Rose tinted

[Alph]

I think there's been quite a lot of criticism etc this season. We should play this formation, that formation, drop him, sell him. Players who aren't good enough from the top of my head;

Christie

Keogh

Ward

Dawkins

Martin

Eustace

Now I'm not saying we're perfect and that's kind of the point of this thread. I think people have a rose tinted view of last season. I think we'll win the Championship and I think we're the best team in it. But the expectation and overreaction to poor results is crazy.

Everything we do now is compared to how we played in that run in and more importantly when we found our perfect balance with George Thorne. We looked a class above. The performance levels were like 100% at times. Especially Brighton at home where you can't really imagine that team playing any better. Everyone was at their best.

But that wasn't "last season". When people talk about not performing to the levels we set last season there's a whole bunch of games where we are much more comparable especially at home where people seem to base most their judgment and just acknowledge away results. There's away games too.

Boro (2-1) similar sort of performance to games this season. I'd call them the performances of the best team in the league but it was criticised. So it's here to remind everyone that despite being the best team in the league... we are in this league. Where we belong

Charlton (2-0) scrappy affair where a typically awful Ward FK managed to fluke it's way in.

Huddersfield (1-1) Played quite well but lost our way. Cisse who was a saviour just a couple of weeks earlier came on and we were quite ragged

Barnsley was a week later and I'm just mentioning that so I can try to make a point later

Wigan (0-1) we all remember?

Leicester (1-4) "

Brighton (1-0) one of our poorer home performances in the latter part of 13/14

Yeovil (3-2) think of the 2-2 with Cardiff. Wasn't even as good as that performance.

QPR (1-0) quite a scrappy game really. We had our moments but it wasn't dominant

Millwall (0-1) yep. Millwall and Bolton in one week. As we all look back on last season we tend to see past this week

Bolton (0-0) I can't remember if there were cries to play the 32014 formation and play Sammon as an inside attacking anchor man but clearly it's all going wrong. We should be booing

Then came the run in where the standard was superb BUT we still lost to Ipswich and Boro.

-----

Basically I think expectations are unrealistic (and I expect to win the league and win the possession battle for about 40 games!!)

They're based on our memorable games last season and the run in.

We're not going to have it all our own way. We're only Derby. We haven't assembled a Champions League side here. If something isn't working out then that doesn't mean it's broken. We don't need 5 new players and to play 411112. Ward, Dawkins, Martin are good enough.

We'll have sticky patches. We'll have lucky patches. We'll have dominant patches. That doesn't matter who we buy and sell on this message board or what formation McClaren should have played.

Russell up front? No. Martin is our striker. He's the top scorer. He works. It works. The system, the players, the subs, the style... It all works.

But we aren't Barcelona of 2010. We weren't Barcelona of 2010 last season either.

Just look through some of the threads this season and hearing some of the things on Saturday...

A bloke said to me "that's been coming for a while. We haven't really played well in a while"

We played quite well at Blackpool, Bolton, here v Cardiff...

But no, we aren't super awesome every week and we haven't been last season either no matter how you remember it.

[Sexydadbod]

People are just frustrated that we cant replicate our away form at home and we dont have a plan b. Also it is clear that teams are starting to work out how to play against us which is also annoying. Think it will change when thorne gets fit though.

[Day]

I think we should play 4-4-2

[Aidan DCFC]

I think we should play 4-4-2

nahhhh 4-2-4 we always play better like that

[Sexydadbod]

I think we should play 4-4-2

4-1-2-1-2 mate

[BondJovi]

But there is no reason to be frustrated. Disappointed at a bad performance yes.

 

Any team coming to the iPro will raise their game, we are one of...if not, the favourites for promotion. It is madness to think we will dominate every side and not give away a few chances.

 

 

If I knew there would be this kind of madness i'd have wished Clough stayed and I could stop caring come January. Sit back and enjoy the ride.

[tomsdubs]

I got chewed for saying we are overrating our players in the thread about us surviving in the prem, we've got a decent side and we need to get the balance right again. We are missing Thorne big time IMO and Ward getting injured is a real blow. Work to do on the training ground, think we are going to have to mix things up a bit more this season to get results with the way teams are setting up.

[Mafiabob]

But there is no reason to be frustrated. Disappointed at a bad performance yes.

Any team coming to the iPro will raise their game, we are one of...if not, the favourites for promotion. It is madness to think we will dominate every side and not give away a few chances.

If I knew there would be this kind of madness i'd have wished Clough stayed and I could stop caring come January. Sit back and enjoy the ride.

As I've said in other threads.... We will get more joy away from home this season.... Teams have to come out at us on there patch....

[Ashz09]

I prefer 2-6-2 get width on the team!

[jono]

I can't honestly comment about away form as knowledge is limited to TV highlights, but teams playing against us at the Ipro are doing research and have found that if they play a high line we are not very good at coming out of defence. I can't put my finger on it but we seem to be slow taking the ball out of defence and don't exploit the small chinks in the oppositions line and then we get closed down and end up with a back pass. Whitbread does this a lot. The ball he plays is the right one but only because we are a few 10ths of a second slow in moving the ball forward. Either that or we aren't giving Zac and Keogh enough options ? but I think it is the pace issue at the heart of it

 

People always used to say .. give the striker the ball at his feet - we do this now but not often enough because but we aren't getting the ball to the midfields feet ! .. I am sure Mac will work it out and our team is good enough to adapt but from a spectators point of view I would like to see a more dominant team at home !

[The Scarlet Pimpernel]

Last season we were targeting top 6. This season we are targeting top 2. We have a good team and stand a good chance. As Alpha say we will have good days and bad days, hopefully a lot more good days. Mac said exactly the same himself the other day on Rams Player.  As I have always said, if the club is together we take some stopping. Look for the positives not the negatives.

[t'oldu]

He's had a year now to come up with alternative systems to put in place to break down the teams who come to park the bus / stop us playing out of defence / prevent us getting the ball to Martin and the runners from running.

Maybe he is just stubborn? but fresh legs and more of the same - with a late tweek to 4-4-2 is not the answer. We need a PLAN B

[Leicester Ram]

We've become more solid at the back, which includes the full-backs holding back a bit more. This has been an absolute joy away from home, we're playing incredibly well, but at home, I feel if the full-backs were attacking a bit more we'd have a bit more joy.

 

But also, I have a man crush for Forsyth and just want him to be loved x

[Day]

I haven't been frustrated once with Derby this season, can honestly say that. Maybe it's because I never for a minute thought we would walk the league, I don't even think we will finish top 2, I also think we might not even make it to Wembley again but I'm ok with that, I'm just enjoying the football again. I'm enjoying the positive buzz around the club at the moment, yeah there's a few grumbling away but they are easy to ignore.

This thread will give them more exposure which is unfortunate but I will sleep easy tonight knowing they are in the 1% and will be up all night playing FIFA or Football Manager playing with formations and looking how good players are out of 20 for pace, tackling, stamina, trying to come up with solutions to problems that don't exist, Russell in DM for Saturday? Have we tried the asymmetric formation yet? Martin looks tired how about Spain's no striker formation...not the one where Torres plays, the other no striker one.

Fear not tho our home form will be fixed because they have Googled a FM whizz kid guide last night and there's this Bulgarian kid with 20 pace, he's only 17 with a 90 potential, not seen him play yet but they think he could do a job for us, we can pick him up for just 250k apparently....we have to be quick tho as Arsenal come in for him just before deadline day I'm told, we should place a bid before we click continue to Monday. Stop! Just please stop, you bunch of 1%er's!

Football Manager, FIFA, not Pro Evo as nobody plays it but Twitter, Facebook and Forums have a lot to answer for, they have all created hundreds of young Jose Mourinho's, itching to fix us when they should be putting more work into GCSE's which will be more helpful than looking for a replacement for Buxton, I get opening a gold pack on FIFA is more entertaining than pie charts in Maths but seriously it's a ******* game, they don't have any relevance to real life! There's no secret game going off whilst you watch that bar at the bottom of the screen, it's just code crunching away chucking out random GOAL WILL HUGHES HAS SCORED!!

But honestly I've barely noticed the 1%, do they think we should try a new formation by a chance?

[Bris Vegas]

Some of the comments which have been said (not in this thread) but in general are beyond daft.

 

'Teams have figured out how to play us'

 

Teams figured out how to play Barcelona are only a handful of games and they went on to play the same way for years and still found immense success.

 

We have a unique style for this division but and teams can get used to that but not every team will have similar performances as Wigan who to their credit were fantastic in what they attempted to do.

 

People say that Cardiff, Wigan, Ipswich etc. found us out but all three sides played completely different. Wigan played a high pressure line and won all the second balls, whereas Cardiff played with 11 men camped in their own half and just sat there.

 

Also there is no difference between our home form and away form as if anything you'd expect a home side to apply even more pressure on our defence.

 

I think being are just being overly critical to the Wigan match. We deserved to lose, but not every game is going to go that way and I still feel we will do enough to win 50-60% of our games and earn over 80 points.

[AmericanRam]

I haven't been frustrated once with Derby this season, can honestly say that. Maybe it's because I never for a minute thought we would walk the league, I don't even think we will finish top 2, I also think we might not even make it to Wembley again but I'm ok with that, I'm just enjoying the football again. I'm enjoying the positive buzz around the club at the moment, yeah there's a few grumbling away but they are easy to ignore.

This thread will give them more exposure which is unfortunate but I will sleep easy tonight knowing they are in the 1% and will be up all night playing FIFA or Football Manager playing with formations and looking how good players are out of 20 for pace, tackling, stamina, trying to come up with solutions to problems that don't exist, Russell in DM for Saturday? Have we tried the asymmetric formation yet? Martin looks tired how about Spain's no striker formation...not the one where Torres plays, the other no striker one.

Fear not tho our home form will be fixed because they have Googled a FM whizz kid guide last night and there's this Bulgarian kid with 20 pace, he's only 17 with a 90 potential, not seen him play yet but they think he could do a job for us, we can pick him up for just 250k apparently....we have to be quick tho as Arsenal come in for him just before deadline day I'm told, we should place a bid before we click continue to Monday. Stop! Just please stop, you bunch of 1%er's!

Football Manager, FIFA, not Pro Evo as nobody plays it but Twitter, Facebook and Forums have a lot to answer for, they have all created hundreds of young Jose Mourinho's, itching to fix us when they should be putting more work into GCSE's which will be more helpful than looking for a replacement for Buxton, I get opening a gold pack on FIFA is more entertaining than pie charts in Maths but seriously it's a sausage game, they don't have any relevance to real life! There's no secret game going off whilst you watch that bar at the bottom of the screen, it's just code crunching away chucking out random GOAL WILL HUGHES HAS SCORED!!

But honestly I've barely noticed the 1%, do they think we should try a new formation by a chance?

Ha good summation.Have a like.

[Day]

Ha good summation.Have a like.

A like? I'd prefer

[Alph]

There were plenty of games like these home games last season. All seemingly forgotten. We didn't have a "plan b" then. It got us 3rd.

Now we're top without a plan b. nobody has won more than us.

[AmericanRam]

A like? I'd prefer

[Alph]

He's had a year now to come up with alternative systems to put in place to break down the teams who come to park the bus / stop us playing out of defence / prevent us getting the ball to Martin and the runners from running.

Maybe he is just stubborn? but fresh legs and more of the same - with a late tweek to 4-4-2 is not the answer. We need a PLAN B

I don't understand what's wrong with Plan A? But you say the plan b he uses is not the answer.

Do people think we should sign Zigic and just hit long diagonals? Does that constitute plan b?