gets caught napping against athletic sides ? A good player but “better” than the rest ?
The only areas where I think we had demonstrably better players was defence and out wide. We Haven’t got the better strikers and we hadn’t (until Adams) got the best midfield. 
 
Warne had “better” wide players and made best use of them to support our  lack, for much of the season, of a dynamic striker. This leads to a form of football that by necessity involves getting the ball in to danger areas via the wings and making good use of set pieces. All to create the greater number of chances to address those areas where we didn’t have “the best” players.
 
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see one touch midfield interchanges crafting chances with slick passing ; but too many of our players didn’t demonstrate enough of those skills either due to ability, age, or the type of opponent / type of football played in this league. 

Paul Warne said you can’t play league one football in the championship and you’ll not get anywhere playing championship football in league one. 
why do some people think he’s stupid?

No - you're paying good money to watch YOUR TEAM play football. If you want to guarantee being entertained then spend it on going to a West End show or to the cinema - you have the choice! 

As someone who hasn't been (and still isn't) completely sold on Warne, I do think he deserves a ton of credit for how he's navigated situations this season. Nyambe, Adams & Gayle in particular. Gayle was short-lived but he changed the dynamic to the point we were playing our best football. 
I have absolutely no problem with Warne's ability as a man-manager or as a tactician. In fact, I think he's probably one of the most astute tactical managers we have had in our modern era and I get why Clowes wanted to work with him. 
My worry is the coaching side, he's very good at creating short-cuts and drawing up schemes to catch teams cold. In both boxes, we are the best team in the league, but in the middle of the pitch we're significantly lacking and that's purely due to scheme. I think if (when) we go up to the Championship, it will need to be better and maybe that comes through better players. He said himself it's easier to coach in the Championship than League One and we have to take him at his word. 
If (when) we go up the standard is going to be avoiding a relegation battle which is difficult as you're either in a promotion hunt or in a relegation battle, unless you're Bristol City. I think that would be my goal for next season - to finish above Bristol City. It will probably mean we're out of a relegation battle. It would take a lot of surgery in the summer to make that jump (of course) but that's the standard. 
I do get the feeling, from listening to him, that he understands the scale of the jump and I actually have faith in him. The Championship is a rancid division in itself and it may play into his favour should he recruit well. 

I can't believe that there is another club in the world where, in our posistion, a seemingly sizable section of the fanbase would want the manager kicked out.
Yes I suppose it would be nice to watch Jim Smith or peak Mac type football every week, but , how can I put this?
We've got no feckin' money. Yes we may have a higher wage budget than many in this league, (or not, I don't know) but given the restraints and time frame he's had to work in I think P.W's done a crackig job.

I think most Rams fans would concede there's some doubts around his pedigree for the Championship, but look at what he's done most lately, at a time where we we told the team would be dead on its legs. Look at the form he's delivered and this despite the lads dropping like flies at times.

Assuming we finish the job on Saturday, he WILL be given his chance to show that he has the game to prosper at Championship level and I think that's fair enough. Whether or not he will succeed, of that I'm less certain, but I think he's more than earned the right to prove his doubters wrong, or not, as the case may be. 

That Coventry Vs Man Utd could have gone down as one of the greatest semi finals in FA Cup history. 3-0 down and Cov brought it back to 3-3. They scored in the final minutes of extra time but VAR ruined it by disallowing the goal due because the Coventry lad had bigger sized boots. To rub salt in the wounds, Man Utd win the shootout and proceed to taunt the Coventry players. Zero respect.
It summed up modern elite football for me and why I don't watch Premier League football anymore. VAR making a mess of the those precious moments and then the footballers / managers who get paid absolute fortunes to moan about playing too many matches. If you don't want to play because you are tired, sod off and let some young talent have a game. These financially abundant teams have so many resources to deal with multiple matches yet have the nerve to pile on the FA (who themselves are a disgrace) to scrap the replays, because poor old £300k a week Bruno ran 1k less according to a huge team of data analytics. 
The European competitions, many Premier League teams don't play their best players until after Christmas anyway. And then none of them play in the League cup until the winter and then no FA Cup until January. But they're very happy to go on the Asia tours and fly around everywhere all summer because they've got sponsors to please.
Go and play in your European Super League and open the competitions up to football clubs who genuinely want to play domestic football.

Brilliant, just brilliant.
I don’t know what we’ve done to deserve all this good karma, but just when you think they have the upper hand on us, we pull ourselves together and they embarrass themselves in front of the whole country.
The spirit of Fawaz lives on.

Angelos in Chadd 😂

They've beaten you to it...
 

You mean Brian Clough?

Lets also give Simmo a warm welcome. A decent player, ex assistant manager and he has also beat cancer. Well done to him.

From what I've read of the situation National League teams have to apply for promotion to the Football League at the start of the league season which was accepted so the EFL and National League both knew of Gateshead's ground situation which I don't think has changed for years.
To just boot them out at this stage is just cruel. Why should there need to be a 10 year security on a stadium when EFL clubs for example aren't required to show an equivalent financial security for that long of a period.
 

We don't know where it will end but we all know how it started. David Clowes is a hero.

Good weekend to be fair 🙂
and
 

Won 3-0