Derby's performance

[Claretforever]

Good morning gents. I just thought I'd give a quick Claret perspective on last nights game. Derby played some good football, and looked quite dangerous until getting to our box. Remember though, that's what it was like at the IPro earlier in the season too. It seems this season our defence is the best part of our game, and lays a solid foundation for everything else.

Our fans gave Shackell a torrid time, in good fun, but I suspect him constantly hearing our fans at him meant he wasn't 100% switched on for the whole game, and perhaps caused the errors? Maybe not...  Either way, the first penalty after half time rocked you a little, and really gave our side the belief we could beat you. At half time you could have been 2 goals to the good if truth be told, and I'd have take a point at that stage.

We always sit back and allow the opposition to have the ball this season, particularly the better sides, of which you are one.  I used to look at posession stats to give me an idea of how the game went but have given up this season.  

You have some exciting players, particularly our wide. That Camra (spelling?) who came on looks like he'll be a real threat for you.

Overall 4-1 flattered us, but I think the second half was a better balanced game, and we did a lot more probing.  We've lost this season (Preston) after battering the opposition and being camped in their half for 60 minutes. It happens.

 

[Alph]

Yeah man, we can't complain too much because you may have had a bit of luck at one end but defensively you gave next to nothing. Not like we had bad luck at both ends. Nothing stopped us winning 5-4 except for good defending and predictable attacks.

Thought we did ok. Wasn't great. A couple of players deserved to be on the winning team. A few perhaps deserved a point. But a three or four deserved the 4-1 or worse.  

Andre Gray caused chaos. Nobody has given Shackell and Keogh so much trouble. Wasn't his pace either. That's stock answer for why we struggled with him. We struggled because he played bloody good football. He was unpredictable, unselfish and showed the effort to match. 

Lowton did well imo. Camara did alright but he still got pushed to safety. You'd go nuts if one of his crosses had found Martin. And Blackman only broke free once (shot deflected over).

Think Butterfield gave your midfield the run around. 

We never beat you. Burnley and Leicester. Dunno why we ever even talk about winning.

Apparently Cyrus Christie impressed you guys? He does have some nice dance moves. But while he's doing that and pondering over a pass for 10 minutes everyone else has lost their space. And the masterplan to cross the ball to Martin is a flawed one as Martin is probably as good in the air as Gray? Basically he's unlikely to win anything that isn't hugely in his favour. And he's not mobile enough to gain yards easily. Waste of time and actually made us look a bigger threat than we were.

 

[The Scarlet Pimpernel]

From my perspective it was a very good dominant first half performance. Very unfortunate to concede an own goal with their first attack. Great response and a superb goal from Butterfield. Only one team looked like winning at half time.

Second half we again started ok but we had a crazy 5mins where we conceded two pens. Gray made the first with good footwork and Shackell got "confused" with the second. The last goal was a freak but we shouldn't be backing off to that extent. 4-1 is a massive misrepresentation of the game as a whole imo.

[Claretforever]

I agree. It was nowhere near a 4-1 game, and from a Burnley fan's perspective where you never even think that 4-1 is enough of a cushion, Derby played some good football, particularly in a dominant first half. Butterfield is a great player and I was worried when he got on the ball. We came into it more, particularly after the first penalty, and it looked like a real battle after that. No team giving an inch, but a much more even contest.

Gray is a handful and it's always easy to mention his pace. He runs into the channels well and battles for lost causes, which really helps take pressure of elsewhere.  Vokes hasn't quite been the same since his 9 month injury lay off, and doesn't win as many headers now for some reason. He's a battering ram though, so causes mistakes for the opposition.

The long and short is that a team on a great run of form came up against a team lacking a bit of form and confidence. I can't  believe how many goals we've been scoring lately, when in the first part of the season we were poor but nicking games by an odd goal.

i know you have fans on social media losing the plot, thinking you've thrown it away, but there's so much football to play yet. Any team that puts a run of 4 or 5 wins together can really cement a top two place. We have Hull and Boro at home coming up soon, so for us, after losing both away games, we have to win.  We'll see.

Good luck v Manchester United on Friday. Give them a kicking whilst they're down!!

[The Scarlet Pimpernel]

Thank you. Very level headed. Wish some of our fans were.

[Guest]

While I agree that our first half performance was a great improvement, the second half was dire. Too many poor performances individually and the team as whole. Perhaps Friday's game will prove to be the fillip needed for a turnaround. I hope so but it does look as though our problems are deeper than simple player selection. 

[LeedsCityRam]

4 hours ago, Claretforever said:

 

Our fans gave Shackell a torrid time, in good fun, but I suspect him constantly hearing our fans at him meant he wasn't 100% switched on for the whole game, and perhaps caused the errors? Maybe not...  Either way, the first penalty after half time rocked you a little, and really gave our side the belief we could beat you. At half time you could have been 2 goals to the good if truth be told, and I'd have take a point at that stage.

I suspect it was more coincidence Shackell having such a dreadful night against his former club - as you'll no doubt know, he's usually a stable & reliable defender & not someone you would necessarily think of as being flakey. The penalty (whilst ridiculous) seemed an attempt to stop the ball getting to Gray, who by that time was causing us real problems & the deflection for the 4th goal wasn't really something he could do that much about.

Got to say, I did laugh at some of the songs Burnley were singing at him by the end - cheering his touches & singing his praises must have cut much deeper than the boos he got in the first half!

p.s. decent review of the match & very generous too - good luck for rest of the season.

 

[Rampage]

Game of two halves. Gray caused confusion in our defence, hence £9 million

[RedSox]

2 hours ago, Claretforever said:

Gray is a handful and it's always easy to mention his pace. He runs into the channels well and battles for lost causes, which really helps take pressure of elsewhere.  Vokes hasn't quite been the same since his 9 month injury lay off, and doesn't win as many headers now for some reason. He's a battering ram though, so causes mistakes for the opposition.

 

Get ready mate, we're coming for Gray next!   All the best for the remainder.

[Philmycock]

On 26 January 2016 at 12:37, LeedsCityRam said:

Got to say, I did laugh at some of the songs Burnley were singing at him by the end - cheering his touches & singing his praises must have cut much deeper than the boos he got in the first half!

Reminded me of the stick the Red Dog fans gave Gary Charles once when he screwed up against them.

[ClaretMatt]

Busy couple of days so I’ve not had a chance to get my thoughts in.  I’m sure you’re all gutted about that so here they are.

Assessment of the match

First half was yours, however for all your possession I’ve got to say I never felt overly concerned apart from the time when Johnson and Blackman put each other off at the back post with the goal at their mercy.  Defensively I think we had Derby’s number – Keane and Mee marshalled Martin well whilst Ward and Lowton showed Blackman and Ince wide where their threat was minimal.  The only time our defence generally switches off (in fact it’s the same in attack) is at throw ins and that’s where your goal started – that said I don’t think there was anything we could do about it, you just can’t stop those.  To all intents and purposes it looked like your blip was over and despite how comfortable our defence looked I’d have taken a draw at half time.  Your passing and movement was some of the best we’ve seen at the Turf this year, I particularly appreciated the accuracy of your long passing when switching flanks.  It’s just an end product that was missing.  Either you need a more mobile central striker or the wing forwards need to make runs to the far post and get on the end of crosses into the box.

Now I’ve read a lot of comments that you dominated the game and didn’t deserve to lose but I felt we dominated the second half as much as you dominated the first – albeit in our way rather than yours.  When Derby dominate you keep possession and build up patiently, our gameplan is (to put it into a Dyche-ism) to move through the phases quickly.  This doesn’t mean ‘hoofball’, though we resorted to that at times in the first half, it just means breaking quickly if the opportunity presents, even at the risk of losing the ball.  IIRC the stats showed you had 12 attempts in the first half compared to our 3, at the end of the game that read 15 to 9 – the second half was as much ours as the first was yours.  4-1 was flattering, no doubt, but a win was by no means an unfair result IM(biased)O

At the end of the day I think we took advantage of your side’s current fragile state, once we went in front the second time heads dropped and your players started operating as individuals rather than a team.  Players like Ince and Blackman were taking it on themselves to try to make things happen but weren’t waiting (or even looking) for others to support so our defence could comfortably contain them.  You might say that urgency is what you’re currently missing but unless the whole team plays with that same urgency a strong defence like ours will come out on top 99.9% of the time.

 

Derby players that impressed me

Butterfield – Would love him at Burnley.  Whenever he had the ball I started to worry.  He showed great composure, technique, vision and above all work rate.  Also, that goal.

Christie – I don’t agree with the majority assessment of your fans, he was a threat.  Rather than criticise him for putting balls in the box (a quality you oddly seem to praise Camara for) maybe you need to be looking at players to get in there – they were quality crosses and you saw what a quality cross can result in if the pressure is applied when Lowton put one in.  He found space on the flanks, picked his moments well and a better drilled attack would have taken advantage of that.

Thorne – Going forward he offered little but in terms of his job, he did it very, very well.  I wasn’t impressed in the fixture at the iPro but clearly he was lacking match sharpness then.  He stopped us playing through the middle in the first half and but for having to chase the game I imagine he’d have done the same in the second.

 

Thoughts on some that didn’t

Johnson – He’s been a massive thorn in our side in the past for Leeds and looked every but the £6 million midfielder at the iPro, what’s happened to him?

Blackman – I’ll admit before the game I was worried, don’t think I could have taken him bell-ing it up if he’d scored, but he was poor and clearly thinks he’s better than he is so didn’t get others involved when he should.  Lowton had him in his back pocket.

Camara – Controversial but he didn’t worry me at all, just seemed to get his head down and run into blind alleys.  The few balls into the box he managed didn’t have half the quality that Christie’s had.  That said, I think there’s potential there once he adjusts to Championship (or, if you get promoted, English) football.

Shackell (& Keogh) – Comical, made only the sweeter that Ben Mee and Michael Keane looked ten times the players.  Think the reaction of Barnes and Juke in this video sums up the Burnley team and support’s feelings of Shackell’s return to the Turf.

https://youtu.be/iF3F_akeQsk

[Van der MoodHoover]

3 hours ago, ClaretMatt said:

Busy couple of days so I’ve not had a chance to get my thoughts in.  I’m sure you’re all gutted about that so here they are.

Assessment of the match

First half was yours, however for all your possession I’ve got to say I never felt overly concerned apart from the time when Johnson and Blackman put each other off at the back post with the goal at their mercy.  Defensively I think we had Derby’s number – Keane and Mee marshalled Martin well whilst Ward and Lowton showed Blackman and Ince wide where their threat was minimal.  The only time our defence generally switches off (in fact it’s the same in attack) is at throw ins and that’s where your goal started – that said I don’t think there was anything we could do about it, you just can’t stop those.  To all intents and purposes it looked like your blip was over and despite how comfortable our defence looked I’d have taken a draw at half time.  Your passing and movement was some of the best we’ve seen at the Turf this year, I particularly appreciated the accuracy of your long passing when switching flanks.  It’s just an end product that was missing.  Either you need a more mobile central striker or the wing forwards need to make runs to the far post and get on the end of crosses into the box.

Now I’ve read a lot of comments that you dominated the game and didn’t deserve to lose but I felt we dominated the second half as much as you dominated the first – albeit in our way rather than yours.  When Derby dominate you keep possession and build up patiently, our gameplan is (to put it into a Dyche-ism) to move through the phases quickly.  This doesn’t mean ‘hoofball’, though we resorted to that at times in the first half, it just means breaking quickly if the opportunity presents, even at the risk of losing the ball.  IIRC the stats showed you had 12 attempts in the first half compared to our 3, at the end of the game that read 15 to 9 – the second half was as much ours as the first was yours.  4-1 was flattering, no doubt, but a win was by no means an unfair result IM(biased)O

At the end of the day I think we took advantage of your side’s current fragile state, once we went in front the second time heads dropped and your players started operating as individuals rather than a team.  Players like Ince and Blackman were taking it on themselves to try to make things happen but weren’t waiting (or even looking) for others to support so our defence could comfortably contain them.  You might say that urgency is what you’re currently missing but unless the whole team plays with that same urgency a strong defence like ours will come out on top 99.9% of the time.

 

Derby players that impressed me

Butterfield – Would love him at Burnley.  Whenever he had the ball I started to worry.  He showed great composure, technique, vision and above all work rate.  Also, that goal.

Christie – I don’t agree with the majority assessment of your fans, he was a threat.  Rather than criticise him for putting balls in the box (a quality you oddly seem to praise Camara for) maybe you need to be looking at players to get in there – they were quality crosses and you saw what a quality cross can result in if the pressure is applied when Lowton put one in.  He found space on the flanks, picked his moments well and a better drilled attack would have taken advantage of that.

Thorne – Going forward he offered little but in terms of his job, he did it very, very well.  I wasn’t impressed in the fixture at the iPro but clearly he was lacking match sharpness then.  He stopped us playing through the middle in the first half and but for having to chase the game I imagine he’d have done the same in the second.

 

Thoughts on some that didn’t

Johnson – He’s been a massive thorn in our side in the past for Leeds and looked every but the £6 million midfielder at the iPro, what’s happened to him?

Blackman – I’ll admit before the game I was worried, don’t think I could have taken him bell-ing it up if he’d scored, but he was poor and clearly thinks he’s better than he is so didn’t get others involved when he should.  Lowton had him in his back pocket.

Camara – Controversial but he didn’t worry me at all, just seemed to get his head down and run into blind alleys.  The few balls into the box he managed didn’t have half the quality that Christie’s had.  That said, I think there’s potential there once he adjusts to Championship (or, if you get promoted, English) football.

Shackell (& Keogh) – Comical, made only the sweeter that Ben Mee and Michael Keane looked ten times the players.  Think the reaction of Barnes and Juke in this video sums up the Burnley team and support’s feelings of Shackell’s return to the Turf.

https://youtu.be/iF3F_akeQsk

pretty accurate - I'd have said you didn't really step it up in the 2nd half until just before your second, but thats only 5-10mins or so in the 2nd half. The point about players in the box is spot on - on occasions even Martin was pulling out to get balls so there literally wasn't anyone if a cross came in.

[The Scarlet Pimpernel]

The two penalties changed everything. Gave Burnley a massive release of pressure to relax and "try" things. We were up against it from that point.