alram

1 hour ago, FindernRam said:

There was much talk about how hard players were being worked in pre-season, so how come we were out run by a load of players who apparently haven't been paid and seemed better motivated?

if you want your answer:

wigan starting 11 age:

21

25, 19, 20, 26

21, 22

32, 24, 25

30

average age: 24

derby starting 11 age:

27

30, 31, 21

34, 32, 32, 22, 27

31, 32

average age: 29

we have 3 players under 30 and we wonder why we get outrun by a team with 2 players over 30? it feels like it happens in every game, last season we relied on superior quality

1 hour ago, Jourdan said:

Everyone knows that we’ve only played one game, but the opening day in many ways can be a tone setter.

Everyone knows that I back Warne and believe he has what it takes to succeed here, but after the way we finished last season and the way the summer transfer window has unfolded, we needed a positive, affirmative start to wash away growing concerns.

You could feel the energy in the stadium - it wasn’t one of confidence or excitement. It was rather flat - a mix of nerves, tension and in some cases trepidation.

The performance didn’t do anything to lift the mood. Making one solitary signing won’t do that either, as welcome as Waghorn obviously is.

I don’t think anyone is whining. I think people are seeing fears realised and in some cases, like mine, people are just disappointed we didn’t show more.

for me its an outpouring of lots of red flags and warning signs all summer, we have been told everythings fine everythings fine, then when we finally see it in action it's everything we worried about.

it is not negativity it is worry, i am really not keen as some of lingering at this level

2 hours ago, Macintosh said:

There's a new book coming out in October about the Rams' last few seasons Pride Before the Fall). A nice mention of Waggy:

 

Underpinning some of Cocu’s demise was the presence of Rooney. Talk of Cocu not particularly wanting Rooney at the club and the signing being thrust upon him was doing the rounds amid the squad in earnest. Rooney had been brought in as a player-coach, but did little in the way of coaching outside of sitting in on video sessions and passing on some advice to several players.

‘If he liked you, he’d offer you advice,’ Max Lowe remarked. ‘[Max] Bird, [Jason] Knight – they were his boys. I think he saw some of himself in them. He liked them. Waggy [Martyn Waghorn], too. But for some of the lads it was a bit hard to integrate with Wayne. Obviously we were at a different level from where he’d come from. I think it was hard to find a bit of common ground with him sometimes.’

Whispers had also spread through the squad that Rooney had a clause in his contract that he was going to be the next manager – something which created somewhat of an uneasy tension within the changing room.

‘Sometimes you didn’t feel like you were just playing with Wayne the player. You felt like it was an audition to see if the next manager wanted you there,’ said Lowe.

‘You’d come in on a Monday and we’d break out into our warm-ups and people would ask where Wayne was,’ Lowe said. ‘I think Waghorn would get a bit annoyed especially as he and Wayne would play on the PlayStation together and stuff – they were pretty close – then Wayne wouldn’t show the next day.

‘We never got told if it was a day off or if he was injured or excused for personal reasons. None of that. He just wasn’t there. Then obviously he’d come straight into the team at the weekend and it meant guys like Duane, or Graeme [Shinnie], or Knight, or [Krystian] Bielik had to drop out of the team.’

jesus talk about old boys club

3 hours ago, ollycutts1982 said:

Think this reaffirms where we are. Quite ironic really, Waggy was signed on a decent contract for an over inflated price, a model that got us into so much turmoil. We then resign him as we are under a budget and can’t go out and pay decent fees at the minute so we are shopping in the bargain basement. 
 

Truth be told I wasn’t fussed when he left us so not going to pretend to be excited about him coming back. I will get behind him like I do any player who pulls on the shirt. I was just hoping for better. Certainly to wear the number 10 shirt. Only a number I know but while it was available I was hoping for a better quality of signing. 

summed up very well great post

4 minutes ago, CBX1985 said:

We have been under strict rules due to what happened just one year ago. Let's say we get promoted, we would probably want a greatly changed squad.  

Short termism to get us up might be a pretty good strategy.  

yeah it might be and i hope it is.

it just wouldnt be what i would do as there is a backup plan if you sign players with an upward curve. eventually we will run out of players to sell and you just end up in an endless cycle of signing a new core of players every summer. good teams take time to build and grow together, doesnt happen if you sign everyone on 1 year deals

16 minutes ago, Caerphilly Ram said:

Not exactly the same position. We will be free of the agreed business plan. We may be in league one if he doesn’t do well, we may be in the championship if he does. There might be more viable options available to us on free transfers next season and/or we might be in a position to spend more. We will also have Dajaune Brown 1 year further into his development and potentially ready to step up to the first team with a clear path open to him and less pressure on his young shoulders having been supported through his development this season, thanks in part to the improved depth of senior pros.
None of us can predict the future so can’t say definitively what will happen. This is a signing that adds squad depth to the forward line in the immediate, which I think is one of the only things we as fans unanimously agree was needed. There is indeed an element of short-termism in this signing, but for the moment that’s the reality of where the club seems to be. 🤷🏻‍♂️ 

it's the reality because we keep buying old players and having to do business next season to replace them

if it was waghorn in isolation its a good signing, but added into the rest of the age profile of our squad and the desperate need for athletisim in the squad, i am very underwhelmed - he is just not the sort of player we need and in a years time we will be in exactly the same position looking for his replacement whether he does well or not.

17 minutes ago, hiltonram said:

I don't know what path you want to go down but the right path is to not spend more than we are getting in and have to go through what we all have endured these last three years.

 

i have said several times, younger players with an upward growth path - not high wage older players with a downwards trajectory

i am not saying we should spend more money i am saying we should spend what we are currently spending wiser and build a squad that will take us forward properly so we arent in this exact same situation every summer

every year we do what we have done this summer and last summer we will have to rebuild the entire squad, its a fact we are not building anything we are just putting a team together until they run out of legs

18 hours ago, EnigmaRam said:

I don’t often agree with your negativity but in this regard I do. 
 

There’s no guarantees we will go up no matter who we sign. But almost every signing in the last 3 windows has been old players with no sell on value. 
 

Would much rather have gone for the younger players that were free like Bernard and Smith etc. even if we didn’t go up or work out they would still have value for a nominal sale. If they did do well they could be worth millions.

Hopefully this is the last window we will need to get free old has beens in to make up a team

sorry if i often get on peoples nerves i do love a rant i must admit, i am just frustrated in the direction the club is going. I hope it is genuinely to do with constraints in the market and not the overall vision because in my opinion we are going down the wrong path

43 minutes ago, enachops said:

I think last summer was decent given the circumstances. We had 5 players at the start of pre season, no scouting system or anything in place. We did well to recruit who we did.

This summer, those excuses don’t exist and we’ve still gone down the same route of recruiting ageing players. It’s a short term plan. I’m fine with that if we go up. But, if we don’t and we lose Cashin, Bird, Sibley etc. That’s a massive rebuild on a limited budget. I can’t for the life of me workout why he hasn’t recruited more pace and athleticism. It’s what a ‘Warne team’ is all about. People like Pennington we could’ve got from Shrewsbury rather than Blackpool. 28 and got 4 year’s minimum out of him. Would add a bit more to our back line.

 

yes, a perfect situation to build a squad from scratch.

my frustration is we are no better off than we were then as we will be in the exact same situation next summer unless we go up

i would just like to see us build a long term squad instead of throw one together thatll be dismantled at the end of every season

1 hour ago, oldtimeram said:

Don't want him at Derby

 

i am not sure why he would want to be at derby either considering the bad blood thats been around for years

you know what winds me up is when you go down its with the view of oh we can finally rebuild properly.

we have done the opposite, weve assembled an ageing squad that already needs rebuilding and we just put it together. really poor recruitment overall since we have gone down.

1 hour ago, duncanjwitham said:

When Warne was first appointed I posted on here that, given the state of the squad at the time and the financial restrictions etc, we were basically writing off at least 2 seasons.  He was going to have to replace the majority of the squad with players that could play his way, and I didn't think it was worth doing that, given his record in the Championship etc.  A lot of people were not happy with me posting that - "Warne guarantees promotion" they told me.  Nothing I have seen in the nearly a year since then has changed my mind.

Whilst that is true we would have brought him under the conditions of get the best out of what youve got

its easy to make excuses for the guy but at the end of the day he needs to deliver this season, he is working under difficult conditions but its what he was brought in for - to work to a budget

2 minutes ago, Caerphilly Ram said:

There’s genuinely no logic in your argument. If you don’t think he’s a good player, just say that, don’t qualify with with this stubborn narrative that he hasn’t played at or “made an impact” at championship level.

He has played the last four seasons in the championship captaining a side that got progressively better over those four years to the point they then won the play offs, what more of an impact do you want him to have had?

I don’t care if you don’t like or rate the bloke, that’s your opinion, the rationale your presenting to justify that opinion strikes me as fundamentally flawed. But as I keep realising, you won’t budge in that stance despite the evidence that proves otherwise so I give up once again trying.

hes a league one standard player which is where we are

claiming he is a quality championship player just because hes been a bit part player in the league above has no logic. we have had bags of crap players in that league that clearly playing above their level

these arent championship quality players we are bringing in which is what you are claiming

2 hours ago, Ram a lamb a ding dong said:

Genuine question so pls dont shoot me down if it is a generally known fact as I'm not in the area anymore.

Are the spend constraints due to EFL or DC?

If the former its no wonder we are struggling to buy players who can improve us.

If its the latter its a bigger worry as it shows we haven't got the monies available to add those players who can make a difference.

We struck lucky with DM last season. Without him we would have been top half at best

nobody can answer you definitively if they claim to they are guessing.

my guess is we have a specific budget to spend allowed by the EFL and can spend how we want but are opting to go for a high wage low fee approach

but either way its clear we dont have much to spend, we will learn about clowes next season when we shouldnt have an embargo. if it remains the same approach then it is a slight worry

56 minutes ago, Srg said:

Just a lack of pace all over the pitch. It’s the main issue. Look to the bench to change it… still no pace. 

Cashin had no clue yesterday what to do with their winger who was pulling him wide and got behind Forsyth. Smith is slower than slow, Hourihane can’t move with the ball, Collins gets the ball in acres on a counter but can’t make use of it… could go on.

We will beat teams with what we have, but we will struggle to achieve what we want to without a couple of players with pace signed in the next couple of weeks. 

Will say, though, yesterday we made so many unforced errors which can’t be pinned on the system. The two goals were errors, so many off target passes from the likes of Cashin and Smith. Static movement. All things which aren’t due to the system. Just poor execution. 

the problem is we had all summer to address this as we lacked pace and athletism last season

and our answer currently is to sign martyn waghorn...

the thing that i dont get is why so many defensive players on the pitch? 

we have to replace mcgoldricks goals, we are not going to do that by reducing the amount of attackers we have on the pitch or getting in the box.

if you play that system you need runners all over the pitch which we dont have, its square pegs in round holes which is strange considering he has had a whole pre season to figure this out

get more attackers on the pitch, this squad isnt going to score enough goals to get us promotion without bodies in the box

Just now, EraniosSocks said:

Think everyone’s being a bit over the top, wait until ten games in then we can moan a little 

so we should just say everythings brilliant until the 10th game . y

yeah makes sense

4 hours ago, Caerphilly Ram said:

I won’t dispute his part in the game yesterday, but Bradley’s poor performance yesterday doesn’t rewrite history. That’s the point I was making to you before and will reiterate it today. He has been playing at championship level for the last 4 seasons, in a team that established itself in that league with a 19th place finish in their first season, a 12th placed finish in their second season, then pushed for playoffs with a 6th place finish in the third season, and  then won the playoffs last year after finishing third.

I’ll give you the fact he didn’t have the best game yesterday, well done, it still doesn’t prove your theory that he’s not done it at championship level because the historic facts are that he has 🙄 

he has never made an impact at championship level, that is my point all along and its true. 

the standard of player incoming is lower than the ones we got last season who had mostly made an impact at the level above. 

these are league one standard players that were playing in the championship

I remember taking stick on here a few weeks ago saying the players we are bringing in like Bradley are not of the same quality as those last year and have never made any meaningful impact at championship level, bradleys debut was not encouraging at all and sadly isn’t proving me wrong yet 

6 hours ago, chadlad said:

…doesn’t work in my humble opinion. Has anyone won anything playing 3 at the back.

A number of times today there appeared to be a huge space in the middle of our defence. Sonny Bradley is undoubtedly a good player but is not the quickest and seems to have a habit of going awol.

Two CD’s make the defence more secure while still allowing full backs to overlap and wingers to cut inside.

Happy to be shot down - discuss. 🙂

 

It is going out of fashion for sure, it was coming back into fashion a few years ago

but now teams are going to a defensive 3 defenders in a back 4 and one attacking

you look Man City, Arsenal and Newcastle all do it and others will probably follow

12 minutes ago, G-Ram said:

Waggy is better than what we have uptop. Might not be the most exciting signing but We wasnt exactly excited about signing McGoldrick at the time.

Im Hoping that the drop in league & the chances we miss waggy might score a decent amount in this league

he might be better but he's not what we need

6 hours ago, ImARam2 said:

I wish fans would accept that Derby cannot "splurge" the cash anymore. It's only just over 12 months ago that we were on the verge of total oblivion - no ground; no players; no club - nothing whatsoever.

We've been to the edge of the abyss, looked in and we don't ever want to go there again.

I do not want to see an owner "splash" the cash and offer us dreams, then run out of money and see it all collapse.

If we have to buy players who are, by other club or division standards, "cheap" or loans, so be it, until the club is back on firm footing, without any embargos or EFL restricted business plans, when, perhaps one day, we can go back to trading players in the normal way.

David Clowes has a plan which he set out in his interview a few months ago, in which he hoped that Derby would be back, and competing, in the Championship within 5 years and if Derby have to remain in Division 1 for another season, I will accept that because I love my football watching my home town club Derby County FC.

Let's not get over excited about who may or may not be transferred, in or out of the club, in the next few weeks, because there is still 27 days to go before the transfer window closes on the 1st September.

Let the games begin - COYR's

i understand this completely, i dont want to see us splash the cash or do something ridiclous.

but my response would be a happy alternative is to invest in assets that can grow & dont put bigger wages into players ageing that wont improve or lack motivation. we look back to last season with mcgoldrick & hourihane, a few others also that will be on big wages for this level and a year or two down the line you have nothing to show for it meanwhile a younger player with an upward curve will protect the club better than those players. waghorn falls into the same category as the above two, yeah he might be good but it gets us nowhere long term.

2 minutes ago, Leeds Ram said:

It's one game, and it's important not to overreact, but that was fu**ing abject at every level. We were one-dimensional, slow, unfit, and worst of all we didn't even execute our own plan well. We gifted Wigan two goals, but every time they broke through the midfield screen, they looked dangerous and could have scored 3 or more today. Nelson looked uncomfortable on the ball, he isn't a WCB in a million years, constantly passing back, making us lose the initiative, and Bradley doesn't have the legs to cover the ground needed in the role he played today. That's what led to the mistake for the first goal, a negative pass which put pressure on Bradley which then led to a Wyke rounding Wildsmith. 

Wigan killed us in the transitions, and there were gaping holes in the middle of the park, which any half-decent team would thread through. Seen towards the end of the first half but also early in the first half, which was an end-to-end show. But it wasn't just in defence and transition where we were poor. The attack was absolutely woeful. The lack of positive forward passing combined with the slow tempo and static movement made the crosses so so easy to defend against. I can't remember more than 2 times we actually tested their goalkeeper seriously. 

It isn't just the performance that lacked passion, creativity, or decisiveness, but the tactics that led us to our downfall, failing to create any clear-cut chances and, at times, leaving us wide open. The lack of urgency towards the end and the dearth of options from the bench make it clear we're in no state to be challenging for promotion if this is the tenor of things to come. Warne said he wouldn't just copy what he did at Rotherham, but this style of football reeks of low percentage chuck it in the box and see what happens nonsense i.e., precisely what he did at Rotherham. 

I don't think I've seen an opening day performance this bad since Paul Jewell's 08-09 opener against Doncaster. Warne needs to improve and fast if he wants to stay in this job. 

 

yes the fitness and speed at which we play is a real real concern.

i have said it for ages to get out this league you need athletic young players not old slow players it just doesnt work. its going to be a slog of a season thats for sure hopefully it will get better but it is a real concern for me we looked so under prepared compared to wigan

it is very early days, but lets not beat around the bush there are red flags there as there has been all summer.

we have not strengthened our squad & today was the worst possible start we could have had.

time will tell  but we cant just put our hands over our eyes and hope for the best, actually that sounds like a good idea i may well do that