Kathcairns

My only comment about the comparisons with the Reading match was at the time we were on a downward spiral with a defence that leaked goals for fun. Neither are the case this time.

Just reverse psychology that. Trying to gee his players up for one final push and prove him wrong.

It’s the natural reaction to it all I think, a mix of excitement at the increased probability of succeeding, and nerves at the inevitable possibility of us messing it up. I’ve been optimistic all season, and am still a wreck internally about these last couple of games 

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit regarding anyone.

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. 

Here are my stats that I also hope you trust, as I too have worked hard on them.
Teams that accumulate more points than 22 other sides in their division over the period of 46 games get promotion in the English football pyramid 100% of the time.*
 
*Stats based on a sample of over 120 years of competitive football where sides are ranked based on points-based performance.

We came out of admin with 6 rostered senior pros and just missed out off the back a non-existent pre-season, with a cobbled together team. That team is now challenging for the autos in our second season since facing liquidation, all achieved while under soft-embargo and an enforced business plan too.
You can sneer all you like, but some folk are actually proud of how this club has turned things around, a notion you clearly find hilarious.

With Warne's managerial background being at Rotherham (no disrespect to Rotherham intended) his managerial tactics evolved based upon managing a smaller club, less resources, less player-pulling power and often being the underdog  in any football match. As such his tactics were based not on how can I get my team to out-pass / outplay the opposition, but more on how to counter them. I suspect that he didn't have that much experience of matches where teams would try to counter his tactics.

I think this year we have seen Warne growing as a manager, we still see that he sets up his team to counter the strengths (real or supposed) of opposing teams, and also he has struggled where teams are countering our play of getting the ball wide by doubling up on our wingers.
However, he is becoming more rounded in his tactical approach, with a lot of the play being along the floor or attempted pin-point long balls down or across to the wing.
Yes, we still hoof it, but only when a side effectively closes us down. 
I was sceptical of Warne when he first came, in fact I started the first thread questioning his tactics after his debut home game and whether our possession-based team could deliver them, but this season (more so than his first) he has learnt and developed how to progress from managing a smaller football club with limited expectation to a bigger club with a high expectation level.

I am hoping for the same development next season if we get promoted, especially starting to mix it up in the midfield area which we will definitely need in the Championship. 
 

Looks like Warne is going to do it as we are odds on to finish 2nd as one win should do it now
He has to be given credit as do his coaching team and the players
Looking forward to Cambridge and Carlisle now
Paul says himself he is like marmite but he has to be given credit.
Well done Warney it’s been tough and you deserve a good summer holiday 

We look back a CBT's miss and think that we're the only team that miss sitters. Looking at this and watching Liverpool v Palace on Sunday makes you realise that other players, including 'world class' players also miss sitters.

All a matter of perspective I suppose, you say probably scraped in and yet we’ve accumulated the second largest points total in the league (so far), have the second highest number of wins in the league (so far), and (although I don’t have the stats) have been in the automatic promotion positions for a fair few weeks at the business end of the season.
Has it been hard work at times? Yeah, for sure, but in my opinion over the course of the season it’s hard to say we don’t deserve it based on results and the league table.
 
“Scraped in?” Not for me.

Players that were free or unwanted by their previous clubs. Players that are paid what the EFL will allow, not whatever we want. Yes, they are good players for this level and well-paid towards other clubs, but as we know ourselves, more money does not necessarily equal more success.

I do wonder how some people actually get into football. What I love most is winning, as long as the only stat we win in is goals scored, then I’m happy. I get the criticism of it, if you don’t play good football then you absolutely have to get the results, because you have nothing to fall back on and people will turn quicker as shown numerous times this season.
But the reason you watch your team is to hopefully see them win, surely? I really don’t see how getting automatic promotion from any league can be twisted into a negative. And like you said, our points are at a record level and will hopefully make it into the 90s. Biggest goal difference, second highest number of wins. You can’t even argue that we’ve got lucky.

First promotion for 17 years. First automatic promotion for nearly 30 years. Let’s counter your argument and say you think that finishing 3rd, playing good football but failing where it really matters is an achievement?
The arrogant attitude that anything less than running away with the title with triple figure points is a failure is why big clubs like Sunderland, Ipswich, Notts Forest etc got stuck down here for longer.
Less than two years ago we had about 6 players, no academy, no manager and had to play pre-season in temporary shirts because we didn’t even have kits. We were also put under restrictions, which still haven’t run out yet. So yes, I think getting automatic promotion in this timeframe is an achievement. A very good one, actually.

What do you want to discuss? Everyone agrees the quality of football hasn't been great but that’s all you keep harping on about.

Yes, he's been doing that all along, now he's writing off Cambridge and Carlisle to get reaction out of them and also making the Derby players think that they've just got to turn up, to get the points.

It’ll be a last-gasp attempt at mind games. He obviously won’t be telling his players that, they’ll still believe they can do it.
Really, the only way they get past us now is if we get so over-confident that it’s done, that we don’t go into games at our maximum effort.
It would be a disaster from us to throw it away from here, but I guess Evatt has to do anything he can to influence that.

Bolton play Port Vale this Saturday. Its a must win for Vale or they're down. Hopefully the biggest club in Staffordshire will get the result they need to stay up. The chance of playing their noisy neighbours from across the dystopian wasteland next season will motivate them even more to stay up!
 
It would be rather nice to wave to the Stokies as we pass them coming down from an Utcheter perspective as well.
 
Bloody hell, could the stars align that much to see the gumps down, Leicester fck up and Derby slip effortlessly into the Championship?
 

The thing is, how we fare in the Championship (should we get there) doesn’t depend solely on Warne.
It will require Clowes, Pearce, Hale, Thomas, Warne and all the other key people at the club working well to get things right.
The common denominator between teams that go up and prosper and teams that fall flat is not style of play. It’s how the club operates, the resources they have to be able to improve, and how they work strategically to achieve that.
Many think Warne will be the weak link moving forward, but if he has a team of good football people around him and the backing of the board, maybe collectively we’ll be stronger and more switched on than people assume.
 
 

For good or ill, football is a results business.  I nearly lost faith following the Crewe defeat in November (as I was nervous of the tactics), but a winning run put an end to that.
Warne, should we gain promotion, will then have a two year contract playing in the Championship.  I think, based on statements by Clowes, he would have a goal of keeping us up and everything else being a bonus.  Failure there, and I think he would be in deep trouble.
You ask about when to have the debate.  Simple; it becomes live when any of the following happen:
a) if we fail to go up - the debate starts immediately on us being knocked out the pay offs
b) we go up, he get's a budget but it doesn't work and he offers no constructive approach to remedy the issue (effectively we are slow walking to relegation) - but this is next January/Feb at the earliest
c) we are re-relegated, under all the circumstances.
 
My point is that he is going for set goals, which i contend some are confusing for tactics.  A strategy is: we get up, stay up and then, and only then, truly look to kick on.  If he fails at any of these strategy, there are arguments the strategy has not worked.  
Tactics are how you get there.
The tactics will change with the opposition, let alone the league.  The players will improve as TV money will allow a better standard. The demands and the style of play will change.  
Our current tactics probably will not work.  Warne's job will be to find the players and the tactics to meet his objective.  We cannot judge him on a standard, when we demand he meets a completely different standard that is wholly divergent: we demand he gets results to win promotion, but in a less skilful league of flying tackles where fancy football gets you loads of possession and no end result (ala LR).  We then criticise the lack of skill.  Therefore, he has to win the promotion in front of him like beating the team in front of you.  He is plainly succeeding here.
We have no idea what a Warne side in the Championship will look like, never mind the tactics he would deploy - and nor do you nor anyone on this site.  Rotherham gives a guide, but they did not have our resources and only tell you so much.  The fact is, if he succeeds he has earned his shot
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I don’t remember there being.  If there was, he wouldn’t have made it past the 1st season, finish 4 places off a promotion spot.  Plus, players were signed from the top division.  And there’s some who think we have a good squad now!!
There are some reasons for that though.  In general, I don’t think there was as much of a “want it now” society.  People were prepared to wait for things.  There wasn’t the saturation with football that there is now.  Back then, you had cup finals and Internationals as the only live football and MOTD and the like was only 3 games, including lower league. Now, everyone is exposed to Man City, Liverpool, Barcelona, etc and it raises expectations.  And places like this didn’t exist.  There was no forums or Twitter for people to say how rubbish the line up is the second it’s released or comment during the game.

Derby should have sacked Davies, but not for being an inappropriate manager for the PL, but because he was a sh*t-stirrer who only cared about himself.
I'd rather not be one of those clubs who sacks a manager who's brought them success simply because they think there are "better options out there" (see Birmingham City 2016-2024).

The football this season has rarely been pretty, I don’t think anyone can deny that and the thought of more of the same isn’t very appetising. However, how much of that is down to the manager’s preferred style and how much is down to a need to adapt and do whatever it takes to get out of this league? Probably a combination of both. On the latter point, a lot of games this seem to blur into each other (which maybe says it all) but I reckon a lot of our entertaining football has come against the better teams in the league (I can’t substantiate that theory before anyone asks, it’s just a gut feeling). So, on that basis, I think we’ll either get rolled over pretty much every week (or, if we’re lucky manage to cling on for a point or three every now and then) or, we’re able to make some decent recruitment in the summer and will be able to go toe to toe with the more talented teams you get in the Championship - matching them to an extent in terms quality of football. 
 
Obviously the former is what we all fear whilst the latter is what we all want. I for one (not that it’s up to me of course), am prepared to give PW the benefit of the doubt and accept that, to a degree, the quality of football we have seen this season has been down to the league we’ve been playing in. I totally get that some members on this forum really don’t rate him, don’t like his football, don’t think anything will change if we go up, and want him gone but, I’m hoping such individuals (not aimed at you by the way) give their Warne out campaign a bit of a rest next season for at least a dozen games.

But may I ask why? Various so called "big " clubs have taken more than one season to escape from League One. Why should we be any different, especially after just coming out of administration?

If we sack a manager who is doing well, we would be - and would be seen to be - a basket case.