MaltRam

Plan A was to be lightly toasted from early evening tonight through to kick off. Can't do that as number the junior offspring needs picking up from work at 11:30. Hence I'm just a bag of nerves. Soaringly optimistic one minute, panicked beyond belief the next. Roll on kick off.

4-0 Derby. Collo hat-trick. Wilson wonder goal after a mazy dribble. Beer everywhere. All. Over. Town. Come on you Rams.

If Warne gets us up and keeps us up, he'll deserve and get a new contract. If he then nicks a play-off win and gives us 5 years of Stoke under Pulis, Burnley under Dyche type premier league football...would he be a Bald Eagle style hero? Or would folks still moan? I'm not sure what we expect, collectively. I hope and expect that the football will be better next season IF we do go up.

Curtis Nelson - 10 Immaculate since September Callum Elder - 5 Started poorly, picked up but do often injured. Joe Ward - 6 Can't play FB. Crossing from the gods. Sonny Bradley - 6 redeemed himself to a degree. Josh Vickers - 8 done well when called upon Kane Wilson - 7 Can't play FB. Dribbling from the gods. Martyn Waghorn - 6 looked class early doors, willing, but so often injured. Conor Washington - 6 looked a pacy threat when fit, but so often injured. Tyrese Fornah - 5 Where did the Blackpool away form go? Disappointing Elliot Embleton N/a...too little evidence Ryan Nyambe 9 Strength, calm. Proper player...shame about the injury. Tyreece John-Jules 6 clearly a player. Always injured. Winter: Ebou Adams 11. Best loan since Leon Osman. Dwight Gayle 7bit of class, but....injured Corey Blackett-Taylor Can I plead the 5th? No? O.K. 3 - one or two flashes aside he's been awful. Max Bird* 7 dependable on the ball. Injured. *I've included Max, as I feel it was crucial we had him to the end of the season. Extensions: Nathaniel Mendez-Laing 10. Carries so much threat. Eiran Cashin 10. Nuff said. Jake Rooney 8. looked a player until Bkackpool

What was the xC (expected conviction) on Marinakis though? Maybe he's been lucky so far, and if he keeps getting himself into the wrong positions, eventually his luck will change.

They won't play a full team and they won't be at full tilt. Bolton will smash them, especially if we go behind and they get their tails up. It's on us.

It's us or Bolton then, and judging from how Posh have clocked off, we won't get any favours on Saturday. Get the result or fail. Be horrible to go one down.

I can't get my dad's ticket renewed online. He's relying on me to get it, but when I check his ID and proceed it's not available. Any ideas? (On my login)

If that's what we're working to, football is dead. VAR has to go. I'm not sure I could stand the Prem any more.

The 50 passes thing was a bit OTT then. Didn't we have a 30 odd pass goal vs Yeovil once under Mac1?

I do want Posh to win midweek. But come next Saturday lunch it's all about us getting out of the traps fast and overwhelming Carlisle. Get in front and keep turning the screw. This isn't done yet.

A bit of quality from NML at one end, steel at the back from Cash and Nelson, a save from Wildsmith, a sprinkling if flair and a whole heap of graft. The season in a nutshell.

COYR.

As I heard it, Eddie Howe wanted Johnny, but Mac would only wear it if they let us have one of their lads...could have been Ritchie...but not as a replacement for Foz.

If you're sat gloomily watching the box, do you identify as LA-LLW? Sorry...just love that a radwaste categorisation joke appeared on here.

The job Warne has done, since Stevenage away, has been exemplary. You cannot play one touch 50 pass moves with league 1 players. Not feasible. If we blow it, and have to face up to another season down here, Warne is definitely the man to rebuild us and go again. If we go up, he will have earnt the right to build a Championship squad and have a go at keeping us up, as per his original brief. I know he's marmite, with his off-beat personality profile, but he's clearly an honest and genuine man and it's hard to see a nice guy cop for abuse.

Small pitch? Close them down aggressively, look to score on the turnover, and rely on our greatest strength (Cashin and Nelson) to mop up if they get through us?

I'm certain we're going there to win.

Is there a supporters club bus from Donnington? My dad switched to the supporters bus a few years back, leaves him a 150yd walk and kept him able to get to matches. Come on Eddie. Sunny window is over-rated, and nursey starts reducing your tripel rations once you sit there.

Being old and tired is exactly why you should keep going. You pack this up, pack something else up, pretty soon you're left with hoping to be put in the sunny window and snoozing to pass the time. Rage, rage, against the dying of the light, Eddie!

You clearly do a lot of work on stats in football. I hope it brings you joy and wealth. I personally couldn't give less of a monkey's about average discrepancy to the chances/goal average, xG, or any of it. I watch football for fun, for the joy of that moment when the ball hits the net, the intake of breath as a defender is beaten. The satisfaction of winning a game. The shared pleasure of a successful season. I don't understand what you are saying, why you are saying it, or what joy you get from following football. Maybe if you diluted your intensely dry and rather hectoring stats lessons with a post or two about the actual football, or the Rams generally, folks would treat you with less disdain.

Fair point, but at the risk of quibbling that wasn't exactly stated. Implied, sure. I feel like we shut people and ideas down far too readily these days, and this is another example. See Dawn French's comments yesterday around JK Rowling.

We've earned nowt, scraped nowt and done nowt yet.

Folks, please. Are we capable of losing at Cambridge? Are Bolton capable of smashing Port Vale 4-0 at home? We aren't remotely there yet. Keep the champagne in the box, and only put it on ice if we win on Saturday.

Joe Wildsmith's diving header to save a point might be the key touch of the whole season.