Rotherham United vs Derby County

[top 6 finish]

1 hour ago, eddie said:

Happy that McClaren had come home

Would that be at half-time?

[MrsRam]

3 minutes ago, top 6 finish said:

I assume you made it home ok in the end.

Yes thanks. Feeling like we lost. but hey ho. 

[top 6 finish]

As a half-fan (just about) when we went 3 up,I was listening on my wireless (oh yes) switching between the rugby and my hero Jeff Stelling,we suddenly scored,then got another,then another.I thought feck reached for the wine feeling good. I was mentally  composing my post on here,apologising to DW for my lack of faith,etc. Big mistake ,10 minutes later I was drinking wine straight from the bottle while gibbering on the floor.Was what happened my fault ? I am slightly(heavily) getting wine flu listening to UFO playing "doctor doctor"(brilliant), I still shaken up to be honest,sorry if I have offended anybody tonight,At my age I shouldn't behave like this.I blame McClaren for raising my hopes 2 years ago.I last glass and off to bed.

[WharfedaleRam]

42 minutes ago, top 6 finish said:

As a half-fan (just about) when we went 3 up,I was listening on my wireless (oh yes) switching between the rugby and my hero Jeff Stelling,we suddenly scored,then got another,then another.I thought feck reached for the wine feeling good. I was mentally  composing my post on here,apologising to DW for my lack of faith,etc. Big mistake ,10 minutes later I was drinking wine straight from the bottle while gibbering on the floor.Was what happened my fault ? I am slightly(heavily) getting wine flu listening to UFO playing "doctor doctor"(brilliant), I still shaken up to be honest,sorry if I have offended anybody tonight,At my age I shouldn't behave like this.I blame McClaren for raising my hopes 2 years ago.I last glass and off to bed.

Yes UFO are brilliant. DCFC sadly at the minute are not.

[ValeRam]

6 hours ago, nottingram said:

I can fully appreciate and accept that Wassall shouldn't have made the changes that he did. They smacked of inexperience and a little bit of over excitation.

But it isn't why we drew the game. 

At any level that you play at if you concede three goals in eight minutes the players have to take responsibility. It's fine to not want Wassall in the job (I happen to also think this) but blaming him today just comes across as desperate point scoring.

To quote John Terry, I'm not "digging you out" notting

If thats what you truly believe, thats fine of course

Perhaps at some point you could explain in detail why the alternative view is flawed and why steadfastly sticking to your own view is right. Its called debate. Repeating facts is not debate.

I could well be completely wrong. 

We all want the same thing

And, like you, I'm also 'over there' in Notts

 

[nottingram]

14 minutes ago, ValeRam said:

To quote John Terry, I'm not "digging you out" notting

If thats what you truly believe, thats fine of course

Perhaps at some point you could explain in detail why the alternative view is flawed and why steadfastly sticking to your own view is right. Its called debate. Repeating facts is not debate.

I could well be completely wrong. 

We all want the same thing

And, like you, I'm also 'over there' in Notts

 

I'll try and explain it in more detail but I can't see us ever agreeing on it unfortunately, which is fine of course 

When Wassall made those substitutions, in the ground there was no sense of 'what is he doing?' We were cruising, the players were clapped off and on and nobody seemed too troubled at going to 4-4-2. I personally saw it as a good chance for Bent and Blackman to grab goals against a side who looked absolutely pathetic. Of course we can now say the changes had an effect, and if he hadn't made them would we have won? I think we almost definitely would but we have no way of knowing for sure. If he'd brought Hanson on for Thorne, as good a prospect as he is, his inexperience might have cost us, we just don't know. 

However, what we do know is that if Keogh hadn't played a suicide pass to nobody in particular, if we'd organised ourselves at a corner, or if Christie hadn't decided to still be bombing on at 3-2 in injury time, we would definitely have won the game and Wassall would have masterminded our best performance of the season. 

Four of our back five that ended the game have international experience. The other one has plenty of Premier League experience. Between them they should have the good sense not to find themselves in that situation. The two midfielders in front are full internationals as well. Of course Wassall can take some blame for what happened, he tinkered with it when it wasn't needed. But for me at least, he is a fair way down that particular queue. Regardless of his changes the team that finished that game should absolutely be seeing that game out without breaking sweat.

And as for Nottingham, it's not too bad if you can stay clear of the red side. The train next week should be good fun 

[ValeRam]

Can I also say that it was very instructive if you had been following dcfcfans on the match day chat

seconds after after the substitutions were made, two or three made their concerns and fears immediately known to the others

these were generally shouted down almost as quickly. "the game is over" "its 3 nil with 25 minutes to go - why are you panicking" was the general gist

Its interesting that all of those have such little class. All of them know who they are. All of them regularly happy to air their opinions on this site. Anyone could find out their names within two minutes. But not one has acknowledged that maybe those two or three called it right.

As I say, interesting.

 

[ValeRam]

17 minutes ago, nottingram said:

I'll try and explain it in more detail but I can't see us ever agreeing on it unfortunately, which is fine of course 

When Wassall made those substitutions, in the ground there was no sense of 'what is he doing?' We were cruising, the players were clapped off and on and nobody seemed too troubled at going to 4-4-2. I personally saw it as a good chance for Bent and Blackman to grab goals against a side who looked absolutely pathetic. Of course we can now say the changes had an effect, and if he hadn't made them would we have won? I think we almost definitely would but we have no way of knowing for sure. If he'd brought Hanson on for Thorne, as good a prospect as he is, his inexperience might have cost us, we just don't know. 

However, what we do know is that if Keogh hadn't played a suicide pass to nobody in particular, if we'd organised ourselves at a corner, or if Christie hadn't decided to still be bombing on at 3-2 in injury time, we would definitely have won the game and Wassall would have masterminded our best performance of the season. 

Four of our back five that ended the game have international experience. The other one has plenty of Premier League experience. Between them they should have the good sense not to find themselves in that situation. The two midfielders in front are full internationals as well. Of course Wassall can take some blame for what happened, he tinkered with it when it wasn't needed. But for me at least, he is a fair way down that particular queue. Regardless of his changes the team that finished that game should absolutely be seeing that game out without breaking sweat.

And as for Nottingham, it's not too bad if you can stay clear of the red side. The train next week should be good fun 

Bloody hell

Thought I was the only one up at this time of night

Fancy a coffee ?

[MrsRam]

steady lads - 

[Comrade 86]

Oh daar! Just woke up and it wasn't just a bad dream, was it? Have tried to remain supportive of DW as I feel he's been put in a tough spot, but yesterday's tactical substitutions were a masterclass in footy feckwittery. Such a shame as we seemed to be buzzing along at the time and totally in control of the game. Not sure where we go from here save for back to the pub to drown sorrows.

[eddie]

8 hours ago, WharfedaleRam said:

Yes UFO are brilliant. DCFC sadly at the minute are not.

For 80 minutes yesterday they were - then for the closing numbers of the set the band brought on a couple of session musicians who basically messed up the rhythm, hit all the wrong notes and ended up electrocuting the rest of the band with a bizarre bass guitar/bucket of water finale.

[GenBr]

13 hours ago, davenportram said:

by all accounts he had us set up in a good formation and playing well. Hardly sucking the style of play out of the team. He just had a brain **** when it cane to thinking he had to change things with the subs.

I don't understand how short term some people's memories are on here - perhaps Wassall isn't encouraging enough backwards or sideways passing for their liking, perhaps they want the players to be concreted back into their positions again or maybe they just want to go back to our brilliant style of play under Clement. 

Clement is the person who sucked the style of play out of the team - if anything Wassall is trying to fix the mess left before him and frankly despite a few mistakes I think he is making some good progress getting them back to where they were pre-Clement. (Still don't think he is permanent manager material yet though - still has a lot to learn).

 

[Ovis aries]

Leon ******* Best he is crap, we know this, and he scores TWO *******

[top 6 finish]

Pre-Clement was the meltdown wasn't it? The last thing we needed was for a manager to come along and take us into the top 6,and then the top 2 and then top. I can remember when football was a results game.

[Rampage]

Is this the same Meltdown (Meltdown 2) or a separate Meltdown (Meltdown 3)?

I cannot stand it when I am offered a Meltdown three times (Austin Powers).

Meltdown 1 - The Maclaren Meltdown

Meltdown 2 - The Clement Meltdown

Meltdown 3? - The Wassall Meltdown? 

I think that Wassall has not done enough to qualify for his own Meltdown. He is trying his best and facing problems that pretty much everyone has failed to identify, never mind fix.

[McRainy]

15 hours ago, Inglorius said:

Ummm parentheses after a full stop instead of before give up lol

 

The brackets are correct as they contain a complete sentence. The full stop would only be outside the bracket if the bracketed section was a phrase was within another sentence. 

You're welcome.

 

[Carl Sagan]

Scrutinizing the goals against from the RamsPlayer 11 minute highlights:

Main philosophical issue: DW wanting his cake and eating it, thinking he could bring on out-of-form forwards to fill their boots at the expense of having a midfield shape that had worked well the whole match and our two players who are best at holding the ball up and keeping it from the opposition.

Before Rotherham's first goal there have a shot that comes from having a gaping hole in front of our defence, but the shot goes wide.

Goal 1: Keogh is put quickly under pressure after Christie plays the ball back to him. His options were limited and really the only safe option is back to Carson (he can't put it into row Z as he's facing the other way). He tried an under pressure Hollywood left-footed pass. They intercepted, played a fine through ball and scored. If we'd had a holding midfielder would Keogh have had a better option? Would that player have been able to close down the pass? It's not clear.

Goal 2: Coaching error (DW) not having a man on the back post who would have been able to step out and reach the header first and clear. Compounded by a goalkeeping error from Carson who could have committed to getting to the ball first and punching away, but instead he appears intimidated by Best and pats it tamely onto his head and it rebouds in (apparently - it's not completely clear it crosses the line).

Goal 3: You can't see on the footage, but from the Radio Derby commentary I presume the ball has come to Camp in injury time because of Christie's error giving the ball to him. However, Christie does get back into position in time. The excellent cross to the far post leaves Best against Olsson and Best powers the header in. It was their best goal and hardest to defend against, although Warnock might have done a better job defensively.

Before we started leaking goals we played some nice stuff. Beautiful pass from Hendrick to Christie in the buildup to the second goal. Unbelievable miss by Martin at 0-1. Ince has a chance at 0-3 that he does very poorly with. Having scored two, I'd have hoped he'd have the confidence and ability to curl it into the top corner, but sadly it just goes tamely into Camp's midriff.

No evidence of Blackman or Bent playing in these highlights.

[Rampage]

TV Text said that Maclaren was on £700,000 pa  at NUFC and that Benitez is on £5,000,000 pa

Unlikely to be true but what did Schteeve do for £700,000 or whatever he was on? Could anyone have sorted out NUFC in that time frame? Allardyce?

Schteeve's next job? Quit mate, there is life after football.Enjoy

[loughboroughRAM]

just seen highlights, shambolic defending for the second goal, but one thing I noticed was Carson. WTF was he doing? Im not in the business of slating our players but surely he should be doing a lot better than that? It was such a pathetic attempt, patting it lamely onto Best's noggin. If that had been Grant there would be effigies burning outside the iPro. 

[sage]

2 hours ago, Carl Sagan said:

Scrutinizing the goals against from the RamsPlayer 11 minute highlights:

Main philosophical issue: DW wanting his cake and eating it, thinking he could bring on out-of-form forwards to fill their boots at the expense of having a midfield shape that had worked well the whole match and our two players who are best at holding the ball up and keeping it from the opposition.

Before Rotherham's first goal there have a shot that comes from having a gaping hole in front of our defence, but the shot goes wide.

Goal 1: Keogh is put quickly under pressure after Christie plays the ball back to him. His options were limited and really the only safe option is back to Carson (he can't put it into row Z as he's facing the other way). He tried an under pressure Hollywood left-footed pass. They intercepted, played a fine through ball and scored. If we'd had a holding midfielder would Keogh have had a better option? Would that player have been able to close down the pass? It's not clear.

Goal 2: Coaching error (DW) not having a man on the back post who would have been able to step out and reach the header first and clear. Compounded by a goalkeeping error from Carson who could have committed to getting to the ball first and punching away, but instead he appears intimidated by Best and pats it tamely onto his head and it rebouds in (apparently - it's not completely clear it crosses the line).

Goal 3: You can't see on the footage, but from the Radio Derby commentary I presume the ball has come to Camp in injury time because of Christie's error giving the ball to him. However, Christie does get back into position in time. The excellent cross to the far post leaves Best against Olsson and Best powers the header in. It was their best goal and hardest to defend against, although Warnock might have done a better job defensively.

Before we started leaking goals we played some nice stuff. Beautiful pass from Hendrick to Christie in the buildup to the second goal. Unbelievable miss by Martin at 0-1. Ince has a chance at 0-3 that he does very poorly with. Having scored two, I'd have hoped he'd have the confidence and ability to curl it into the top corner, but sadly it just goes tamely into Camp's midriff.

No evidence of Blackman or Bent playing in these highlights.

You can clearly see Blackman not marking Best properly for the second goal. Best doesn't make a quick or complicated run and Blackman is 3 yards behind him.

The other aspect to this is that replacing Martin and Thorne with Bent and Blackman as weakening us in terms of quality, hold up play and possession, it also left us defensively weaker in the air especially at set pieces.

We were effectively playing with 9 men for the last 15 minutes.