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"What's wrong with Derby?"

Derbados

By Derbados
in Derby County Forum

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mrdave85

mrdave85

Posted
Posted
Just now, King Kevin said:

Well there are only four or five that can win it on a regular basis so no.However a club like Derby capable of winning the Championship which gets itself into a good position every year and doesn't make it, if someone is not asking the question why I would be surprised.

But we don't get into a good position every year, that's not even close to being true. 

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WhiteHorseRam

WhiteHorseRam

Posted
Posted
20 hours ago, Leicester Ram said:

Think it's largely ******** and hysteria from the fans, if I'm being honest.

Let's examine our "bottling" and failures, shall we?

13/14: play off final v QPR

Closest we've come to bottling it. An almost perfect, well balanced, confident team couldn't find a goal against a very resolute QPR team who fluked a goal on the break when there were plenty of opportunities to stop them. If we played that fixture in the same conditions ten times over, we'd have won the other nine.

Verdict: Gutting, but it was more horrific luck than anything, 99 time out of 100 that cross and clearance doesn't land perfectly for Zamora. 

14/15: missing out on the play-off's

A series of injuries to the spine of the team starting with all our CDM's, Thorne, Eustace and Mascarell, and our ST's Martin and Bent, meant the whole system the team was built around fell apart. It was extremely unlucky and the team falling apart probably had more to do with us struggling to find a new system that worked. One fixture that stands out is Norwich (A) when we had Johnny Russell playing as a lone target man and Jamie Hanson at DM for his debut. Another under appreciated factor was Buxton's injury, which took the consistency out of a previously solid back four. The fact that McClaren wouldn't rule out the Newcastle job also played a part, but I suspect it was more a factor for the fans than the players.

Verdict: This would look like bottling to the uninitiated, but not many teams would survive so many injuries to their most important positions. If you lose your wingers, there's people who can do a job there, but when it's roles as mature/vital as CDM and ST in our classic 4-3-3, it's a kiss of death.

15/16: play-off failure with Wassall

A bit of a car crash in slow motion of a season, we finally got George Thorne back fit and playing, only to lose Bryson and Hughes on the first day. Johnson and Butterfield were brought in and we plodded along fairly well until our playing style got worse and worse, and more negative, with players performances falling off a cliff. It seemed like a lot of our players had got worse under Clement and most likely due to other factors off the field, he was sacked. This left us with Academy director Darren Wassall for the rest of the season. What people often forget is that Wassall did get us playing again, we had some decent results. But after losing Thorne in the final game of the season, Wassall naively put Will Hughes in the holding role and Bradley Johnson more advanced for the play-off home leg against Hull. We got torn apart 3-0 and a spirited away performance wasn't enough for us to get back in it.

Verdict: more poor luck, injuries at the worst times, managerial failings and ***** signings contributed to us messing up the play-off's. If Thorne had been fit for the play-off's, it could have been a different story. Although a good manager, Clement wasn't the right fit for Derby and Wassall did a fairly good job but was exposed by Steve Bruce in that play-off home leg.

16/17: being ****** from the off 

Pearson sat on his squad all summer, even though it clearly didn't suit the sort of system he wanted to play, then only decided to make moves in the transfer market late after an appalling start and no league goals. He shipped out the previously vital Chris Martin and cashed in on Hendrick, bringing in the very different Matej Vydra. After an awful 9 games and a shambolic performance against Blackburn, something seemed to happen off the field and he was out. McClaren came in, tinkered with the team and got us back into play-off contention with a run of clean sheets and wins. Unfortunately, to realistically make the play-off's, Derby would have had to keep up automatic promotion form for the rest of the season to make the play-off's and in a year where none of the top 6/7 teams seem to be slipping up, it's proved too much of an ask.

Verdict: a team that's now a mish-mash of 3/4 managers different ideas was maximised by McClaren enough to get back into play-off contention fell off. Was this team really meant to be good enough to make the play-offs? Mac's played a 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 because it suits the majority of the players, but really there is no cohesive system they're all meant to fit into. Until there's some continuity at Derby, it's extremely difficult to say we are 'bottling' it because what is there to bottle? There's about 6/7 other teams in the league which are clearly better than us and that's for off the field reasons as well as on the field.

Conclusion

It depends on what your definition of bottling is, but I don't think we've bottled it really. It comes from this idea that getting out of the championship is a piece of piss and we're a big club so should be doing better than the likes of Bournemouth, Burnley and Huddersfield. It's a lot of arrogance, people forget that there's 23 other teams in the league trying to achieve something too.

How many of the years we've been in contention and missed out have we been deserving of promotion? One I'd say, we were possibly better than Burnley in 13/14 and definitely better than QPR. The other times, there's been other teams!

14/15: Bournemouth were fantastic and Watford became a real force, Boro and Norwich were both comfortably better than what the depleted Derby team were at the end of the season. So were Brentford.

15/16: Burnley were absolutely clinical, Boro and Brighton were both clearly teams that would have finished 1st and 2nd in other years. Wednesday were on a level with us and probably had more momentum. Hull (and the rest of the league) had a proper manager instead of an academy director.

16/17: Newcastle and Brighton are about as good as it gets at this level. Huddersfield and Reading aren't as fashionable as other big teams in the league are, but they're easily play-off contenders and better than us. Wednesday, Leeds, Norwich and Fulham have consistency as well as a raft of talent. How is it an outrage/colossal failure that we aren't above these teams?

Under the circumstances, we're pretty much where we should be and people need to get used to that. Next season will finally give a manager a chance to build on what he was working with the season before and I'm feeling very positive about that.

So stop the hyperbole, entitlement and hysteria, get behind the team and take a minute before you buy into the bottlers image.

This is all good stuff ,,, but ..... (my two penneth :))

We have to play every game likes its the last 5 minutes of the second leg of a play off and we desperately need two goals. 

Every game.

From minute 1.

This requires some mental steel which I honestly think we are lacking. 

I agree with @King Kevin 's view that the above sounds like the CV of a loser. We have been unlucky but you have to make your own luck.

I don't know why, but I am more disappointed this season than usual. I feel we are in Losers' Loop right now.

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King Kevin

King Kevin

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6 hours ago, mrdave85 said:

But we don't get into a good position every year, that's not even close to being true. 

Think you need to read the post that's being discussed ,Play off final ,semi finals and missed by one place .How good a position would you like? 

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mrdave85

mrdave85

Posted
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3 minutes ago, King Kevin said:

Think you need to read the post that's being discussed ,Play off final ,semi finals and missed by one place .How good a position would you like? 

Read your post as close to winning the championship each year. 

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Warwick Ram

Warwick Ram

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I can't understand why we don't play 3-5-2. We have the full backs who always push forward. It gives us the benefit of three in midlfield, which our midfielders are use to and two upfront. It does mean we have to choose from two of Bent, Nugent, Ince and Vydra for the front line. I would personally play a back three of Baird, Keogh and Pearce with Christie and Olsson (Forsyth when fit) as full backs  and a midfield three of Hughes, Johnson and Bryson.

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GerryDaly

GerryDaly

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Posted
12 hours ago, toddy said:

What's wrong with Derby?

We are just not good enough for promotion if that is our goal.

If mid table is our goal then there is nothing wrong with Derby.

Why don't you state the obvious ?

 

The things is ... 

 

 

 

We should be good enough. 

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