FlyBritishMidland

point a) Sibley has hardly played lots either…
point b) off of one per season game?! Give over. Sibley gets screwed over by being played out of position half the time. 

I thought at the time it was harsh to Sack Nigel Clough and didn’t agree. I changed my opinion 48 hours later when McClaren Simmo and Steele were announced. This was before even a ball was kicked under their management. It just felt right, but then no one expected it to go quite as well as it did, probably because of the 5 years of mediocrity we’d endured prior. Just a crying shame we didn’t get over the line.
It was dull under Clough but he was working to the tightest budget restrictions of any Derby manager (until now) and we were never really under serious threat of going down. And he did make us comfortably mid table while in a better place financially, and built the team that McClaren and Simmo took to the next level. But it needed them to come in for the team’s potential to be realised.
 
Clough would be ideal for where this club is right now and if he was in charge he would keep us up 100%. And despite it being dull for the majority, our home form was decent in most seasons and he did give us some great memories with the City Ground victories (the 10 men victory remains one of my favourite away days and is a day I will cherish forever) and countless wins over Leeds. In fact I think he won 4 matches at the city ground as Derby manager and no other Derby manager has won there since. 
 
 

I fully agree with you very very few people know this I was badly bullied at school due to my learning differcults and because I had autism but back then it was not known because I did not know rules of play ground I was beat up in school and out of school to such a point that I wanted to end my own life. Only when I told my mum she cried when I said this and was angry at person who did this and for many many years it took to get over it but to this day I dont trust anyone anymore I know sad to hear but dammage done to me and only those ones who suffered it truly understand.

I do wonder if we'd be better off just using eligible players in the friendlies. If nothing changes, that's what we'll have to start the season with. I get that not playing the 'trialists' and out of contract players will have fitness issues if they do become eligible, but the flipside is we're currently showcasing them for other teams.
I think if Craig Forsyth is going to be our centre back until January, let him get used to it in preseason. It's a long way from ideal, but maybe the least worst option. 

Jeremy Kyle has a lot to answer for. I swear morals and standards slipped during his tenure on daytime television. 

Just a couple of weeks after this pic was taken the poor dog was taken poorly. After several vet visits and investigations, biopsies etc, they told us he had an incurable, genetic immune problem causing him severe pain. 
After getting another opinion from a different vet the same diagnoses was given.
He went to sleep on Monday morning, grandkids inconsolable, parents and grandparents not far behind. He was not quite three years old.

Seems a sensible approach. I see many on twitter and FB are moaning and twisting it to be the club taking the fans for a ride. The sames fans would be moaning if they were being asked to pay out.
Some will see it as a sure sign of a takeover. Some see it as a sure sign of immediate administration.  There is also the fact that we may still get a points deduction which I know a number of Wednesday fans complained that they had paid for an ST for a side that was effectively relegated, as they saw it.
My view is that it's a sensible and pragmatic approach to an unprecedented situation.  The club has addressed the issue for 20/21 season ticket holders who will get their tickets without paying out. 19/20 but none 20/21 ticket holders get a discounted rate.  Everyone else can try and buy on a match by match basis. Seems eminently sensible. Will result in reduced attendances but the costs are probably offset against the burden  of managing refunds at that scale which no business wants to do.
I do think some Derby fans will be really disappointed if we get a decent ownership group....what will they have to moaning about then?

Of course they have the right to do it. I don’t think booing the knee in and of itself means they are racist but I think it is pretty clear that some who do boo, are doing so because they are racist. Priti Patel obviously does not need to condemn this but she had the chance to and instead condemned the knee as “gesture politics.”
The question then is whether not condemning it, and therefore not condemning the racist element of that, leads to a situation where the racists in our society feel empowered to abuse the England players, which is the very reason they are kneeling. Tyrone Mings clearly feels this is the case. 
Personally, I feel Priti Patel did not need to condemn the boos but perhaps could have used the opportunity to plead with those who do so to please listen to the players as to why they are doing it. She instead said it was gesture politics and “stoked” the situation, as Mings says. The players were then racially abused. Did she directly cause that? No, clearly not. Could she have taken steps to help reduce or prevent it? Yes, I think she could.
I imagine she has faced racism in her life, and that is a disgrace. In an ideal world, it would have been good for that to allow her to empathise with why England players feel taking the knee is important to them. 

Like most I have criticisms of him (being a touch too pragmatic for one) and I think he made mistakes in the final. However it's hard to argue with his record and I think he's done a couple things really well that honestly I can't really remember an England manager doing in my time watching. Namely the squad all seem highly motivated, tightly knit and play for him and the teams he names seem tactically cohesive, playing like a team with a plan rather than a selection of the 11 "best" players shoved into a system that doesn't make a deal of sense.
Any talk of replacing him before the next world cup seems kind of silly to me.

Adding to your point, we won't be playing after a full season of flogging our players to death. 
Midseason tournament, when all teams will be equally fresh, 15 months more experience into our pups, and in all likelihood an even stronger squad to select from.
It's coming home, it's just been delayed while we wait for the big prize.

Good post.  I think he’s done a cracking job.  The main reason Italy won in my view is match know how and a bit of nous.  That all comes with experience.  They knew how to take the sting how the game, make little fouls when needed or win a few free-kicks to take the sting out the game and disrupt the flow.
This will come for our boys with experience of these scenarios.  If anything, we were too nice and need a bit of nastiness in there.

Good post.  I think he’s done a cracking job.  The main reason Italy won in my view is match know how and a bit of nous.  That all comes with experience.  They knew how to take the sting how the game, make little fouls when needed or win a few free-kicks to take the sting out the game and disrupt the flow.
This will come for our boys with experience of these scenarios.  If anything, we were too nice and need a bit of nastiness in there.

Got us to a semi-final and final in his only two tournaments so far. He’s not the perfect manager, but I’m struggling to see how he can’t be considered the second best in our history.

Yes I can see that side of it too. We did have them on the ropes early on but they adjusted and reacted well. They’re a wily and experienced team and it isn’t just as easy as saying we should attack more or keep the ball better. I don’t think the plan was to cede possession as we did but Jorginho and Verratti are two quality players on the ball. Rice and Phillips, for all their undoubted strengths defensively, are not. I would have liked to have seen us attack Jorginho a bit more perhaps with Mount and Grealish playing advanced central roles, as I think he has a big weakness with people running at and off him, but this could easily have seen us picked off elsewhere.
Southgate is conservative, it’s both a strength and a weakness as it is something that saw us get to the final but it is also something that saw us struggle once we were there. But we were also unlucky last night and if we’d won, which we were very close to doing, he’d be being hailed today. To take the next step I think we need a midfielder who can dictate and control a game - I don’t know of the last English player who could do that and my knowledge of youth teams around the country isn’t strong enough to know if we have one coming through.

I struggle to believe that an international manager, who isnt very tactically astute, could take his team to 2 semi finals and a final in his first 3 major tournaments. 

I don't really get all the Captain Hindsight stuff. When you're leading 1-0 in a Euro Championship Final, very comfortably may I add, I can totally understand why a game-managing, cautious coach didn't go on the front foot and make wholesale changes. I think Chiesa created one decent chance for them all game and they grab a scrappy, 4th ricochet off a corner equaliser to get back into it - poo happens. 
Literally a couple of penalties being scored away from being knighted. Carry on Gareth, you're doing a brilliant job. 

Totally agree.  I think he’s self-aware enough to know he could have done some things better.  And, importantly, not too arrogant to think he didn’t.  And a good point about progress - small steps is far more sustainable than a giant leap.

That does go for management as well as players. Mancini had that bit more boys than Southgate. 
it’s okay to say Southgate did a great job, getting us to the finals, got almost all the decisions right and was just the width of the post away from bringing home the trophy. 
it’s also okay to say that he ducked up the timing of the substitutions and got played by Mancini. 
both things can be true at the same time. 
he’d be an absolute idiot to not learn some lessons from the few decisions he got wrong. Snd I don’t believe he’s an idiot. 
Any talk of replacing him 18 months before a World Cup we could win is ridiculous. What’s more likely, we get a new manager that manages to get up to speed, change our tactics, maybe introduce new players and wins a World Cup just 18 months from taking over (when has that ever happened?), or the manager that has gradually taken us from 4th to 3rd to 2nd in consecutive tournaments continues to work with his team, learn his lessons and continues to progress and go one better in the next tournament?

It's not an argument worth your time. Semi-final and a final in the last two tournaments, and some fans will do anything to move the goalposts to make the achievement seem lesser somehow.
We played the best team in the tournament yesterday and we didn't lose. The team played for each other and defended resolutely. We also bombarded Italy early on, but inevitably, they grew into the occasion.
People bang on about Southgate having this incredible bench, which he does, but how useful is it having loads of wingers? You can't play them all at once. I totally get the argument that bringing them on earlier might have asked more questions of Italy, but that's still up for debate. Our defending kept us in a game against a much better side.
And Italy are better than us. While Chiesa has been outstanding, he is not significantly better than our attacking players, so that is not why they are better. Bonucci and Chiellini are fantastic defenders, but they conceded more goals than Stones and Maguire, who were imperious throughout the tournament. So that is not why they are better.
Italy are better because they can control the ball. We can't. In 2018 Modric was the difference, and last night it was Jorginho. These are the players we just can't seem to produce in this country, for whatever reason.
Qatar will play out much the same. But that doesn't mean we can't win it.

Ultimately though, hindsight is 20:20. If Henderson had taken one and missed I am sure questions would be asked as to why he was on the list, when he missed in the shootout v Colombia in 2018 and missed one in the warm up game pre this tournament. On the flip side, who would have had Maguire pegged to take the best pen from both teams in the shootout?
The only change I would have made, and I’m not even sure the order can be changed on the fly, would have been to give Pickford number 5 once he had saved from Jorginho. He was in a no lose situation having kept us in it anyway. Even then he was down to take 6th so it just kicks the can down the road. But I believe the best takers were those who took them, just didn’t quite fall right. Anyone can miss on the day, Jorginho is one of the best takers around and he did.
Ultimately though, I just don’t think Southgate should be defined by decisions made in a shootout. Taking second immediately puts you at a disadvantage, no problem with that as someone has to do it, but it shows how fine the margins are that it can come down to a coin toss.
We did play conservatively on the day but ultimately were a few unlucky ricochets from a set piece away from a perfectly managed final. That’s fine, tournaments can so often be defined by luck, in such a small sample of games. If we had continued to attack maybe Italy score more / sooner. We have an excellent set of players, but so did Italy, and so do most teams in international tournaments these days.

Another thing is that international sides generally do not play like club sides do. It’s easy to say we should give it to someone like Graham Potter but he will be working day in day out with his players and coaching them in his image. International managers do not get that luxury and so it is a completely different skill set. 
Southgate has assembled a largely very good unit from a bunch of squads who play different styles. Not many international teams are going to be playing really cohesive football unless they all come from the same club team, like the great Spain team largely did. 
As others have said I think we are a controlling midfielder away from being a really really good team. Who that is or where they are coming from I don’t know, until we have it we will struggle in games like yesterday against Italy who have a Jorginho, who is there purely to control. Rice and Phillips had good tournaments but are ball winners, not tempo setters. Even then we only conceded from a set piece where there were about 3 unlucky ricochets. Ideally we would manage the whole game better but people seem to forget there are two teams trying to win a game playing cat and mouse with each other.
Honestly utter stupidity that there are discussions about replacing a manager who has achieved more than ALL of his predecessors bar one, and was a couple of penalties away from leading us to a tournament win. 

Bar last night, pretty much every tactical call he made came off in the Euro's and World Cup, he's taken us the final of the former, and semi final of the latter, so I'm a bit confused on how people can't rate him.  
On the flip side, I don't think I'd want him as Derby manager, as I think he suits international management a lot better as he has a lot more of a thinker than a day to day boss.  The 2 month gap he has in between games gives him plenty of time to assess opponents and make plans accordingly.  It also helps having the cream of English players to choose from instead of a mish mash of mediocre players like he had at Boro.

What a load of nonsense. Do you expect to play all the 'best teams' in a tournament. You know it never works like that.
You could just as well flip the narrative and say Italy had an easy run. They beat Turkey who were one of the worst teams in the tournament, Wales whose star players are past their best. They needed extra time against Austria who had a goal disallowed. They just about beat Belgium with an old back line, no Hazard and a half fit Kevin de bruyne. Got dominated by Spain and were lucky to win on penalties.
Why is it always England who are 'lucky.' People like you will never give Southgate credit no matter what happens. You will always find a way to pick it apart. 

There is nothing wrong with telling it like it is. By some distance, Italy were the best team all tournament and absolutely deserved to win it.
And at the same time, by some distance, this is the best England side in half a century.
Telling it like it is not happening with some people. For them, they are framing the narrative of last night as if it’s akin to not qualifying in 2008.
Being second best to the best team in Europe - and, when the South American teams are not on top, that also means the world too - is not a failure. 

You are so right. 
I am one of those who for a while shook my head when I saw the early selections. 
Then I suddenly had the massive revelation that perhaps I, a balding office worker, might not know the intricacies of team management at the very top level, nor see and hear the players on a daily basis. 
I don't have training badges, no one is likely to pay me for my opinion and I have not taken England to a major final. 
So guess what? 
Last night I just sat down and watched. 
Italy are a better side than us at the moment but our future looks bright. 
I thought we did blooming well including Mr Southgate. 
There are some very bad losers about.