Does he go?

[valleyram]

5 hours ago, cannable said:

We're too slow and passing it out from the back. Shackell's the main culprit, he's soooo slow on the ball. His passes have absolutely no zip on them whatsoever, barring those cleverly disguised reverse passes to Thorne. He has an opportunity to bring it out? Dilly-dallies.  We need to get it forward as quickly as possible to make sure it doesn't come back. Did you know that against Preston Warnock made 109 passes (one-hundred and nine)? Those are stats you should ideally be getting from top midfielders, not your left backs.

Something that worries me is that we're lacklustre in attack. We have no runners. It seems our main form of attack is to cross the ball. We made 31 crosses against Preston. After the Burnley game he put the result down to how each team defended - "we peppered their box with cross after cross after cross and they defended their area very well". In this division, defenders will eat aerial bombardments for breakfast. Defenders like dealing with this form of attack. Here's an extract of a BBC article following Manchester United drawing 2-2 with Fulham, a game in which they made 81 cross.

            'The 6ft 7in defender, who played 10 times in the Conference for Darlington in 2011, added:        

"We knew that was going to happen and I was happy for them to play like that."

 

                Fulham boss Rene Meulensteen had described United's style as "straightforward".'

 

We need to be more inventing with our attacking play. Especially considering our 'target man's' 5"10.  We tried to counteract this against Preston. When the ball was on our left-hand side, our left-winger Blackman was getting into the box, with Butterfield drifting wide to whip one in (Butters made nine crosses). Because of his legs going, Warnock wasn't able to get forward after around the 50 minute mark and Hendrick was having to support Butterfield! Our left-winger was in the box, waiting for a cross from a left-hand side, whilst our two central midfielders worked to whip one in, utter madness! As good as Warnock's been, this can't continue, Olsson must start.

 

In terms of our right-hand side, Ince was receiving the ball, taking it and two men along with it inside and creating room for Christie. Often though rather than looking to take the ball to the by-line and looking to cut one back, Christie was crossing from deep or cutting inside towards the congested area. Again, madness!

 

We don't make third-man runs like we used to. They were effective. One was effective against Man United. I think they're why people liked Dawkins. He'd cut inside, dragging a defender with him. Bryson would make a run ahead of him looking for the through ball and either Wisdom or Fozzy would bomb on the overlap. Chances are this would leave one player in massive amounts of space.  On the other flank, Hughes would drift into the channels, essentially taking up Dawkins' role. Occasionally Martin would drift into the channels as well. I've trawled through the archives to find examples of this.

 

youtube.com/watch?v=4lpdZ92E7ok … Look at our goal here. Bryson further forward than a slightly narrow Dawkins. Forsyth bombing on outside him.

 

Ward hitting the crossbar comes from a third man run. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4ADzEcfoTs …

youtube.com/watch?v=YEEaRlReYs4 … Bryson to Martin - third man run from Fozzy off of Martin allows him to lay it off to him to square across face. Also - Dawkins' shot from distance, Bryson's third man run created space for him to shoot, should have passed to Fozzy.

 

youtube.com/watch?v=zh9jLDyRUVE … Second goal. Even before Russell's passed to Martin Bryson's making a run.

 

youtube.com/watch?v=39ZkblFtyik … Combination to get Ward around the back for the first.

 

youtube.com/watch?v=2akR4NsAE-o … Hendrick's run for Martin's miss. Bryson's run for his goal. Christie's run for Martin's first.

 

We ended up in a lot of situations where we could just smash it across the face of goal and somebody would have had a tap in. Third man runs are so effective at getting us towards the by-line.

 

In terms of Martin's role to our attacking play, he's actually playing a lot further forward than he used to. Here are a few examples of him in action in a few of our team goals in recent seasons, notice how deep he is;

 

youtube.com/watch?v=hgsvPHc-9Po … Second goal, look how many players we have AHEAD of Martin.

 

youtube.com/watch?v=mOTXiZxoM7g … FIVE players AHEAD of Martin for our fourth here.

 

youtube.com/watch?v=tlWPJeMr1c8 … Hendrick, third man run for the team goal, Martin heavily involved in the build up.

 

The movement, the one touch stuff, it's just not there anymore.

 

I don't totally blame Clement to be honest. He wants us to have a different style of play from recent seasons. He wants us as more of a Burnley or a Boro and I think he's been given the funds to try and mould the team in this way. I now think we have half a squad suited to his style of football and half a squad suited to Our Nige's/McClaren's. I think he'd have had a better chance at succeeding at a different club.

 

I really, really want him to succeed. He's an honest bloke and I like him. If he could somehow adopt our approach to going forward that we had under McClaren and his approach to defence we'd really be on to a winner. Hull away gives me a lot of hope that he CAN do it.  

 

And the common denominator in most of these goals ? Runs from Bryson , if he's fit he should be playing and if that means a 5-6 million pound player is on the bench so be it , we need midfield runners getting beyond the front 3 who by the way should not include Ince and Blackman , they are no use to a team who need to fight their way to results , luxury players are pointless in this league 

[Bald Eagle's Barmy Army]

We deserve everything we've got right now. Should we have brought a manager in with no managerial experience let alone in the Championship to spend that type of money?

It's not just Clements fault, It's them that make the big decisions too.

We have no mixture in the team, too many players in the middle and wide areas and not enough in the back and up front. Keogh clearly isn't comfortable playing in the mask but we have no replacement for him so he has to play.

A proven manager should have been brought in if we was spending that type of cash. If Mel Morris replaces PC now then I lose all confidence in Mel because he said PC gets all season. 

[Srg]

15 minutes ago, davenportram said:

doubt it would be more Tha the rewards for promotion.

Fear it would have to via play offs either way. 

[YouRams]

55 minutes ago, Mostyn6 said:

You'd turn down promotion because the manager that gets you up might struggle to keep you up?

Have a look at the teams we should be emulating ffs! Swansea, Southampton, Palace, Watford ALL changed their manager once up. There's no reason we cannot do the same thing.

I still think we've got a manager that can get us up and keep us up. Yes he's made a few mistakes, and at times the play does look boring.  But he's learning, took on a team that had a complete meltdown going from 1st to 7th along with a lot of new faces. We didn't have one registered shot on target last night, but had Hendrick or Brysons shots that went norrowly wide gone in, would this thread be open? 

[Bald Eagle's Barmy Army]

4 minutes ago, YouRams said:

I still think we've got a manager that can get us up and keep us up. Yes he's made a few mistakes, and at times the play does look boring.  But he's learning, took on a team that had a complete meltdown going from 1st to 7th along with a lot of new faces. We didn't have one registered shot on target last night, but had Hendrick or Brysons shots that went norrowly wide gone in, would this thread be open? 

Ifs and buts don't cut it in football though.

[JW37]

The highest in demand young coach in Britain??? Coach of the year and all that

[GeneralRam]

1 hour ago, eddie said:

When you/ve done it with Ssausagehorpe, we'll talk

How about the treble with Blyth Spartans?

[YouRams]

11 minutes ago, CHCDerby said:

Ifs and buts don't cut it in football though.

Your right, but if we finish top 6 that's an improvement on last season. On paper spending 25mil we should be top two but it doesn't always work like that. 

[RamNut]

1 hour ago, steve brummie said:

Tommy Docherty? (Oh, OK! 'Arry Redknapp)

A newbie, totally untried at this level (again!!)?

Guardiano (no thanks, just read Zlatan's book!)

Stick with Laptop? (May as well!)

If all else fails....

Have a word with Moyes or Pearson I reckon. 

Glad i) it's not up to me.

ii) It's not my money!

What did zlatan say?

[1977 Ram Raider]

Some very good questions by Owen fired directly at Clement. Not the usual pussy footing around as were normally used too. Some of his replies seemed a bit off though.

Just want to say a big congratulations to my fellow south standers, well done everyone!!!

[duncanjwitham]

33 minutes ago, YouRams said:

We didn't have one registered shot on target last night, but had Hendrick or Brysons shots that went norrowly wide gone in, would this thread be open? 

I would certainly have still been unhappy even if we nicked the game 1-0.  I've been unhappy at plenty of other performances this season where we've won.  Playing like we are and keeping on winning is not sustainable.

[Thierry Ennui]

I like Clement's demeanour but I'm losing patience with how he sets the team up.

We have a technically good midfield but they simply aren't being utilised right.

Clement could point to our possession and passing stats but they are both irrelevant when such a high perecentage of passes are between our defenders.

Possession play involves stretching the opposition whilst waiting for gaps. There are two reasons it isn't working:

1) The ball is too deep for gaps to be exploited
2) Our play is too slow

Typically, our defenders pass to one another while the opposition regain their shape. By the time we make it into the opposition third (or half!) every opposition player is behind the ball, every opposition player has his man and the opposing team overall has a strong defensive shape.

We've brute forced matches this season but our only good performances have been when we've abandoned this plan and counter attacked, eg. Hull away.

If we're going to persist with our possession game then this needs to happen:

1) Our midfielders need to be closer together in the middle of the park, and they need to be constantly hunting for space
2) Our midfielders need to combine with one another using passing triangles to work their way up the pitch. As this happens the defence pushes up and we pin our opponents in their half

We surely have the techical ability in midfield to do this (swapping Bryson for Hendrick) and it'd transform us into an exciting side.

I find our style of play so baffling.

[Day]

When Newcastle showed an interest in McClaren he was accused of showing no loyalty to us by not rejecting them. Fast forward a year and some fans are calling for the head of our new manager 6 months in to the job, 3 of which he was nominated for manager of the month and we've lost just 5 games, where is the loyalty from the fans?

We take the piss out of Fawaz and Cellino for firing managers so quick yet here we are discussing getting rid of our manager 6 months in.

This is the first real bad patch under Clement and we have a 12 page thread just over 12 hours after a draw to Preston calling for his head is unbelievable, I'm not saying we should all be sitting here clapping away with a big smile on our faces and accepting what is being served up on the pitch but to call for Clement's head already is ridiculous. 

Performances haven't been as entertaining as they were under McClaren true and I was a huge huge fan of McClaren and absolutely gutted when he left, this is also not exactly fitting in with "The Derby Way" we was told about, some games have even been shocking and yes I was one of those half fans that walked out when the 3rd went in against Birmingham but we need to stand back and look at the situation.

We employed a rookie, never managed before in his life, to think he wasn't going to come in and make mistakes is naive, listening to Mel at the time saying he would be here next season regardless tells me at least he has his head screwed on and wasn't expecting us to walk the league which even with £25m spent was never going to happen.

People are looking at Boro and trying to compare us which is natural but what has Karanka had that Clement hasn't? time, this is his 3rd season and only now are they looking like going up. They haven't become this solid unit overnight, it's happened over those 3 seasons which Karanka has had time to work and tweak the squad yet we're expecting the same in 6 months because we've spent a load of money.

You can't just throw money at it and expect everything to gel straight away and for me that's been our biggest mistake this season, the quantity of signings. 

I'm not saying we need to give him 3 seasons but we've seen signs under Clement how solid we can be during that unbeaten, he's not the clueless gnome in the dugout that some make out to be. This is a massive learning curve for him and if we don't give him the chance to fix it we could be getting rid of someone that could make us look very foolish in a few seasons.

Look at the table, promotion is still a very realistic target, ok the auto's maybe slipping away from us and it might not be pretty but the play offs are still more than achievable and still unless FL rules have changed a legitimate way of promotion. 

[Mostyn6]

what @Daveo said.

Pearson had a poor season at Leicester before romping it the next season.

[Sexydadbod]

Thing is that Clement is obsessed with this boring possession based football without a purpose. You could say the Van Gaal of the championship except Van Gaal has now just gone **** it and is now playing open attacking football. Clement should now use the same approach

[glyn1957]

We fans can talk all day about who is to blame, players,fans, owner and even the ground staff for making the pitch to slippy. But when all is said and done it`s the manager who sinks or swims by his decisions and at the moment he is just keeping his nose above the water level

[ladyram]

Well, you can have all the posession there is, but without goals what does it matter? 

Please. Somebody. Just get in space, pass the ball up there and pull the bloody trigger.

[Curtains]

4 minutes ago, ladyram said:

Well, you can have all the posession there is, but without goals what does it matter? 

Please. Somebody. Just get in space, pass the ball up there and pull the bloody trigger.

Exactly.  

[eddie]

1 hour ago, GeneralRam said:

How about the treble with Blyth Spartans?

My hero

[eddie]

24 minutes ago, McLovin said:

Thing is that Clement is obsessed with this boring possession based football without a purpose. You could say the Van Gaal of the championship except Van Gaal has now just gone **** it and is now playing open attacking football. Clement should now use the same approach

I disagree with the assertion that possession-based football has to be boring, and equally by the same measure that it is without purpose.