Pre Season Friendly v Sarasota Metropolis

[Ellafella]

30 minutes ago, DazaDunn said:

Chrissy is my favourite player and I’ve been called deluded for supporting him when everyone said he was finished. I’m also a realist. Chris won’t score 20 this season, you’re right with that, but if he has enough time on the pitch, he will contribute 20 assists and I can see him bagging 10. 

I also wanted to make a point that he didn’t once go over yesterday. I’m still seeing tweets responding to his excellent performance saying “get over him” or “he’s past it”. 

Sorry but If he’s going to contribute like that all season then I couldn’t care if he’d been a Derby player for 20 years, he has not lost his class or touch. Simple.

sorry Cocu, you could have a real striker headache this season but I’m very excited by it all!

My sentiment and thoughts exactly. CM has a football brain...he can unlock defences. We don’t need him for pace but play the ball into his feet and have players around him and we will score lots of goals. If Cocu works that out I can see us being top 3 all season. 

[ramsbottom]

I'll add one thing that everyone has missed...

The new kit looks great in motion 

[Day]

13 minutes ago, Nuwtfly said:

Cocu was appointed because he plays 4-3-3, like Lampard did.

One of the reasons Cocu was appointed to continue the style of football Lampard played, but to say he was appointed because he plays 4-3-3, I doubt there is any truth in this what so ever.

[Shuff264]

22 minutes ago, Nuwtfly said:

Think you've got this the wrong way around.

Cocu was appointed because he plays 4-3-3, like Lampard did. He's here to build on our style, and he's the man for the job because he's got a track record of playing teams in that style and having success in it. There's no way in hell that he's going to switch us to a 4-2-3-1 from the get-go. That would be counter to everything we've heard coming out of Derby over the last few weeks.

4-2-3-1 might be the back-up system, but under Cocu, it's going to be a 4-3-3 all the way. He said as much in his first interview.

The big difference between 4-2-3-1 and 4-3-3 are the roles of the midfield 3, can see us interchange regularly depending on personnel

[Ghost of Clough]

28 minutes ago, Nuwtfly said:

Think you've got this the wrong way around.

Cocu was appointed because he plays 4-3-3, like Lampard did. He's here to build on our style, and he's the man for the job because he's got a track record of playing teams in that style and having success in it. There's no way in hell that he's going to switch us to a 4-2-3-1 from the get-go. That would be counter to everything we've heard coming out of Derby over the last few weeks.

4-2-3-1 might be the back-up system, but under Cocu, it's going to be a 4-3-3 all the way. He said as much in his first interview.

Formation and style are not the same thing. Cocu was brought in due to style rather than formation. Apparently, his preferred formation was previously 433 for his first two seasons at PSV, but then switched to 4231 after. I imagine he’ll go for whichever suits the players available to him at the time.

[brady1993]

19 minutes ago, David said:

One of the reasons Cocu was appointed to continue the style of football Lampard played, but to say he was appointed because he plays 4-3-3, I doubt there is any truth in this what so ever.

However there is reasonable evidence to suggest that he will look to build towards it; given a bit of past preference for it and outright mentioning it in his first interview. 

Doesn't mean it's a nailed on thing and it's nice to see he isn't completely rigid with it. But I think last night's formation is more likely a function of not having the players to deploy a 3 man midfield reasonably well 

[duncanjwitham]

11 minutes ago, Shuff264 said:

The big difference between 4-2-3-1 and 4-3-3 are the roles of the midfield 3, can see us interchange regularly depending on personnel

Was going to say exactly this.  There's very little difference between the two, and we pretty much played 4231 at times last year anyway - certainly when Bryson was in the team, he sat a lot deeper, almost alongside the DM, with Mount pushed much further forward.

And the point of continuity between managers isn't to play *exactly* the same formation, it's to keep the style of football the same.  It doesn't matter if Cocu wants to play 433, 4231, 343, 442-diamond or whatever, as long as we're playing roughly the same sort of high-tempo, pressing, pass-and-move football that we played last year, and that the academy play too.  The problems are when you switch from a manager that wants to play ultra-defensive, long ball stuff to possession football and have to change half the squad and the academy never get a look in because they're the 'wrong type of footballer'.

[i-Ram]

Why so much analysis of formation and player attributes today?  Did we not just have a fitness run out against some third rate American team. Anyone trying to draw conclusions from last night’s game might want to also go to the bottom of the garden to find some fairies.

[brady1993]

1 minute ago, duncanjwitham said:

Was going to say exactly this.  There's very little difference between the two, and we pretty much played 4231 at times last year anyway - certainly when Bryson was in the team, he sat a lot deeper, almost alongside the DM, with Mount pushed much further forward.

And the point of continuity between managers isn't to play *exactly* the same formation, it's to keep the style of football the same.  It doesn't matter if Cocu wants to play 433, 4231, 343, 442-diamond or whatever, as long as we're playing roughly the same sort of high-tempo, pressing, pass-and-move football that we played last year, and that the academy play too.  The problems are when you switch from a manager that wants to play ultra-defensive, long ball stuff to possession football and have to change half the squad and the academy never get a look in because they're the 'wrong type of footballer'.

I'd say this is true to an extent. It needs the caveat of it being a midfield orientated formation but even that to a degree is to do with how specifically you deploy a formation. For example I doubt we will see a traditional flat 442 because it doesn't lend itself well to that style of play.

Conversely the reason why a 433 is common with teams who play in that style is because of how it nicely spaces out into passing triangles. Also it naturally allows the two more advanced midfielders freedom to roam and freedom to press because it's easier to cover the gaps left positionally. 

[Day]

8 minutes ago, brady1993 said:

However there is reasonable evidence to suggest that he will look to build towards it; given a bit of past preference for it and outright mentioning it in his first interview. 

Doesn't mean it's a nailed on thing and it's nice to see he isn't completely rigid with it. But I think last night's formation is more likely a function of not having the players to deploy a 3 man midfield reasonably well 

Not suggested/ing otherwise, the only point I was picking up on was him being appointed because he plays 4-3-3 which I don’t believe is true.

[DazaDunn]

4 minutes ago, i-Ram said:

Why so much analysis of formation and player attributes today?  Did we not just have a fitness run out against some third rate American team. Anyone trying to draw conclusions from last night’s game might want to also go to the bottom of the garden to find some fairies.

Just checked and I found a fairy! She said to me "Yes it was only a fitness exercise but it was a good performance from players that were written off, if I was written off as a fairy I'd like to prove I still have the ability to be the fairy I'm remembered as".

She was lovely, may speak to her again. 

[brady1993]

3 minutes ago, David said:

Not suggested/ing otherwise, the only point I was picking up on was him being appointed because he plays 4-3-3 which I don’t believe is true.

Yeah I understood that. Was just trying to further the discussion by bringing a better reason as to why I'd guess a 433 will be favoured.

[duncanjwitham]

4 minutes ago, brady1993 said:

I'd say this is true to an extent. It needs the caveat of it being a midfield orientated formation but even that to a degree is to do with how specifically you deploy a formation. For example I doubt we will see a traditional flat 442 because it doesn't lend itself well to that style of play.

Conversely the reason why a 433 is common with teams who play in that style is because of how it nicely spaces out into passing triangles. Also it naturally allows the two more advanced midfielders freedom to roam and freedom to press because it's easier to cover the gaps left positionally. 

Very few teams play a traditional flat 442 now though.  When 442 is played, it's almost always with (very) split strikers, or with something weird going on in midfield to give you an extra man in there (a diamond, or a winger tucking in).  Watford played it with Hughes out wide, tucking in, for example.

[Dethorn]

Does flying Anya all the way out there to not even make the 2nd XI seem like an expensive way to drop a hint to you guys ?

[i-Ram]

9 minutes ago, DazaDunn said:

Just checked and I found a fairy! She said to me "Yes it was only a fitness exercise but it was a good performance from players that were written off, if I was written off as a fairy I'd like to prove I still have the ability to be the fairy I'm remembered as".

She was lovely, may speak to her again. 

Do it quick. She’ll probably be out on loan in a couple of weeks.

[brady1993]

2 minutes ago, duncanjwitham said:

Very few teams play a traditional flat 442 now though.  When 442 is played, it's almost always with (very) split strikers, or with something weird going on in midfield to give you an extra man in there (a diamond, or a winger tucking in).  Watford played it with Hughes out wide, tucking in, for example.

Oh for sure I was mostly using it as an extreme example to illustrate what I was getting at. 

[RoyMac5]

3 minutes ago, i-Ram said:

Do it quick. She’ll probably be out on loan in a couple of weeks.

You've been listening to the wrong fairy mate!

[DazaDunn]

9 minutes ago, i-Ram said:

Do it quick. She’ll probably be out on loan in a couple of weeks.

Just checked, according to Sky's sources a deal with be done within 48 hours. They didn't say at what point that 48 hours start though. 

[SaintRam]

3 hours ago, Cam the Ram said:

I seem to remember someone on here posting the stats from Cocu's time with PSV about how his team scored the most goals from crosses every season. You could see that already implemented here after just a week of training ..... we must have put in 30 to 40 crosses throughout the match, but the problem is that 95% of them either went straight into the keeper's hands or didn't beat the first man

That's true of a large percentage of crosses generally.

On WhoScored for example, a cross only counts as a cross statistically if it finds a player. Otherwise it's an inaccurate pass. Check the cross-per-game averages on their player statistics by league ? 

The most crosses per game by a player in the premier league was 2.4

 

But I do agree we need to improve.

[Comrade 86]

4 hours ago, SaintRam said:

Seems like it was a right pain in the arse, glad I wasn't awake! ? 

I doubt the Bristol game will need any summarising, as it's free to all - but I'll be back for my own pre-season when the UK friendlies come around ?

When folk aren't sure whether a player is Huddz, Thorne or ML you know the stream aint great! Looking forward to your rather more on-point summaries at a later date mate ?