We’re Unbalanced

[RoyMac5]

5 minutes ago, 86 points said:

Who has said that? Quite a telling post really. And it's not all the Derby fans pal...

Read the post it was replying to. The implication was that the problem was that Mac wasn't in charge. I'm saying that not all of the discontent is down to that but that excuse is constantly thrown around - cos its easy init.

[Curtains]

1 minute ago, RoyMac5 said:

Read the post it was replying to. The implication was that the problem was that Mac wasn't in charge. I'm saying that not all of the discontent is down to that but that excuse is constantly thrown around - cos its easy init.

Now is the winter of your discontent but not mine.  

Gary has us in the top 6 and has worked well in trimming the squad and wage bill. 

[RoyMac5]

3 minutes ago, curtains said:

Now is the winter of your discontent but not mine.  

Gary has us in the top 6 and has worked well in trimming the squad and wage bill. 

Gary is Clough Jr MkII

[Curtains]

Just now, RoyMac5 said:

Gary is Clough Jr MkII

Did Gary play for Forest. 

[Leicester Ram]

5 hours ago, jagerbob said:

Too Long didnt read.

the bit i did read, I'm pretty sure is factually incorrect.

For no season under McClaren, nor part season did we ever have the best attack.

You are confusing attack with "had the highest possession of the ball percentage."

Im pretty sure GRs teams with sometimes as little as 30% percentage create more chances and have more shots at goal, than those turdig slow paced McClaren teams, which wound a team down with 10 men behind the ball, and "patience" was the key.

This is precisely why this team is better balanced than any under McClaren, we had 2 many attacking minded central midfield players, and not enough all rounded / defensive minded ones. Eustace didnt play enough games after Thorne came in, Thorne had horrible injuries, Mascerell just wasnt what we needed for the championship, he alone, gave away goals on his own, by illjudged positional play and poor challenges. Had we had just two of Bryson hughes and Hendrick, and had an extra DM, so we could maybe play 2 of them at the same time.. then this would have represented balance. 3 centrally attack minded midfielders, when you also have 2 wide forward in the team was over kill, and when we didnt play well, and our play was too slow paced. then the opposition regularly picked us off on the counter attack, running directly at Keogh with their sights on goal. 

 

I agree with Grs philosophy in that football is a game about utlising space, and you create that with a balanced game plan, and speed of attack. All mcClarens teams did, was hope the opposition didnt have enough of the ball, and hoped we wouild nick an early goal, forcing them to come out, and then leave is that space to play in.

But when teams defended well, then we seemed to give them the freedom of our whole defensive half to play in, once they did get the ball.

 

We scored the most goals in the entire league in 13/14, ahead of Leicester, the best team to get out of this league in the past decade. I think our attack was the best in the league.

You are mixing Clement's Derby with McClaren's, who got the ball into dangerous positions just as quickly as Rowett's team does but ALSO had the ability to slow a game down with possession when it suited them, then equally speed it up with short, sharp passes in key areas. They didn't have the solid defensive structure that Rowett's team does, that was their version of it.

This post was never meant to be about Mac v Rowett, but a comparison of how both teams failings are in a lack of balance.

[Leicester Ram]

I also wanted this thread to be a look at how close we truly were/are under both managers. They have had the two stand out teams of the last 5 years and there's apt comparisons to be made about their issues, rather than saying one style is better than the other.

McClaren made adjustments in his second season that would have taken us up if all went according to plan but injuries destroyed us. But, we could have limped on better if we had different ways to play than that 4-3-3 attacking style, in hindsight. Maybe would have allowed him to keep his job and take us up the year after (when we had Martin, Thorne and Ince all fit in one team).

If Rowett goes on with the same tactics next year, we could have success but it's reliant on bringing in the right personnel, which in all honesty I don't have faith in Derby as a set-up to do. It requires an impenetrable back four with strikers who can make something out of relatively little; those strikers aren't cheap or easy to find, as we've found with Jerome.

I'd rather we had a solid defensive set-up that doesn't have to be impenetrable for us to win with a competent attack that doesn't have to be so clinical for 46 games for us to stand a chance of going up. We just need tweaking.

You can criticise this set of players, I see Thorne's getting some flack but structurally there's a problem that makes them look worse than they are. I don't think we really have a player at the club who isn't capable of playing in a promotion side but they need to be used properly.

The McClaren teams struggled holding onto leads in the last 20 minutes, the Rowett team struggles to gain a lead in the last 20 minutes. It's why neither team didn't/won't win the league.

I don't want this to hark back to the classic 'where's our Plan B' argument because the case isn't that we need a Plan B, but Plan A needs to be more flexible.

[jagerbob]

6 hours ago, Leicester Ram said:

We scored the most goals in the entire league in 13/14, ahead of Leicester, the best team to get out of this league in the past decade. I think our attack was the best in the league.

You are mixing Clement's Derby with McClaren's, who got the ball into dangerous positions just as quickly as Rowett's team does but ALSO had the ability to slow a game down with possession when it suited them, then equally speed it up with short, sharp passes in key areas. They didn't have the solid defensive structure that Rowett's team does, that was their version of it.

This post was never meant to be about Mac v Rowett, but a comparison of how both teams failings are in a lack of balance.

The second half of 14/15 was not Clement, this was when we were at our worst, and was very much mcclaren in charge.

I appreciate Martin was injured for most of it, Wolves away springs to mind especially as a game when our turgid football was slow paced and turdig, and they picked us off easily thanks to goalkeeping errors, while our possession stats created very little.

i could name many other games too.

13/14 was outr best chance, before other teams worked us out.. and before we stopped doing all the things that made us gfood int he first place, all in the name of patient (BORING) football.