eddielewis

Either way this set up just isolates Gayle.
The only way to get something out of his type of striker is to have someone just never more than 5-10 yards behind so they can latch onto his movement of defenders.
If Bird and Adams are playing that flat 2 were gonna need Sibley and Ward to not give the ball away so easily when we've committed to attacks. 

Either way this set up just isolates Gayle.
The only way to get something out of his type of striker is to have someone just never more than 5-10 yards behind so they can latch onto his movement of defenders.
If Bird and Adams are playing that flat 2 were gonna need Sibley and Ward to not give the ball away so easily when we've committed to attacks. 

Either way this set up just isolates Gayle.
The only way to get something out of his type of striker is to have someone just never more than 5-10 yards behind so they can latch onto his movement of defenders.
If Bird and Adams are playing that flat 2 were gonna need Sibley and Ward to not give the ball away so easily when we've committed to attacks. 

PV are a team to fear. We need to set up to counter their threat. Hopefully we can sneak a goal from a random piece of luck.

I really liked the theory that was laid out in the final couple of years of Mel’s tenure (frightening sentence, I know). The idea that over half the first team would be made up of academy players, with high quality loans to cover shorter term gaps and good signings brought in to cover areas where there were no players coming through. I thought this was quite a good model in the modern day. It would attract youngsters with high ceilings to the club as their was a clear path to the first team, build confidence with other clubs to lend us their best talent, and allow us to spend decent money on players as academy players would be pure profit. It seemed to align academy with first team and present a good vision for a modern sustainable football club. 
 
I think we were maybe a couple of seasons from seeing it come to fruition too. We were looking at having a team/squad with the potential of having Knight, Bird, Sibley, Thompson, Delap, Gordon, Kellyman, Cashin, Ebosele, Buchanan, Whitaker, Plange, and Williams all drawn from our own academy in it. We all know why it never happened, and the initial idea behind it may have been pushed by outside factors, but looking at the idea on paper it showed a club well aligned in philosophy, both in development and recruitment.
At the moment I don’t really know what the plan is. Academy players don’t seem to be anywhere near it. That might be due to the club being gutted and them not being to the standard but they never seem to be given a chance. The recruitment seems to be focused on older players, but they don’t appear to fit a system. Cocu spoke about having all teams playing the same way so younger players can step up, which seems really sensible, but currently our first team doesn’t seem to have a consistent way of playing let alone something aligned through the age groups. I think we could do with really setting out a clear goal and a philosophy and working towards it. It would really allow supporters to buy into the vision and direction. Build trust and patience. And, as I think supporters often back their academy graduates the most, really build a unity between team and fans. 

👍

Just to be clear, and to avoid any more nominations sarcastic or not. I have absolutely no interest in the role.
None whatsoever. Zero. Zilch. 
Whoever takes it on, good luck, be prepared for all kinds of abuse and repeatedly told “you don’t represent me”.
I’ll just stay over here in this little corner of the internet and keep this place online for you all. I’m happy doing that.

Because it's so close to the end of the season it's futile and depending on how far you take it toxic to bang the drum of Warne out when really us fans just need to keep a positive atmosphere and hope we achieve promotion.
I'm still concerned however with the structure around Warne since he was appointed. I understand and appreciate Clowes went with the plan of getting Warne in who is proven in getting out of this league and also sticking by him after last season and even earlier this season but it didn't address the problem we had under Mel which is being manager-proof in our philosophy of football and recruitment. A major reason why we spent so much money was to supplement the manager of the time rather than thinking long term. Signing Nugent instead of Ollie Watkins springs to mind.
It seems the modern structure of clubs who are copying success stories of Luton, Brighton, Brentford all have a common theme of separating the recruitment from the manager/coach and basically giving that power to the Chief Scout/Director of Football/However you want to title it. The manager/coach just basically coaches and if they can't with the players they are dealt they go! Those above clubs have had managers come and go and it's not phased them one bit in terms of their progression. It's almost like the NFL where the structure is Owner - General Manager - Head Coach.
What I worry going into this year because realistically Warne is staying barring us missing even the playoffs that we continue to give him total control over the recruitment and it results in more players like Callum Elder, Conor Washington and John-Jules. If Warne struggles early on like he did this season and he's gone does Clowes go for a similar manager or a completely different playing style. If it's the latter that will be a waste of a first window without restrictions and a waste of money. This is what I mean about us being manager proof!
The crucial question that should be posed to Clowes is what type/style of football does he want to see and does he think that matches the majority of fans opinion as well because right now we have style of football that is hard to watch for a lot of fans who have grown up with Stevie Mac. 

People have always used the away record as a stick to beat Liam with.  We only played four away games in the league and had barely had a pre-season.  It's too small a sample size to judge. 
We absolutely battered Charlton and lost 1 nil.  Battered Fleetwood and couldn't put the ball in the net.  Admittedly we were poor against Shrewsbury and Lincoln but by God we've had worse performances under Warne and far more often as well.   

Really 🤣 How much preparation time did he have 😂 McGoldrick was our talisman last season and hardly played under Liam. To get that team 7th under the circumstances, the same position Warney got us at the end of the season, was good enough in my book 😊

The thing with Sibley at left back is, he's good going forwards, but less good when he has to do some proper defending.  Last night, against a pretty poor, out of form team, at home, should have been an obvious game to use Sibley there.  They didn't really get at Cashin all that often, certainly not to the extent where you're thinking Sibley would have struggled.

Because it's so close to the end of the season it's futile and depending on how far you take it toxic to bang the drum of Warne out when really us fans just need to keep a positive atmosphere and hope we achieve promotion.
I'm still concerned however with the structure around Warne since he was appointed. I understand and appreciate Clowes went with the plan of getting Warne in who is proven in getting out of this league and also sticking by him after last season and even earlier this season but it didn't address the problem we had under Mel which is being manager-proof in our philosophy of football and recruitment. A major reason why we spent so much money was to supplement the manager of the time rather than thinking long term. Signing Nugent instead of Ollie Watkins springs to mind.
It seems the modern structure of clubs who are copying success stories of Luton, Brighton, Brentford all have a common theme of separating the recruitment from the manager/coach and basically giving that power to the Chief Scout/Director of Football/However you want to title it. The manager/coach just basically coaches and if they can't with the players they are dealt they go! Those above clubs have had managers come and go and it's not phased them one bit in terms of their progression. It's almost like the NFL where the structure is Owner - General Manager - Head Coach.
What I worry going into this year because realistically Warne is staying barring us missing even the playoffs that we continue to give him total control over the recruitment and it results in more players like Callum Elder, Conor Washington and John-Jules. If Warne struggles early on like he did this season and he's gone does Clowes go for a similar manager or a completely different playing style. If it's the latter that will be a waste of a first window without restrictions and a waste of money. This is what I mean about us being manager proof!
The crucial question that should be posed to Clowes is what type/style of football does he want to see and does he think that matches the majority of fans opinion as well because right now we have style of football that is hard to watch for a lot of fans who have grown up with Stevie Mac. 

A few points:
1.  It's an entertainment business.  If the club think they can rely entirely on goodwill to keep people coming in through the gates, they're in for a shock.  And more than anything, playing entertaining football gives you something to fall back on when results don't go your way.  If you play well but manage to lose the game, people are still going to be largely positive.  If you play terribly and lose anyway, then what have you got? Nothing.
2.  I think there's definitely an argument that going up and coming straight back down is worse than not going up this year, then going up in a season or 2 and staying there.  We are still a "temporarily embarrassed Championship club" in most peoples minds (potential signings included), going up and staying up reinforces that.  Proving that we can't compete at Championship level any more just hammers home that we might end up stuck permanently at this kind of level.  (Obviously I know you can't pick and choose your promotions, you take what you can etc.)
3.  When did people get so down on the club?  It's like a big chunk of Derby fans have decided that we need to be punished and aren't allowed to have nice things any more.  It's *weird*.  We're not demanding that the club plays like Real Madrid every game, but it would be nice if we actually tried every now and then.  We're one of the biggest clubs in the league, with pretty much the biggest wage bill, probably the best academy and whatever else.  We should be going into games believing we can outplay the opposition, and okay if we can't then we find other ways to win, but we should at least be starting with that mindset.  I find the gamut of "it's League One, we have to play bad football" to  "we can't outplay teams, so we'll have to outrun them" type attitudes pretty sad to be honest.  We should be a team that plays good football and believes that we are good enough to beat teams by doing that.

Because it's so close to the end of the season it's futile and depending on how far you take it toxic to bang the drum of Warne out when really us fans just need to keep a positive atmosphere and hope we achieve promotion.
I'm still concerned however with the structure around Warne since he was appointed. I understand and appreciate Clowes went with the plan of getting Warne in who is proven in getting out of this league and also sticking by him after last season and even earlier this season but it didn't address the problem we had under Mel which is being manager-proof in our philosophy of football and recruitment. A major reason why we spent so much money was to supplement the manager of the time rather than thinking long term. Signing Nugent instead of Ollie Watkins springs to mind.
It seems the modern structure of clubs who are copying success stories of Luton, Brighton, Brentford all have a common theme of separating the recruitment from the manager/coach and basically giving that power to the Chief Scout/Director of Football/However you want to title it. The manager/coach just basically coaches and if they can't with the players they are dealt they go! Those above clubs have had managers come and go and it's not phased them one bit in terms of their progression. It's almost like the NFL where the structure is Owner - General Manager - Head Coach.
What I worry going into this year because realistically Warne is staying barring us missing even the playoffs that we continue to give him total control over the recruitment and it results in more players like Callum Elder, Conor Washington and John-Jules. If Warne struggles early on like he did this season and he's gone does Clowes go for a similar manager or a completely different playing style. If it's the latter that will be a waste of a first window without restrictions and a waste of money. This is what I mean about us being manager proof!
The crucial question that should be posed to Clowes is what type/style of football does he want to see and does he think that matches the majority of fans opinion as well because right now we have style of football that is hard to watch for a lot of fans who have grown up with Stevie Mac. 

The kit is in tribute to the surface we used to play actual football on

The kit is in tribute to the surface we used to play actual football on

I try not to think about that but thanks for giving me insomnia tonight 😂

I try not to think about that but thanks for giving me insomnia tonight 😂

I try not to think about that but thanks for giving me insomnia tonight 😂

Yes he did say that but for further context he carried on by saying 'I've always said there is another gear we can get to' 
The most irritating bit from the interview was a facetious comment in the lines of 'we needed their keeper to take out one of our forwards'

Wigan have scored. Doing Mr Warne a great big fat favour right now!

We started the match playing cute little balls and short quick passing which suited playing into gayle touch and move style which I haven't seen since the game vs Northampton which is probably some of the best football we've played 
Then second half we just resorted to lumping it up the pitch
Not taking men on in wide areas 
Long throwings (which i hate)
like we completely deviated from the game plan we started with but I've noticed if NML doesn't have a good game then we don't win
and why is Sonny Bradley our main goal theat now in the last 10 minutes of a game, we have to drop him in my opinion too much in balance and cashin is twice the centre back he is and he covers for him a lot due to bradleys lack of pace or maybe alertness... at 6ft5 he should be
A) Bullying strikers off the ball
B) scoring more headers from corners 
no point moaning about sacking Warne but we need to discuss... how do we cope without Collins?

I brushed off the mistake Wildsmith made at Oxford as a one off but for him to do the exact same but even worse as players were back is criminal. Is it worth it now to drop him for Loach even until Vickers comes back?

I brushed off the mistake Wildsmith made at Oxford as a one off but for him to do the exact same but even worse as players were back is criminal. Is it worth it now to drop him for Loach even until Vickers comes back?

Here’s an insightful tactical appraisal of the first 45 minutes pinched from the Charlton forum! 👍😁

“Their brand of shyte is marginally more creative than our brand of shyte. Utter shyte nonetheless. This league is just, well, utter shyte.”