Are We Easily Pleased ?

[SaintRam]

4 minutes ago, Casio said:

Catch me if you can?

Revolutionary Road  - just one of my favourite shrug gifs.

[TuffLuff]

Wouldn't say easily pleased, but I'm not too disappointed now either. Ofcourse we could/should have got promoted with that squad, but that disappointment came in February/March time when it looked like we were even dropping out of the play offs at the time.

I think there were too many factors going against us to ever really have a settled squad to push on. You can argue promotion was lost on the first day once Hughes and Bryson were injured. The replacements were panic buys and never consistently worked. The Clement experiment didn't work in the end either, leaving an unfit squad who weren't playing to strengths. Wassell came in and essentially had to do bodge job to keep them there, with no real experience of management before.

Ofcourse there is disappointment, the league was really there for the taking, but I can see the factors why we didn't make it in hindsight now. That next managerial appointment is vital, get settled, trim the squad down, get them match fit, leave no room for complacent and actually go at teams and we will do it. Rather look at positives than negatives at this stage now

[McRamFan]

Season was always going to be a rollercoaster once we lost Hughes and Bryson.

 

[Ewetube]

51 minutes ago, curtains said:

If Wassall is manager don't hold out any hope of finishing above Villa. 

I feel Villa have a huge task ahead of them, we need some tweaks on the field and possibly off it, they require redevelopment.

[loweman2]

at Least Johnny seems to be agreeing !

 

[Animal is a Ram]

http://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/admit-ve-failed-Honest-season-Derby-County-s/story-29288738-detail/story.html

JOHNNY Russell felt Derby County answered some of their critics at Hull City - but admitted this season had been a "failure" after missing out on promotion.

The Rams beat the Tigers 2-0 in the second leg of their Sky Bet Championship play-off semi-final at the KC Stadium on Tuesday night but went out 3-2 on aggregate.

Hull will play Sheffield Wednesday in the final at Wembley on May 28 as Derby's hopes of reaching the Premier League were ended for another year.

"It's our own fault," said Russell. "We keep getting ourselves in these positions.

"Every year we say 'this is our year' and in the end, we can only look at this as failure. There's no way of sugar-coating it - we've failed to go up again."

Derby were beaten in the play-off final by Queens Park Rangers two years ago and, last season, slipped out of play-off contention on the final day.

"Nobody has a right to be in the Premier League but with the squad we've got, we should be," said Russell.

"It's frustrating, especially when we show what we're capable of, like we did at Hull. Nobody else had beat them there this season and we've done it twice.

"So it shows what we are capable of but we just don't do it anywhere near consistently enough."

Derby came in for heavy criticism following their 3-0 home defeat in the first leg against Hull on Saturday, including claims from pundit Ian Holloway that the team lacked character.

"We deserved criticism after the first leg," said Russell. "You can't live in a little bubble and think you're not going to get criticised after a performance like that.

"We deserved to be criticised for that performance, though I think some of it was a little bit over the top.

"We went down far too easily on Saturday. We crumbled. It just makes it all the more frustrating when we show what we can do.

"I don't think anybody could look at our performance at Hull and say we didn't have the heart or the desire. We fought for each other all over the park and we've got a great bunch of lads here.

"To have that questioned is pretty annoying but we didn't really give ourselves much defence on Saturday."

Russell got Derby's revival up and running with an early goal at Hull. The Scotland international forced the ball home for his 10th of the season from close range in the seventh minute after his initial header had been blocked.

Johnny Russell gave the Rams the boost of a goal in the seventh minute.

Andy Robertson's own goal in the 36th minute gave the Rams real hope but that proved to be the end of the scoring.

"We knew we had to come out absolutely flying - and we did," said Russell.

"It was maybe a bit fortunate as I lost the ball in the floodlights. As I glanced the header, I probably got a bit lucky - but it's luck we probably deserved.

"You could probably say the same about the second one. To get two goals before half-time, coming out for the second half, we really thought we could do it.

"We just couldn't find that third goal. If that had come, I think we would've gone on to win it."

Derby had a chance to level the tie overall early in the second half but Craig Bryson was unable to divert Andreas Weimann's low cross on target.

"I think Bryse is majorly disappointed about that but he's been absolutely brilliant for us and one of the main reasons we've got to where we are," said Russell.

"I think he had to a check a little bit and probably got his leg up a bit too well. I think if it hits him anywhere else, it probably goes in. We had a couple of other half-chances that maybe on a different day, they go in."

In the end, Russell was left to reflect on what might have been.

"There were a lot of emotions at the end - the main one was disappointment," added the 26-year-old forward.

"We were absolutely brilliant but we all know we lost this tie on Saturday. There's no way around it. We can't expect to put in a performance like we did in the first leg and expect to go through. Even though we believed we could do it, it was always going to be difficult and we fell just short."

Finally, Russell paid tribute to the Rams faithful, particularly the 2,309 who made the trip to Hull.

"The fans were unbelievable, as they have been all season," he said.

"We know we let them down on Saturday, there's no justifying that. Even though we didn't go through, I hope we showed that we do care and we do want to play for this club."

[De22Ram]

1 hour ago, loweman2 said:

 

Tom Ince is a good example of what is wrong with our team and the apathy that is within it, he just strolls around making minimal effort, last night when he replaced weiman was the turning point I thought, every player out there was giving 110% up until ince came on and he became the weakness in that commitment, you could see the belief seemed to fade. 

Bradley Johnson was played week in week out and was totally inept and ineffective, was that down to his attitude because we all know that he has the ability or he did have at Norwich, a successful team cant have passengers that are played week after week.

The core of the team is still made up of hard working young lads that Nigel Clough put together, if we can get thorne, Bryson and hughes to avoid injury for a whole season we would walk this league, we just need the right players to come in to finish off the squad, so does the whole blame fall onto the recruitment ? if that £20 mil had been better spent would we now be in the premier league ?

 

Spot on!!! Cloughie built a small tight knit squad all pulling in the same direction, it feels to me like all that has been undone under mclaren to a certain extent but mainly clement! The golden rule for buying players is to buy better than what you already have, if not then there just bloating a squad causing disharmony in the dressing room! I know its easy to say this but dont buy them if your not sure. Play the youngster for cover if we get injuries, bennett, hanson etc!