Jram

Kaide Gordon back on loan? Surely we’re attractive to the player and the club for a loan unless they think they can get a substantial loan fee elsewhere. 
Mind you, he is perpetually injured 

Of the players we’ve retained, I think majority can be good enough for lower/mid table championship with a couple of exceptions:

Not convinced by Fornah- the little we saw he does not appear to be very good at football.

Washington’s knee is a concern. Warne mentioned it a lot last season and he certainly didn’t seem fully fit whenever he played in the latter part of last season. 
 

For the record, think CBT will be really good once fully fit. Hopefully Rooney can kick on post injury. 

4 hours ago, CrapSince99 said:

My ambition is to finish comfortably in mid table and see some fresh academy players get significant minutes in league games. Sign players with high potential and sell on value. Would love a foreign import as well. 

Agree with this. Be happy to stay up and see significantly more use of the academy than this season

I actually don’t hate Forest that much. 

10 hours ago, Premier ram said:

Ronan Curtis

Josh Knight

Jordan Williams

Alan Browne

Oliver Norwood

I think Alan Browne would expect to move to a top end championship club. Very good player and pretty sure his contract is up at Preston

Jordan Henderson to be our Championship equivalent of Hourihane 

can see sell him the Derby dream?

2 hours ago, OoooMarkWright said:

I wouldn’t say his touch was ‘insane’. He was neat and tidy and when under no pressure he had a decent touch, like most players should at professional level. His touch wasn’t as good when he had a big brute pressing him. He lacked physical strength and lost the ball in tight areas, going down way too easily. As for being rapid, his hamstring pinged if he got past a fast jog. Not a patch speed wise on a Sturridge for example. I hope he overcomes his injury issues and I’m sure he can forge a decent career at Lg1/Champ level, but he’s not worth the risk for us. 

Fair enough. I don’t agree, I think he stood out as particularly technically gifted. I think he’s worth a punt on a year deal 

1 hour ago, OoooMarkWright said:

I think people are going a bit OTT over John Jules. 
He didn’t show that much for us when fit. He’s got a decent touch but is lacking in a lot of areas. Ignoring his injuries I was yet to be convinced by his quality.  I think we can and will do better. 

Numbers-wise he obviously didnt set the world alight with assists/goals but it was just his technical ability. His touch was always insane (that’s in comparison to the already relatively excellent players around him), he was rapid and he creates chances. 
 

I honestly think that if he could get fit, he could be a standout player in the championship 

Would John-Jules resign do you think? Absolutely class player if he can stay fit 

10 minutes ago, RamFan13 said:

Would definitely take Jonson Clarke-Harris as think he’s out of contract and also Brannagan. He looks quality.

I think Brannagan signed a new contract last year so might be out of our financial league, even if they don’t go up. Looks class though. 
 

Adam Phillips was voted Barnsley POTS again and might be available at a reasonable price. 
 

Joe Taylor from Luton would be class up top. 

This is complete speculation but I wonder if his knee is gone after what Warne said about him aggravating it a few times. If it’s cartilage, it will be hard to come back from.

I thought the same with Hourihane all season. It looks like running hurts for him. 
 

Mad that players can be so dynamic and fit at 28 and then four years later look like old men jogging around 

39 minutes ago, Caerphilly Ram said:

I’d probably say most of them if you look at what they’ve gone onto achieve;

Liam Delap currently on 30 apps with 8 goals and 2 assists in the championship for Hull.

Festy Ebosele played 17 times for Udinese last season and is on 28 apps and counting in Serie A this season.

Omari Kellyman has played in Europe, the EFL Cup and the PL for Villa.

Lee Buchanan ( 🤮 ) played 23 times for Werder Bremen last season and has 31 apps in the championship for Brum.

Malcolm Ebiowei hasn’t done loads since he left but had a spell on loan in the championship at Hull last year and didn’t look out of place there for us.

Kaide Gordon has had an injury hit few years at Liverpool it seems but has made some first team appearances and looks to be doing better in PL2 this season.

Not sure who else there was, the youngsters that went to Man United maybe?🤔 

Morgan Whittaker!!!

4 hours ago, Ghost of Clough said:

From the U21 squad, we already have Evans (3rd matchday GK), Radcliffe, DRobinson and DBrown who I would consider to be on the fringes of the first team squad. Weston a little bit behind them.

We then have several players who could still play U18 football but stepped up early - 2nd year scholars Cox, KRobinson and Hawkins, and 1st year scholars JThompson, Gill and Allen.

Davidson has had a lot of trouble with injuries but has always looked promising when in the side. He missed the first half of last season and most of this one (last played in October), but would have been a regualr in the U21 squad (still a 2nd year scholar) if he stayed fit.

McAndrew is on the cusp of stepping up and is still only 16! 

 

I think all of these youngsters have a very good chance of being Championship footballers (or higher), with some doing it with us in a couple of years.

I’m inclined to agree that there’s sufficient talent in our academy to produce a team 50% full of academy players. The somewhat forced use of Bird, Sibley, Cashin, Whittaker duringadmin  et al proves that really.

Do I think that we will see that in reality? Sadly not 

12 hours ago, CapeTownRams said:

I have never understood how football has allowed this bizarre situation to be accepted where the Clubs pay the fees for the player’s agents. These players employ their agents- they work for them and benefit from their efforts. Yet the Clubs pay the fees ! It’s nonsense. The players themselves should be paying for THEIR agent’s fees.

Madness.

Players are in such a strong bargaining position, aren’t they, it’s crazy. There’s usually multiple clubs in for them, clubs have fan pressure to do their utmost to secure the signing and you’ve got to be a highly skilled person in a very specific age bracket to even be qualified to potentially play professional football

They can just make the clubs do what they want. I suppose that’s why wages have sky rocketed 

1 hour ago, G STAR RAM said:

A poster said he would have us nowhere near the play offs and I just pointed out that he Rotherham near the play offs before he came to us.

Surely nobody is expecting us to be anywhere near the playoffs if we do go up, Warne in charge or otherwise.

Stephen Pearce has mentioned several times they want a couple of years of Championship stability. Unless Robinson, Allen, Brown turn into world class superstars, we’re obviously going to do well to finish above 20th next season (if we go up)

Morgan Whittaker with yet another goal and Emil Riis with 2 for Preston. 

A good day for ex Rams kids in the Champ so far 

5 hours ago, Ghost of Clough said:

With 6 games to go, we've given the 2nd least amount of league minutes to players currently aged 21 or younger (699 mins), only 221 minutes more than Cambridge. We're over 16,000 minutes down on the side leading the charts (Wigan) and over 9600 minutes behind Peterborough (3rd).

We are however 4th for minutes given to academy graduates (7977 mins), mostly thanks to Bird and Cashin being regular starters and Sibley being a rotation option. Out of the promotion hopefuls, Peterborough are closest to us, ranked 6th with 5599 mins.

This is quite unbelievable really. We’re a cat 1 academy in League 1. Our youngsters compete against the likes of City, Arsenal etc and yet we can’t give minutes in League 1.
 

I’ve mentally written this season off in terms of academy debuts. Partly because of the immense pressure to get promoted but also because of the fact the club made a lot of comments about needing 18 months/ 2 years to rebuild. 
 

I really like Warne but it’s been my biggest gripe. I loved watching the academy prospects progress during the Rooney and Rosenior years (albeit more because of the other horrific things happening at the club).

I have to say, it will be a much bigger gripe if we do go up and aren’t using the academy. There will be much less pressure as finishing 15th will probably represent a good season on our return to the Championship. Therefore, you would like to think there will be more opportunities for the kids pressure-free. 

6-1 up. 2 for Brown

The name of this thread 😂 second in the league with highest goal difference and second highest scorers- if you can’t find some positives in that, then I dread to think what you’re like down the pub 

31 minutes ago, DCFC Kicks said:

I’m not saying we’ve been bad. His approach is clearly working to a large extent. My point was there’s not distinct style or continuity to how we play which creates unpredictability to our performances. I think the teams we’ve battered have mostly been teams who try and play a distinct way or passing way every game, who don’t try and counter us e.g. Bristol Rovers. Warnes style is reactionary to the opposition. 
 

i really don’t think it’s right to put the reason we lost yesterday all down to luck. Even Warne acknowledged we didn’t play well.

i also think you’re undervaluing the quality of our players. I don’t think any Northampton player would get in our squad except maybe Hoskins.

our difficulty signing players doesn’t affect how the manager sets the team up or his playing philosophy.

But in fairness to warne, there have been occasions this season where we’ve been really good. The sad reality is, luck does play a massive part, especially at this level where a lot teams are looking to disrupt us rather than play football and our players aren’t that good, even when they’re relatively some of the best in the division. 
 

Quality of ****housery is the same regardless of division but obviously premier league players combat it better. There are gonna be days where our less quality players can’t. I think yesterday was one of those. 

I wasn’t at the game so can’t comment on how good we were in fairness but I expect us to lose across a 46 game season 🤷‍♂️ it’s fine and doesn’t really reflect on warne or the players 

1 hour ago, Chris_Martin said:

when was that then?

 

Well we’ve won by 3 goals or more on ten occasions this season which i think it’s fair to say is quite impressive. There have been other occasions we’ve performed well too. Most recently Port Vale at home where we were brilliant. 
 

In relation to your other post, I think it’s a bit silly to suggest a team with Forsyth and Bradley at CB would get in the playoffs. I do agree, however, that we have good players. Mind you, we are second 🤷‍♂️

45 minutes ago, DCFC Kicks said:

Its because there are no foundations. Warne just takes every game as it comes and tries to ground out a result by any means. It is working most of the time, but I'm never truly that shocked whenever we lose a game to anyone. It feels like Warne picks one-off tactics for each opponent and hopes they work, but occasionally they don't or the opponent works them out in-game and we lose. There's no longevity or continuity to anything he's implementing.

I can’t agree with this. We’ve been brilliant in a lot of games, let’s not forget that. We’ve battered a lot of teams. However, there will inevitably be games where luck plays its part and we miss out. Wasn’t there but the highlights suggest we had three decent chances, they had none and won 1-0. It’s bound to happen. We’re not City, our players aren’t that much better than the opposition so the opportunity for luck to play a part is greater.

Let’s not forget as well that we’re unlikely to have much of a foundation given the club made its first signing for a fee three months ago for a long time. 

10 hours ago, JuanFloEvraTheCocu'sNesta said:

We will have a tiny budget by Championship standards, so what will he do differently this time?

Our budget won’t be as small Rotherham though. I imagine we will have a bigger budget than a few teams. They didn’t. 

And generally the budget dictates League position, not the coach. I expect we’ll be lower mid table first season but people on here will be raging about it and want Warne gone.

 We’ve actually got to get to the champ first though!

2 minutes ago, TheTinMan said:

Even if by some minor miracle he gets us up his track record in the Championship is relegation straight away. Hes not the answer long or probably short-term to 

This is very unfair. Relative to the Champ, Rotherham had a tiny budget so would always struggle. When he joined us he actually had them too 6 in October 

I’d be surprised Sibbo, Wildsmith and Tommo weren’t offered contracts as they’re obviously valuable to the club due to age, quality and potential.

Hourihane, Smith, Collins, Waghorn will be released if we’re promoted I reckon. Although I think you could argue a case for retaining them

Forsyth and Barkhuizen 🤔 I’d keep Barks and Fozzy still seems to be doing it so I’d keep him too