taffyram

Well we've exhausted the "Warne out",  "Keogh's to blame" and the "return of Chris Martin" threads so we do need a new long running theme.

Good evening ladies and gents. It’s going to be another chilly night on 5th December for Derby v Fleetwood. Here’s hoping for a decent game and a few goals to warm our cockles 😆

I am one that did'nt want Warne and had my doubts whether he was the right man to get us back in the Championship. My biggest hate of the Warneball football was playing 3 centrbacks with wingbacks. I did state; hoping he could adapt and try different formations. Last season he was forced to play mainly with a back 4 because of the players he had inherited from Liam Rosenior's hastly put together squad. We put a good run together and looked like we could pinch a promotion slot. Then he started tinkering with the team and trying out his favoured 3 at the back, we fell away and the rest is history.
A new season and Warne brings in players to fit his preferred 3 at the back and wingbacks. Due to injuries and poor results against inferior teams he switches back to 4 at the back. And besides the odd few games where he got his tactics wrong ( Crewe, Stevenage, Shrewsbury and Cambridge) the team have started to get results and climb the table. The Port Vale game even had the team playing out from the back with Wildsmith feeding to defenders (Aka Liam Rosenior style).
Please Mr Warne, drop the idea of 3 centrebacks, please adapt, have some tactical nouce against all these different teams in this awful League One. Don't recruit old players in January, especially wingbacks, go abroad if needs be and bring in some hungry exciting talent. If you fail to get promotion this season, I'm afraid you will gone. Crowds will drop off, good young players will move on and we will be back to how the squad was when Mr Clowes bought the club (Threadbare of players).

Credit where it’s due. Warne and the players are trying to make amends for previous results. They are digging in and showing fight.
Warne looked dead and buried after Stevenage away, so to notch up four league wins in a row and move into the top six is a very good response and a small reward for those who remained patient and unlike myself didn’t experience a wobble at any point.
In my mind, there was an air of resignation after Stevenage away and I don’t think that has completely disappeared in truth. Current results are largely very positive but it would be very typical of us to drop the baby in upcoming games and doom engulfs the fanbase again. There’s still some convincing that needs to be done.
If we play to our potential, there’s no reason why we can’t go into 2024 on the back of a solid unbeaten run. Four wins and some hard-fought draws would leave us well placed heading into January.
Hopefully Warne and the players don’t let us down.

Well you’ve just thwarted the plans of some forum posters🤷🏻‍♂️

No he didn't try to make them first team regulars, he was forced to play them because of injuries. Without the misfortune for the other players, Thompson and Rooney wouldn't have had a sniff of a game. It was the same last season when Warne oversaw a long unbeaten run, but the reality is that he was forced to change the formation, because of injuries. He had been trying to play 3 at the back, and it was proving disastrous, but was forced to go 4 or 5 at the back, and the good run resulted from that exact circumstance. But as soon as he got the chance he leapt back to 3 at the back, curiously at the same time that the good run came to an end. Funny, that!
It is no surprise that there are loads of questions being asked of Warne, because there are loads of questions that need to be asked.

Too late for what? This season? If only there were another season!
Roll the dice again - see what happens. Probably see you back here in February calling for another manager to be sacked for not winning every game
I honestly wonder if people support the same Derby County as me. Not that long ago we almost didn't have a club and now half the fans are losing their minds because we aren't Man City already
 

Really? Where are these posts? I don't see anyone saying we've performed as well as we could have, only lots of folk moaning that we haven't. 

Totally agree.  I'm not one screaming and shouting for a change of manager but some people's refusal to admit that we have seriously under-performed in 2023 with the resources at our disposal and the excuses they make to absolve the manager of any blame completely baffles me.  

We are in the third division and we should be winning every game because the other teams are not very good. Even the better teams are the ones we expect to beat comfortably in the championship - sorry but we massively underperformed on far too many occasions considering what we have available compared to other clubs - yes I know we can’t win every game but we should be looking like we would.

There won’t be many of you, if there was they’d open your stand.🫢

I feel like some of the expectations on here are totally unrealistic. We're in the weakest playing position in our club's history, coming out of the worst financial period. How are people honestly commenting with straight faces they want full academy inclusion, pretty football, AND promotion form? Surely something has to give?
Rosenior gave us pretty football and youth inclusion, and prior to his departure there were still negative murmurings; so I don't buy the idea that if we incorporated the other elements, it makes on-field success less important somehow and people wouldn't whinge as much.
People going mental over a throwaway comment about youth seemingly forgetting he tried to make both Thompson and Rooney first team regulars before they got injured, promoted and integrated Brown into the first team, hailed Bird as our best player etc. There's stuff to be critical of but some posters do seem hell-bent on just making it seem like an agenda...
 

Have you taken this statement into account? I find it very depressing to be honest. I'd be interested in another statement from the Club on how they think this is being implemented by Warne.
"Derby said in a statement: “Derby County Football Club are delighted to announce the appointment of Paul Warne as head coach.
“Warne has joined the club with immediate effect on a contract until the summer of 2026.
“As was made clear in the summer, the board intended to take a period of time evaluating every aspect of the club and having done that, we believe Paul’s track record of success at this level fits perfectly into our long-term strategy.”
From another quote:
"Upon joining the club, Warne showed a lot of enthusiasm saying that his end goal was to help the Rams get back to the Premier League, he told Rams TV: “There’s a handful of clubs that aren’t in the Premier League that will get to the Premier League.
“Whether I can play a part in that, a big part, a small part, whether I’m the lucky one that takes them back to the Premier League, that is the ambition of the club.”
So. Long-term strategy and back to the Prem. Can't see much in the squad to reflect either of those points. 

We are already suffering from 3.  We actively chose to go there the moment we let Rosenior build a possession-based team and replaced him 10 games later with a guy that wanted to play very directly.  And despite a dozen or so summer signings, I *still* think that we have a squad that is more suited to playing possession football than WarneBall.  It will take less squad chopping and changing to get a new manager in to play some kind of possession football (it doesn't have to be exactly what Rosenior was trying to use) than to let Warne build the team he actually wants.  And I am fully aware that we have a lot of players out of contract in the summer, but I honestly think that with a different manager, there's a decent chance we get to keep a fair chunk of those if we want to.
And as for 4, see point 3 really.  We looked at what happened under Morris (in terms of squad upheaval, if not finances) and decided to just repeat that all over again.

1.) Fans respond to the football that is served up. They'll get behind the team if the team gives them something to cheer about, it's the same for all clubs. 
2.) I'd love to see your numbers to back this up.
3.) Mistakes in the past don't necessarily equate to future mistakes. Sticking with a manager purely because we should have stuck with managers in the past would be daft.
4.) Why is it? We have one of the biggest budgets in the league and a squad that should be able to compete with any in this division. That's just your opinion. We're building back up sure, but why do we have to just accept it'll take a huge amount of time, we're entirely placed to be competitive. 

I think we have been through the reasons why we should get rid of Warne at some length so pointless to repeat it. I think is useful though to look at the four reasons that are given for keeping him. These are either used on their own or in combination
1. We should be be proper supporters and GET BEHIND OUR TEAM. This gets generally mixed together with supporting Warne because he's the manager and because its about supporting the project and supporting David Clowes. All this MOANING AND NEGATIVITY isn't helping at all and we should recognise that we are in fact 7th on the verge of the play offs. If we were all pulling together and supporting our team
2. We CAN'T AFFORD  to pay him and all his staff off
3. We should not keep CHOPPING AND CHANGING managers and we need to give him time. We are partly in the mess we are because we kept chopping and changing
4. This is a MASSIVE LONG TERM JOB BECAUSE OF ADMINISTRATION and those that think there can be a quick fix are DELUDED  
 There may be a fifth in that some people claim to know David Clowes mind and believe he has no intention of getting rid come what may. There is an element of truth to 1 and 3 but I don't believe any of these points are stronger than the evidence that Warne is the wrong man for the job. Also I don't believe 2 and 4 to be true anyway    

I have to admit I wasn't excited by the thought of the sort of football Warne would bring with him, but was prepared to give him a chance. And at first I was happy with the urgency which he got us moving the ball forwards. Despite the result in our opening match this season we looked ok, but then came a succession of matches where we were being outplayed by teams with a kindergarten budget and tiny squad. But we didn't have the ideal start to the season, so I wanted to give him, and the team a fair chance. But it has turned out to be really difficult to keep the chance open. Our feelings that the team could do so much more than they were being allowed to was confirmed on the rare occasions when we went onto the pitch and played football, and the frustrations boiled over when, after showing just how we could play, we went back to the "wide and whack it" philosophy, along with its associated poor results. 
The outcry peaked after the Stevenage and Crewe matches, and suddenly we got two decent, footballing performances, almost as if after refusing to go to the fans, Warne just threw his hands in the air and let the lads get on with it. And suddenly it was "corner turned". Only it wasn't, we went to Crewe and went back to wing and whack ------ again! Then two more decent performances, followed yet again by a load of dross.
However, what has turned me firmly into Warne out are two separate things. One is the number of player set to leave us in the summer, which they will if we are not promoted. Is Warne capable, on his Derby history so far, or recruiting better players? Or are we going to end up with a small squad, coupled with lower attendances, and struggling to get the player we need, and therefore get trapped in this league for years to come? 
But worse than that are two things that Paul Warne has said. Firstly, in the pre-match waffle for the Cheltenham match, or should I say mismatch, he told us that the Cheltenham midfield kept getting over-run in their previous matches, so in case they simply packed their midfield out, we would come up with the masterplan of playing around their midfield, which is Warnese for "bang it out to the wings, then lob high balls into the middle  because you never know, they might mis-head it and the ball may fall to one of our players, who might have arrived in the box before the ball gets cleared". We have seen in those matches where we played football that we have quite a good midfield if they are allowed to get involved, but instead of ripping Cheltenham apart, we ran way from them. Then comes his announcement that our young kids have only got two chances of first team football - fat chance and no chance. Guess how many of our young players will sign a new contract with Derby in the face of that glorious hope? It is an absolutely stupid attitude to have, especially when players get to the end of their contract. We could end up with no first team, and no kids to try and fill the gap with because no-one else wants to come here and play for him.
I haven't felt so bereft of hope since I met John Newman all those years ago. He only had to walk in the room and he would suck the will to live out of everybody in the room. I suffer with sleep apnoea, and have to wear a CPAP mask at night, and wonder if I could use it during the day for life apnoea as a Derby County fan?

I think its called easing players in?
Seems sensible when we have such a toxic fanbase waiting to turn on the team.

This post is spot on and very close to my feelings.
The actions of Warne whilst being at the club doesn't give the impression that this is a long term project, namely the age profile of players signed and the reluctance to use the academy. It appears to be short term thinking recruiting players on their last legs to muddle our way up. 
I have serious doubts that if this squad was to get up that we would be able to stay up. Even with some additions, we would need a serious squad revamp. There is a lack of clear vision at the club at the moment, I can't quite see what it is that we're trying to achieve.

Absolutely sick of the constant sniping against the club , management and players , this was never going to be an easy fix and I believe any manager we hired would have had struggles , all this second guessing of finances, tactics, players contracts , potential signings , what players think , the academy are all being used as a stick to beat the manager with , yes Warne has made mistakes, which manager hasn’t but he’s our manager whether you like it or not , try cutting him a bit of slack and see what he can achieve and if he fails I will gladly hold my hands up and say you told us so

I could accept the inconsistency if it were evident that we’re building something but I’m just not sure what we’re building. We’re told this is a long term project and that Clowes is giving time for Warne to build the club back up but all I’ve seen in his tenure is buying ex-players and those past their best. 
 
If we were playing our youth, signing up and comers and attempting to play some good football then I think most Derby fans would accept the current position and levels of consistency but as it stands, what have we built in the last season and a half? Our best youth products in years are all set to leave at the end of the season leaving us with a few players that are the wrong side of 30.

If we don’t go up this year I do fear we’re in this league for the long haul, waiting for PW’s contract to be up so we can get in someone who knows how to build a team for the long term. The messaging from the club says this is a long term project but the signings we’ve made suggest otherwise.

As far asi can see we could win every league game between now and end of season 10 nil and certain posters would still moan. no names given. I’m sure David clowes feels same it’s your opinions it’s a free country. but when someone gives an alternative take on it try to listen to the facts. open minds are needed 

In the interest of balance, 3 seasons as manner in League 1 and promoted in each of them.  Unfair to include those as player, coach or whatever as he’s not been in those roles with us.

That would be Rosenior’s 1.56 points per game v Warne’s 1.68 😉.

Its pretty pointless trying to offer any sort of defence anymore because the goalposts are just constantly moving.
We've gone from...
We are a big team, we shouldn't be losing to......
to
Ok we are winning but we should be having more possession
to
Ok we are winning but he should be playing Sibley more
to
Ok he has given Sibley a run but he should be playing the academy players
Its clear that whatever happens from here on in, that some posters have made their mind up on Warne and will use absolutely anything to criticise him.