Mostyn6 Posted May 18, 2013 Share Posted May 18, 2013 .... there are so many threads at the moment discussing potential new signings and these proclaimed six new signings and potentially a challenge for the top six finish. In my opinion it would be nice to have a bit of flair signed and in the side, as well as a bit of tricky pace up front. I do however think we are focussing on the wrong thing. It would be very unfair and perhaps even misleading to suggest that the thing stopping us hitting a play-off place this season (2012-13) was the players, and that getting new players in will make a difference. The reason I am saying this is that the current players have proven to be good enough against the opposition at this level and the thing preventing us achieving a top six finish was our poor return of points gained AWAY from home. Had we achieved similar results at home and away from home, then there would be a case for needing new players, but as there was a massive gulf in the two, it would suggest there is a tactical/philosophical/mental/motivational issue and not an ability issue. I'm not saying new players wouldn't improve things, but I fear there's a pattern and until other factors are improved, buying new players won't guarantee any improvements away from home, and unless the points achieved away from home increase, Derby County will not achieve a top six finish, which is now the chief executive's publicised target. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
randombc Posted May 18, 2013 Share Posted May 18, 2013 Maybe an influx of a few experienced championship players may help with our away form, as they could say 'right guys lets hold on to this lead / this result, we can do this by doing these things etc.' We had a very young squad last season, with our oldest player having now retired, from our 'usual starting XI' last season our oldest player is 26/27? If we add a couple of players of similar age, who have played in this league, and know how to get out of this league such as Baptiste, surely this would help? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sage Posted May 18, 2013 Share Posted May 18, 2013 chicken/egg. rearrange at will. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mostyn6 Posted May 18, 2013 Author Share Posted May 18, 2013 chicken/egg. rearrange at will. not sure you've ever made an irrelevant comment before, but here's a first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyB Posted May 18, 2013 Share Posted May 18, 2013 Buying Keogh and keeping Shackell last summer would have helped our away form. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mostyn6 Posted May 18, 2013 Author Share Posted May 18, 2013 Buying Keogh and keeping Shackell last summer would have helped our away form. How do you know that? We had the same players play at home and didn't struggle without Shackell.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hans Posted May 18, 2013 Share Posted May 18, 2013 This thread is idiotic, of course we need to strengthen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyB Posted May 18, 2013 Share Posted May 18, 2013 Defence is more important away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mostyn6 Posted May 18, 2013 Author Share Posted May 18, 2013 This thread is idiotic, of course we need to strengthen. Did you actually read the thread? Strengthening is not enough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mostyn6 Posted May 18, 2013 Author Share Posted May 18, 2013 Dont agree we need a new LB ,CB,Striker and CM Again, looks like you didn't read it properly. We don't NEED anything as we coped fine (at home) with the players we had. Obviously we need to replace Roberts as he has left, but to say we 'need' is wrong, when it is YOU wanting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mostyn6 Posted May 18, 2013 Author Share Posted May 18, 2013 Are you saying Cloughie and coaching staff are not good enough. no Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mostyn6 Posted May 18, 2013 Author Share Posted May 18, 2013 Mostyn what are you on about. You say we 'NEED' something. I'm saying you're wrong as we did fine without what you suggest we "need".. I'm assuming you know what the word need means. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hans Posted May 18, 2013 Share Posted May 18, 2013 Board and manager are not changing so dont be unrealistic, I beleive that if we get our primary targets theres absolutely no reason why we shouldn't be aiming for the top six, strengthening is enough because I beleive Cough is the man to lead us forward and our squad will be challenging next season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCFCfranco Posted May 18, 2013 Share Posted May 18, 2013 I get the point that our away form needs improving, but surely new players would help improve them away form. But if you're saying that we don't necessarily need new players then who is at fault for our away form, the manager? But then you say that the coaching staff are fine. What point are you trying to make? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Highgate Posted May 18, 2013 Share Posted May 18, 2013 It is true to say that we have a problem tactically when we defending a lead...or just playing away from home. Negativity takes over and we try to 'hold on'. In my opinion this is a policy that costs us points time and time again. Look at the career of Alex Ferguson, a lot of what he acheived in the game can be attributed to the positive mental attitude he instilled in his players. Man Utd would be ruthless and attempt to finish a game off by scoring further goals when they went ahead instead of trying to simply defend their lead. With 3 points for a win and 1 for a draw, the fact is that a draw should always be seen a bad result (just not as bad a defeat). Unfortunately the necessity of going for a win, home or away, is something that Clough, and many other managers, don't seem to realise. However to say this is the only factor we should be focusing on is something i can't agree with. Every club should always be looking to improve their playing staff if at all possible, and clearly Derby need to bring in a few. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sage Posted May 18, 2013 Share Posted May 18, 2013 This thread is idiotic, of course we need to strengthen. You sound surprised. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mostyn6 Posted May 18, 2013 Author Share Posted May 18, 2013 maybe I've worded things wrong. If people think we're going to improve drastically off the back of just signing new players, I think the pattern suggests those people will be disappointed as away from home, it's not as much the standard of players costing points as something else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
May Contain Nuts Posted May 18, 2013 Share Posted May 18, 2013 It is true to say that we have a problem tactically when we defending a lead...or just playing away from home. Negativity takes over and we try to 'hold on'. In my opinion this is a policy that costs us points time and time again. Look at the career of Alex Ferguson, a lot of what he acheived in the game can be attributed to the positive mental attitude he instilled in his players. Man Utd would be ruthless and attempt to finish a game off by scoring further goals when they went ahead instead of trying to simply defend their lead. With 3 points for a win and 1 for a draw, the fact is that a draw should always be seen a bad result (just not as bad a defeat). Unfortunately the necessity of going for a win, home or away, is something that Clough, and many other managers, don't seem to realise. However to say this is the only factor we should be focusing on is something i can't agree with. Every club should always be looking to improve their playing staff if at all possible, and clearly Derby need to bring in a few. This post shows a clear disconnect between fan opinion and manager opinion. Everything I've read from Clough has said that we have approached all games in the same manner, with the intent to win, not actually being 'negative' enough some times, being too open and not shutting up shop often enough or adopting a 'try and break us down' mentality... ...whereas there are a fair few people who appear to think we've approached games in a negative manner and simply tried to hold on. Ideas on how to be 'a winning team' vary greatly, I do however think it's a bit naive to think that you can just go into every single match playing the exact same way, not adapting at all to your opposition and to have any continued success, you need to be able to mix it up and have different gameplans against different opposition. Nobody seriously thinks that Ferguson never set out his teams/formations in a manner that was first and foremost intended to stop the opposition playing their own game, do they? One difference is in the size/talent of the squad - when Ferguson (or let's just say, managers of the myriad teams with stronger squad depth) needed to meddle with things he had high quality players waiting in the wings to come on and do the jobs asked of them, when we want to (or are forced to) change things up we're often left delving into a squad that isn't deep enough in terms of quality to execute the plan. Those ill-fated times when we went 451 produced negative effects, but in itself the set up wasn't intended to be negative - we just couldn't play it very well! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott129 Posted May 18, 2013 Share Posted May 18, 2013 maybe I've worded things wrong. If people think we're going to improve drastically off the back of just signing new players, I think the pattern suggests those people will be disappointed as away from home, it's not as much the standard of players costing points as something else. So wait... what do you think this "something else" is? You say it's not the players or the coaching staff, what is it then? None of the players like travelling? The pre-match rituals? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
May Contain Nuts Posted May 18, 2013 Share Posted May 18, 2013 Individual mistakes were rife, and cost us a hell of a lot of points. A lot of these were in very tight games (as nearly all our away games were tight) and were definitely the difference between getting 3, 1 or 0 points. Better players make less mistakes, which equals more points, I'm not sure how anyone could possibly come to any other conclusion :wacko: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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