Sheff Wed v Derby County

[MACKWORTHRAM]

If anyone was offered 7 points from Cardiff at home, Hull away and Sheff Weds away im sure the majority would have taken it. Thats a very very good return from 3 difficult games. 

We also didnt concede a goal in those last 3 games. In fact we have only conceded 1 in the last 6 games. Which is outstanding.   

We are in a very good position. Very handily placed. You get sod all for being in the automatics now. Its all about keeping in touch with it and then push on in the second half of the season.

Poor game today. 1 shot on target for each side. Didnt do enough to win it but didnt deserve to lose it. 

Very good defensively but we just didnt move the ball quick enough to enable us to have a threat in the final third. 

We need a winger in January for me. Someone direct who gets at his full back with pace. Antonio or Matty Phillips for example. (Im not suggesting we sign either of those 2 but a winger if that ilk us needed) We havent had it since Ibe left. 

All in all a very good return from 3 very difficult games. 

Back to back home games now. Starting with the league leaders. Lets end Brighton's unbeaten run. 

COYR

 

[Wolfie20]

Although it doesn't hide the disappointment in todays' performance, how many of us would have settled beforehand with 4 points away to Weds & Hull?

Just as the Florist performance was erased in the following match, the same needs to be done again and we couldn't ask for a better home match than against the unbeaten league leaders. However, I'm concerned about what options are available when 2 out of our 3 wingers are so clearly out of form and Weimann blowing hot and cold

[Baaaaailey]

Promotion seasons are made of this result.... Offensively we were poor but have to make sure you pick up a point.Wednesday raised their game,as many teams will from now till May.Too many off days...

Grant 8/10 Faultless performance, but would have liked to have seen a few longer kicks to stretch them

Christie 7/10 Solid enough defensively

Warnock 7/10 Solid before injury

Keogh 9/10 Best performance of the season, excellent

Shackell 9/10 Won every header,potential player of the season, excellent

Thorne 5/10 Without doubt his worst ever DCFC performance. Passing and positional play very poor

Johnson 8/10 Even today when everything didn't work for him,he is always involved in all Derby's best work.Proper player

Butterfield 5/10 Complete opposite to Johnson, not involved enough

Ince 4/10 Did nothing positive at all.All of a sudden our squad looks weak in the wide areas

Weimman 4/10 Tries harder than Ince,but with same disappointing effect

Martin 6/10 Poor service & too isolated. Ball retention improved 2nd half

Subs

Baird 6/10 Confident he can defend around our box but liability when wingers take him on 50-20 yards out

Russell 4/10 Achieved nothing as a sub,again!

Bent 6/10 Needs to be given longer on the pitch.Whilst wide men are struggling then 4-4-2 may be more of an option

All in all,it's onwards and upwards.Still confident because of our solidity ???????

[Day]

10 minutes ago, Bris Vegas said:

0-0 is the right result.

Even tho Weimann was onside?

[Kernow]

7 points & 0 conceded from the last 3 against three teams in the top 7 places, could be worse.

Beat Brighton and that's 10 points from 4 games v teams in the top 7 which would be a fantastic return.

[Uptherams]

Poor low level performance with low tempo. Defensively solid again but going forward there was nothing to us. Martin was yet again pointless. Shame Weimann's goal was ruled offside but the limited chances we had we didn't convert. Which is why you make more effort to create chances. We didn't. Ince too was poor. Are him and Martin in some sort of competition for how ineffective they can be. 

[Guest]

I am wondering what game some posters on here were watching. Clearly not the one I watched. For a team aspiring to be in the Premier League next season that display just wasn't good enough. If the Wednesday attack wasn't so poor we wouldn't have kept a clean sheet. 

[loughboroughRAM]

13 minutes ago, duncanjwitham said:

Did we? We could honestly stick a cardboard cut out on the edge of the 6 yard box and it would be offside less often than Darren Bent.

my theory is hes only offside so much as a result of not playing any football at all...

at least with bent on the pitch we managed to actually get into their box! It was Bents closing down that brought about the pass back so I would argue that his introduction caused them more problems defensively....even if he was caught offside a frustrating amount

[Rev]

The only way the wingers will find form is by playing, yes they're frustrating at the moment, but that could change next week!

One more winger would be nice in January though, we'll see what they can come up with, hopefully something along the lines of a Johnson type signing.

[cloughandtaylor]

11 minutes ago, Wolfie20 said:

If we couldn't cope then we would have lost - we didn't lose so we coped with what they had to offer. Problem was we couldn't get our own game going

 

We couldn't get our game going .......because they pressed us which meant, we did not have time on the ball to create anything.

We looked second best to the loose balls and really never looked like scoring today.

We have to improve on how we deal with teams that press us high up the field, the only positive from today - we defended when we had to.......

The team performance today was similar to the Forest game - labored.

We need to beat Brighton to close that 4 pt gap.

 

[Van der MoodHoover]

4 minutes ago, Alpha said:

Ince is easy to mark out the game because he's being everything Bannan wasn't today. 

Bannan picked the ball up and already had a clear idea of what he wanted to do. And he set to it. With aggression. 

It's that moment of indecision. That split second to weigh things up. It killed Christie last season (he wanted a full afternoon though) and it's killing Ince. You're making everything square on. You need the first touch to be decisive. 

I do hate it when you get sweeping statements based on one game though.

I thought that performance then was the most arrogant performance I've seen this season. But it was one game. Doesn't define a team.

But 9 or so players wanted to stroke the ball about. Chuck in the odd flick and feint. The goal will come.

No! You don't start a game like that. You start with conviction. The first side you show the opposition is that you're faster than they are. Stronger too.

Not that you're there for a day out

Thats two similar-ish performances though (this and Forest). Seems that when we are being hustled, the sharp one touch passing is the first thing to go and we start trying to dribble from all areas of the pitch. In first half Butterfield was dribbling out from edge of our own box before trying a slow back inside 6 yard pass that was easily read creating pressure for us.

I do agree with all your other points though and it is deeply frustrating to compare this with the Hull performance which was full of pace and purpose. We start going slow, "safe" possession which is very predictable for the opposition who lets face it should have been put under much greater pressure than they were with all the injuries they were carrying.

[Bris Vegas]

3 minutes ago, Daveo said:

Even tho Weimann was onside?

He was, but no guarantee that he would have scored. Play had stopped.

0-0 was fair, while it wouldn't have been a smash and grab had Johnson scored late on, we didn't create enough to deserve anything more. Wednesday are the same, people on their forum said they deserved to win.

While they played well, if you don't create anything, how can you deserve to win?

Keogh and Shackell were superb. Four points and two clean sheets away at Hull and Wednesday, I think most would have accepted that.

[Guest]

Bradley Johnson is a potty mouthed thug. But I'm glad that he's our thug

[Day]

3 minutes ago, Bris Vegas said:

He was, but no guarantee that he would have scored. Play had stopped.

0-0 was fair, while it wouldn't have been a smash and grab had Johnson scored late on, we didn't create enough to deserve anything more. Wednesday are the same, people on their forum said they deserved to win.

While they played well, if you don't create anything, how can you deserve to win?

Keogh and Shackell were superb. Four points and two clean sheets away at Hull and Wednesday, I think most would have accepted that.

I would have my money on Weimann in that position one on one, great times run that caught the defence unaware. 

Best chance of the game for either side and the linesman not flagged

[IronRam 140.6]

I'm not going to complain , happy enough that we played below par and still manage to pick up points, its better than play really well and get beat. Not arsed one bit about that performance. 

Cannae win em all. 

 

[top 6 finish]

5 minutes ago, Daveo said:

I would have my money on Weimann in that position one on one, great times run that caught the defence unaware. 

Best chance of the game for either side and the linesman not flagged

You must have a lot of money,then. How many goals has he scored this season?

[SaintRam]

34 minutes ago, Chris Mills said:

Jesus. Wrist slashers are out.

Says a lot about our season that they come on after an away draw.

13 minutes ago, Strange yearnings said:

I am wondering what game some posters on here were watching. Clearly not the one I watched. For a team aspiring to be in the Premier League next season that display just wasn't good enough. If the Wednesday attack wasn't so poor we wouldn't have kept a clean sheet. 

The Wednesday attack isn't poor. That's the point. We defended very well. I'm not saying we weren't poor generally but we're going to have poor games, that's football. To not concede a goal, with Grant only being tested once, against a decent attacking side with our midfield playing so poorly says a lot for our defense. If we play EVERY game like that, sure we won't do well this season, but it's going to happen occasionally.  

[Day]

4 minutes ago, top 6 finish said:

You must have a lot of money,then. How many goals has he scored this season?

I was only sticking 50p on

[Alph]

4 minutes ago, Bris Vegas said:

He was, but no guarantee that he would have scored. Play had stopped.

0-0 was fair, while it wouldn't have been a smash and grab had Johnson scored late on, we didn't create enough to deserve anything more. Wednesday are the same, people on their forum said they deserved to win.

While they played well, if you don't create anything, how can you deserve to win?

Keogh and Shackell were superb. Four points and two clean sheets away at Hull and Wednesday, I think most would have accepted that.

Accept that the result was acceptable today. Not the arrogant way we stroked the ball about. 

Draw was fair. Thought their general play was good but our defending better. And their defending wasn't too hot when it was tested. But our general play didn't lead up to much because it was so low in conviction I'm surprised the pass accuracy stat is so high. 

I mean we got one yellow card and an injury due to the casual passing. 

Ince lost the ball 3 times in the opening 2 minutes by messing about. 

Even by the end there was a 15 yard pass between Thorne and Christie and it was miles off the target and neither were under pressure. Loads of passes given the sort of attention that Bamford used to pay to his general play. 

There's no excuse. Not fatigue. Not especially intense pressing. Sky made out it was good pressing... was it? They didn't stand off us but we invited them on. 

But that's only the 3rd time this season it's been like that. But Sheffield Wednesday away after a a full week break? Really frustrating.  So much better than that. 

Tom Ince is really lucky to be playing.

[DcFc Dyycheee]

My ratings for what it's worth. 

Grant 7, Christie 6, Keogh 8, Shackell 10, Warnock 7, Thorne 5, Butterfield 6, Johnson 6, Ince 2, Martin 6, Weimann 4.

Russell 2.

Good point, Shackell MOTM by some way, won everything. Thought they did very well to stop us from playing, other than that, they didn't really offer much, other than a few long range efforts.