JustOneBiblicalKazim

Doesn’t seem to fit the bill of the sort of number 9 Warne wants but could play as one of the 2 10’s in the 3-4-2-1? Just about peak age and scores goals at this level

                                 Best:

                             Carson

 Wisdom       Davies       Tomori       Fozzy

                             Thorne

                   Mount          Hughes

                               Wilson

                     Martin          Vydra

                               Worst:

                              Hamer

     Christie           Albentosa       Malone 

Anya                                                   Camara 
                                King 

          De Sart                       Dowell

                Blackman            Best                

Might not be a popular choice but Tom Lawrence against Sheff United at home last season, two unbelievable goals 

Don’t buy that Bird isn’t a good captain. Unless my maths is wrong he captained the side for 17 of the 19 game unbeaten streak, the only games he wasn’t captain for during that period was the final 2 games of that run when Davies came back in because of Cashin’s injury, was even people calling him ‘captain fantastic’ after the goal at Cheltenham. So Bird would be my pick, though I can see the merit behind Forsyth as club captain with Bird carrying on as vice captain.

Would still rather us operate mostly in the free agent market, at least at first, there’s a strange amount of quality in there this year. Lifted restrictions is ideal for loan fees and paying compensation on young players who might get offered contracts though (Roberts), hopefully we can offer some longer contracts too, brilliant news

In an ideal world for me and hoping Roberts signs, though I expect we’ll lose a few and I doubt Bielik will be here:

                          Wildsmith 

   NEW/Rooney      Bielik      Cashin

NEWx2                               Roberts/NEW
                                Bird

     Knight/Thompson           Sibley

              NEWx2              Mcgoldrick 

20 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

 

Looks like a front 3 so obscure that we must have tried it at least once

                          Wildsmith 

          Fozzy       Davies (C)     Cashin

Knight                                                 Roberts

                     Bird           Hourihane 

                    NML            Sibley

                         Mcgoldrick 

Subs: McGee, Rooney, Smith, White, Barkhuizen, Dobbin, Collins

- Don’t need to change anything, might seem a stretch and I know it’s a different level, but I think that first 25 minutes is the best we’ve played since the second half of 19/20 under Cocu, probably the best since Blackburn at home on Sibley’s debut. We created so many chances, just lack cutting edge and finishing, which should be one of the top priorities in the summer, but I think this team gives us the best chance of scoring, tempting to start Collins but I think we’re better starting with the two 10’s.

- Need big performances from NML and Wildsmith with points to prove. Start quickly and score early, quieten down the sold out crowd and we absolutely have to take our chances, I’m already bricking it and we’re still days away. 

Is Brown injured?

At the open training session noticed Dajaune Brown was heavily involved in the attacking drills, as was Darren Robinson, who was part of the warm up before the MK Dons game too. There was a young keeper too, might’ve been Harry Evans? Could also have been Thompson.

3 minutes ago, Steve Buckley’s Dog said:

Apart from that he’s done alright. 😂

Haha I actually do think he’s done okay, and I genuinely like him, it may seem like I’m moaning but I just have some gripes, I just think that some of our current issues were avoidable, it was clear our squad was going to tire, we should’ve done more to try and slow that down.

If we wanted to play wing backs Warne should’ve experimented and tried different players when he had the opportunities, bare in mind we had 2 papa johns games under Warne, 5 fa cup fixtures, and plenty of home games when we’ve been 2+ goals up. We could’ve tried Knight there, Oduroh (think he played the city under 21’s game and 20 minutes v Torquay), even youngsters like Brailsford and Grewal-Pollard could’ve at least been tried, how are you meant to know if you never try? I’ve got a lot of gripes with Wayne Rooney but he was never afraid to throw a young player in, and more often than not I’d argue it paid off, we nearly stayed up from it. If you look at the games where we’ve played with a 3 we’ve actually been most successful playing a 3-4-3 with Smith and Sibley as wing backs and Collins up top, and Forsyth as the sweeper, Bird and Hourihane as the midfield 2, we were in good form doing that but it got binned and we’ve never seen it since.  

We all know we’ve got a small squad, but it hasn’t needed to be as small as it is, for example: why was Stretton sold In January after Osula had been recalled? You can argue he wasn’t good enough but he’d have been an extra body, played games for us at championship level and would’ve played much more last season if it wasn’t for injury. Why has Cybulski not been used at all? Instead he’s been farmed out on various loans in non league whilst we’ve got 2 strikers, one who’s more of a 10 anyway, at the very least he would’ve added some height we severely lack. Even young Dajaune Brown has been on the bench for the first team and clearly trains with the first team, he was heavily involved in the attacking drills at the open training session so clearly he’s on Warne’s radar, couldn’t he have had some minutes to give the two ageing strikers we’ve got a break, got a great record at under 18 level. Why has Stearman essentially retired after being heavily involved for the first two months? Including starting in back to back away clean sheets. Why has Liam Thompson barely kicked a ball after starting regularly in the championship last season? And then coming into the business end of the season and complaining about how ‘leggy’ the team is he’s allowed to go on loan to a national league side doomed for relegation, a loan that could never have gone well.

So yeah I feel for Warne due to the restrictions and the squad size, but he’s not completely innocent in this slide in form, there’s things he could’ve done which he’s chosen not to, and I believe by his own admission he turned a few players down in January due to feeling they weren’t good enough, something along those lines anyway, yet he decided to loan in Springett who barely featured, and when he did looked like a rabbit in the headlights.

                           Wildsmith 

Rooney     Forsyth    Cashin       Roberts

                                Bird 

                   Knight          Sibley

Dobbin         McGoldrick (C) Barkhuizen

Subs- McGee, Davies, Smith, White, Hourihane, NML, Collins

- Not sure I could withstand watching Barkhuizen and NML at wing back again, it’s genuinely painful watching Barkhuizen play in such an unnatural role and NML’s a complete liability there, Jamie Ward said on radio Derby if you play him there you may as well play with 10 men and Bristol completely encapsulated that, you completely nullify all his qualities by putting him there, either find someone else to play wing back or don’t play wing backs, pretty simple really. NML’s clearly knackered and has been for months now, his pace could be useful for 20 minutes off the bench though.

- Would equally be happy with Knight at right back and Rooney in holding midfield, think he could be useful there, but I don’t think Warne has the balls for it so it’s a pipe dream really, get Forsyth back in, he must’ve been involved in about 500 playoff pushes for us which is experience that our defence needs right now, just please don’t start Davies.

- Mcgoldrick has the option to drop deep and get Knight and Sibley running beyond him, I still think they can both become high scoring midfielders, we should’ve based this team around getting them to do that, we should’ve a long time ago. Extremely doubt Sibley will start, for whatever reason Warne doesn’t like him, it’s so bizarre, especially after the press conference after Oxford where Warne was adamant Sibley had been really consistent for him, yet since Fleetwood, he’s started 1 game, which was at wing back, for the millionth time, why? 

- Would be amazed if Collins starts again, since his goal at Burton on the tenth of December, he has ONE non penalty goal (Wycombe away, correct me if I’m wrong), which is the same amount as Eiran Cashin, Haydon Roberts and Max Bird in that space of time, as well as being less than Knight, Dobbin, Sibley, Barkhuizen, NML and Hourihane.

- Finding it incredibly hard to get myself up for this game, it’s so predictable, we’ll either dominate the first half, get a slim lead then draw 1-1 because of a failure to react to tactical changes, or we’ll dominate the first half, fail to score and then lose 2-0 because of a failure to react to tactical changes. Though it has to be said that Bristol was refreshing, we dominated for all of 5 minutes in that game, then got absolutely battered for 85 minutes and guess what? Drew 1-1 because of failure to react to tactical changes. Came away with an incredibly fortunate point and then argue we got robbed because of a soft penalty decision, I feel like we robbed them with the draw, can’t bring myself to feel cheated when we were that bad. 

18 minutes ago, Tamworthram said:

I’m not sure there are that many that wouldn’t like to see him in the Derby team next season for the very reasons you suggest. However, he must be on significantly higher wages than any other player (which must have been factored into our business plan as part of our total wage bill) and, whilst we wouldn’t be able to spend any transfer fee received if we sold him at the moment, the funds could either go into the kitty for when we can spend again or used to pay off anything we may owe on him. If he goes next summer we’ll obviously get zilch for him but still have to pay Arsenal in full (if we haven’t already). 
 

I totally accept the point about his wages probably being high, but it was never cited as a reason for him going on loan in the first place (he wanted to give himself the best chance of playing at the World Cup), and by all accounts we could’ve recalled him if we wanted to, but Warne didn’t want any ‘hostages’, so if wages weren’t an issue before then it would be odd to make it an excuse now.

He’s also in that age bracket that we’re in major need of.

People might not like it but if he’s around next season he plays, and probably immediately becomes the best player in the division. We don’t need to sell so unless he’s desperate to leave why would we? We can’t spend any money we might get for him anyway. Our midfield would be so much better with him in now, can control games, physical presence, and effective from set pieces in both boxes. Think if Rosenior had stayed he’d probably have come back in January, things might look different now if we had bought him back.

My overall thoughts:

- The team selection immediately had me concerned, very inexperienced back three, and Barkhuizen at wing back scares the life out of me, I don’t know why we continue to do it, I can’t think of one good performance he’s had in the role, Sibley, who I’ll get back to, by no means had a blinder at Forest Green, but didn’t do anything to warrant being dropped for an out of form right footed winger, as much as he’s better centrally at least he provides a balance as a left footer at left wing back.

- Despite my initial concerns the first half performance was really good and I was impressed with how ballsy the set up was (credit to Warne), we attacked and got shots off and just weren’t finishing our opportunities, I thought the back three were good throughout, I always like the look of young Rooney, just hope he’s not out the squad again next game, how’s he meant to find any consistency or form if he drops out the next game every time he starts? Only 1-0 up at half time though you could see the second half from a mile off, and it felt as though the players thought it too, everyone was just waiting for an equaliser after the penalty shouts, speaking of, Jason Knight has to do so much better through on goal like that, if he’s as good as we think he is he needs to bring it down and get a shot off rather than ending up wide of the goal looking for a pen. The goal’s an absolute embarrassment, for someone of his build Mendez-Laing should never get out muscled that easily, then he’s too lazy to try and win the ball back, think Barkhuizen’s attempted block was pretty weak too but that might be harsh.

- Finally, the subs were bizarre, I hate making the point over and over because it comes across like I’m his fanboy or something, but at 1-1 and in need of a goal, what possesses you to bring on Max Bird and Harvey White (who’ve both played primarily DM for us, and have 1 league goal between the pair of them) ahead of Louie Sibley, who recently won us the game at Oxford with a brace, and when you do bring him on you give him 5 minutes at wing back to make a difference, it’s f****** mad, I honestly don’t get it, is there any reasonable explanation for that? Why is Knight a guaranteed starter every week whilst Sibley gets the scrap minutes playing at wing back? And why did we take Collins off while he was actually playing pretty well and then start delivering even more crosses with our only out and out number 9 off the pitch? Surely Dobbin could’ve played off of Mcgoldrick and Collins while we were pushing for the goal. So whilst you can’t blame Warne for missed opportunities, you can certainly question his in-game decision making and substitutions, which also came too late once again, it’s made worse that I feel as though we go over this every game and have the same debate every week. 

We need 4 points from these 2 away games, Burton could end up being our biggest game as for deciding if we can achieve playoffs or not.

                          Wildsmith 

      Chester          Cashin        Roberts 

NML                       Bird                       Sibley

                Knight             Hourihane   

                Collins           Mcgoldrick 

Subs- McGee, Rooney, Forsyth, Smith, White, Barkhuizen, Dobbin

- Far from a good performance against Forest Green, and it’s tempting to make more changes, but the team did get the job done and realistically you wanna give them more time to gel in the system to help put performances together. Temptation there to perhaps put Forsyth in at the back with Roberts further forward and Sibley central, gotta pull the trigger on that Bird, Knight and Sibley midfield at some point right? But I think consistency with slight rotation will be key for us now. Bird back in to help us on the ball, though I think Smith will probably start because he seems like a Warne favourite.

- Collins is a completely different player when we play 3 at the back, scores goals, gets about and is effective, look at his performances against the likes of Cambridge in Warne’s first game, Port Vale at home until he decided he wanted to have  a punch up, MK Dons away, Forest Green, even at times against Ipswich he looked a better player than we’ve been seeing. Compare this to when we play a 4 and it’s like night and day. If he can go on a run now and find some of his earlier season form he can be a real catalyst in terms of firing us into the playoffs, similar to Cameron Jerome’s end of season form under Rowett despite being absolutely awful up to that point, goals breed confidence for 9’s like that.

- All in all I’m trying really hard to be optimistic because I hate being dragged into agendas of manager in or manager out, especially if it’s a manager I genuinely like as a person, Warne gives me so much optimism when he speaks but it’s nowhere near reflected on the pitch, the Forest Green game was a pretty rank performance, I’m just hoping it can give us a bit of belief back and help spring us back into form, and not a false dawn like Oxford. We absolutely have to get the ball on the floor and play to our strengths, a win is a must.

Every time I listen to him I warm to him more and get more optimistic about us with him as manager, he says a lot of the right things, yet whenever I’ve watched us play apart from sort of mid December up until Wycombe away when we scored loads of goals for a little while, I struggle to see what we’re trying to do and who’s playing where and what Warne’s really looking for other than crossing at every opportunity when none of our ‘full backs’ are particularly good at crossing and we don’t have anyone who can really score headers. Even in that great period from mid December until February we had games like Bolton away and Cambridge where we barely created anything. I feel like every time we come up against a team as good as us or better we look petrified and have no way to deal with them. I think he needs a summer to put his stamp on this team though, though a big part of me has fears about us signing ‘Rotherham type players’, but maybe that’s just me being a snob and thinking we’re above that. Think we need to start next season well to keep fans on his side, he warrants being allowed to try and mould his own side.

Didn’t Rooney used to go and give team talks to the under 23’s sometimes or have I imagined that? As well as some of the senior plays in the squad (Kazim-Richards etc)? I know he was forced into playing a lot of them but I always loved how he engaged with the academy, I wasn’t a big fan of him and I think he’s been exposed as a manager without the staff he had here but it’s one big plus I’d give him.

Think the loan system’s something of a myth below premier league level really, how many of our academy products who’ve gone on to play first team football regularly in the past 10 years have had loans? Hendrick, Hughes, Bogle, Bird, Knight, Sibley, Cashin, Ebosele, Thompson (before now, and you can hardly say getting tonked every week with Scunthorpe is helping him), Buchanan, Plange, Ebiowei, don’t think any had loans, only one I can think of is Max Lowe, the rest all came straight into the first team. The best place for them is the under 21’s where they can learn the style of play and develop understanding with each other, hence the success of Bird and Knight when they broke through together.

I would also ask why players like Rooney and Thompson at least couldn’t have played minutes for the 21’s when they haven’t for the first team, benefits everyone surely?

                           Wildsmith 

      Rooney       Cashin      Forsyth

Knight         Smith    Bird (C)           Roberts 

                  Sibley         Dobbin    
                        Mcgoldrick 

Subs- McGee, Chester, Hourihane, White, NML, Barkhuizen, Collins 

- Actually think the 3 at the back worked quite well as a system against Ipswich once we’d settled into the game, just felt the personnel was wrong. Get Knight as a wing at wing back to provide energy, NML’s clearly knackered and Knight’s best form this season was arguably playing right back, think Roberts did a good job on the left against Ipswich, he’s been our best player recently.

- Use Sibley and Dobbin as 2 10’s playing off Mcgoldrick, a number of teams play multiple number 10’s now, Sibley and Dobbin provide energy and are willing to take players on and try things, even if it doesn’t always come off. Let the wing backs provide the width and allow the 10’s to create problems in the middle.

- We need to score early, if we get to half time at 0-0 I’d worry, teams know they can beat us second half if they change tactically at half time, we don’t adapt well.

I’ll carry on making this point until I’m blue in the face because I just don’t get it, Louie Sibley is the last player to score a goal for us, won the game with a brace at Oxford, should’ve had a run of games in the 10 after that to help him put some form together. Yet here we are 3 games later and he’s back on scrap minutes as though it’s last season, coming on with 12 to go at 2 down and expecting him to change the game is a joke.
The last two games we’ve played well in patches with lots of possession without ever really creating anything, it’s been crying out for someone to take the game by the scruff of the neck and start running at people and having shots from outside the box, Sibley has the ability to do that yet he’s sat twiddling his thumbs on the bench, he came on at bloody wing back last week and still created one of our best chances of the game. That midfield yesterday was severely lacking goals and creativity, at least Sibley will take risks and try things.

We look so much better when we play with the ball on the floor, all our positive play today was from passing the ball from the defence and using the passing ability of our midfielders. Yet we seem to spend half the time slinging the ball for Collins or Mcgoldrick in the air when neither of them ever look like winning it, doesn’t make sense

Few tasty names in there, we’ve gotta be realistic so probably not the likes of Pukki, or Dowell because I’m still getting over his last stint, would definitely take Ashley Barnes for a year if he’d drop to us.

Realistic but ideal targets could be:

- Jay Dasilva

- Connor Wickham

- Tyler Walker

- Liam Kelly (is he the one that scored that absolute beauty against us in a 3-3 at Reading)

- Sam Byram

- Ogbene (probably anyone out of contract who’s played for Warne really)

- Max Power 

Have always thought Ben Osborne’s destined to have some sort of stint here, we love a controversial ex forest player. Some good options in there

Played the full 90 in a 0-0 draw at York last night, booked for a tactical foul.