So what do we expect this season

[dcfcfan1]

Ive changed my mind after the ball dropping transfer news

 

Champions

[Rammy03]

54 minutes ago, Rosythram said:

So all the doom and gloom merchants go and do one and leave genuine fans to enjoy DCFC for what it’s meant to be FUN.

And that's why last season for me was the best supporting Derby. It was just good fun, had everything. All the ups and downs, cup wins against prem teams, spygate, beating Leeds in their own back yard and just a great buzz around the club. And I wouldn't have changed a thing.... Apart from getting promoted.

[G STAR RAM]

5 minutes ago, Rammy03 said:

And that's why last season for me was the best supporting Derby. It was just good fun, had everything. All the ups and downs, cup wins against prem teams, spygate, beating Leeds in their own back yard and just a great buzz around the club. And I wouldn't have changed a thing.... Apart from getting promoted.

There was a feel good factor last season in parts but there were spells where it disappeared and questions were being asked.

It wasn't a patch on Mac 1 for me, where we had just suffered years of austerity, and building from nothing, to travelling the country genuinely expecting to spank anyone in our path.

[RhylRam]

2 hours ago, RoyMac5 said:

Madam Zaza sees all?!

See  Ramleicester’s quite nasty replies to this have been removed? (by whom don’t know)   And I expect a typical season of ups and downs and finishing anywhere between 1st and 24th but hopefully in single figure bracket number 1 preferably??  

[Andicis]

Top 2 is up for grabs this season to be honest. I don't consider any of the squads a long way ahead of ours. That being said, I didn't see Norwich and Sheff United being near the top last year. I think signing Bielik can be huge for us. A proper holding midfielder allowing us to dominate possession I feel will allow us to get a lot more points than otherwise. 

The clubs up near the top last season haven't really strengthened that much, Bristol have been pretty intelligent with their signings though. The relegated clubs will always be up and around there, Warnock obviously has a track record of promotions. Huddersfield don't look like challenging to me, their squad last year was pretty poo. 

Think it all depends how quickly Cocu gets used to English football. If he takes to it as well as the likes of Bielsa did, I can definitely see us challenging for autos. But I don't expect to be. Top 6 is what I expect us to reach.

[Rammy03]

1 hour ago, G STAR RAM said:

There was a feel good factor last season in parts but there were spells where it disappeared and questions were being asked.

It wasn't a patch on Mac 1 for me, where we had just suffered years of austerity, and building from nothing, to travelling the country genuinely expecting to spank anyone in our path.

Fair enough. Phenomenal season that was with a very different feeling actually. I think because that season we definitely deserved to and should have gone up. Last season we proved the doubters wrong and sort of overachieved.

[Rammy03]

36 minutes ago, Andicis said:

Think it all depends how quickly Cocu gets used to English football. If he takes to it as well as the likes of Bielsa did, I can definitely see us challenging for autos. But I don't expect to be. Top 6 is what I expect us to reach.

Bang on.

[Kernow]

On 30/07/2019 at 13:22, Kernow said:

Currently pretty fair yeah. I’d say full strength probably about 8th, but with inevitable injuries we could go down to 12th-ish.

Still time to get a couple of loans in though which could make all the difference - it doesn’t have to be in time for the Huddersfield game.

Shows how quickly expectation can heighten in just a few days. I'm sure I'm not the only one who is already a lot more optimistic about this season off the back of Bielik and Clarke (almost) signing. Putting just those two players into our starting line-up gives us so much more balance and depth, it really can make a huge difference.

In Bielik we will have what I think might be a perfect CDM for the way Cocu wants to play. Hopefully he'll be the best CDM we'll have had since 13/14, and if he stays fit then he'll be better than Thorne was in that season. He offers us something completely different to our other options we'd have had there without Bielik, hoping he'll be a really smart piece of business.

I think Davies is pretty much done here in terms of playing. Evans probably 3rd choice CB currently if Clarke does join, and although he did a decent job at CB last year, I'm going to be a hell of a lot more confident with Keogh and Clarke than Keogh and Evans.

Now I think we have an excellent chance at top 6, and depending on who the mystery two extra signings are, it could be an even better season if Cocu can get to grips with the Championship quickly.

[G STAR RAM]

4 hours ago, Ramleicester said:

And the reason why will become clear very soon. If it had of been there before now this would have happened a little sooner which may have improved pre season.

In any event it is very positive news 

Not doubting that you have inside information or sources that do but you still haven't really cleared up one point:-

If the money for the stadium was transferred to the club, as you said it was, why are we in danger of running out of money and had to wait for investment from other sources?

The proceeds from the sale of the ground were £80m, have we managed to get through that much in about 4 months?

[Ambitious]

I've been listening to TalkSPORT quite a bit today and it's been interesting listening as a Derby fan. Adrian Durham thinks we're going down, because Cocu doesn't know the division, we're skint and can't replace the outgoing quality. In the next breathe, he said Charlton will struggle losing a player of Bielik's quality. You couldn't write it. 

It's sometimes hard to be unbiased against your own team. I'd like to think that I do an okay job, but like anyone it's irritating to hear something you don't like. It's certainly given me something to think about. 

The most irritating comment is that we've lost a lot of players. It irritated me in the build up to the play-off final where our loan players were lauded, yet we had three in our starting XI and Villa had four. It's a very inconsistent news bite. I've just heard that we've lost a lot of players to Chelsea going back on loan. It's two. It's not to say that they weren't good players for us, but a balanced view is required: 

Tomori - He struggled for the first part of his Derby loan. He had the pace to get him out of jail, but his poor discipline at the start cost us a lot of goals. The same can be said about Bogle and his inability to stop a cross. He finished the season brilliantly and deserved the recognition he got. 

Mount - He had a strong start, dipped in the middle, got injured for a couple of months, came back and was our best midfielder. Again, like Tomori, he came out on the other side a much better player. It shouldn't be ignored that he went 17 games with just one goal and one assist at one point in the season despite almost playing every single game 90 minutes through. 

Wilson - He was at his best early on in his loan, after Christmas he was arguably our worst player who consistently started. From February onwards, he started every game and scored six goals and got two assists in 21 games - 3 of those were penalties. It's not a great return. He needs to refine his overall game, because anyone that watched him last season can tell you that a Premier League side can't carry him, especially one struggling. 

I would have all three back in a heartbeat, don't get me wrong, but all three had their slumps last season. I could go through the whole team. I think part of the reason we got over the line in the play-offs was because we had players having slumps at different times. Marriott hit the ground running when Mount was just falling out of form. Waghorn came into his peak as Marriott got injured. 

We don't need players of their quality to replace them, because that is difficult to find, all we need is players with consistency. 

[Gee SCREAMER !!]

1 hour ago, Kernow said:

Shows how quickly expectation can heighten in just a few days. I'm sure I'm not the only one who is already a lot more optimistic about this season off the back of Bielik and Clarke (almost) signing. Putting just those two players into our starting line-up gives us so much more balance and depth, it really can make a huge difference.

In Bielik we will have what I think might be a perfect CDM for the way Cocu wants to play. Hopefully he'll be the best CDM we'll have had since 13/14, and if he stays fit then he'll be better than Thorne was in that season. He offers us something completely different to our other options we'd have had there without Bielik, hoping he'll be a really smart piece of business.

I think Davies is pretty much done here in terms of playing. Evans probably 3rd choice CB currently if Clarke does join, and although he did a decent job at CB last year, I'm going to be a hell of a lot more confident with Keogh and Clarke than Keogh and Evans.

Now I think we have an excellent chance at top 6, and depending on who the mystery two extra signings are, it could be an even better season if Cocu can get to grips with the Championship quickly.

Don't know enough about this fella to say how good he might be but that will be some going - Thorne was the best player we've had in that position since the 90's . 

[Kernow]

6 minutes ago, Gee SCREAMER !! said:

Don't know enough about this fella to say how good he might be but that will be some going - Thorne was the best player we've had in that position since the 90's . 

Partly because of the balance we had in the rest of the squad. This guy’s stats show how much potential he has so if we strike the right balance he could thrive.

He’s the kind of holding midfielder we’ve really lacked. Players like Huddlestone & Johnson lacked in certain areas when holding on their own which is why we lost the midfield battle as often as we did.

[TommyPowell]

On 29/07/2019 at 23:09, dcfcfan1 said:

Agree, I trust cocu. But not replacing players we have lost is silly. Not only we havent strengthened from last seasons weaknesses, our squad has got weaker too

DCFCFAN can i suggest Specsavers you obviously cant see further then the end of your nose the time to throw your dummy out the pram will be next thursday if there is no movement of new players.

[Nuwtfly]

PC: "The ambition has to be playing in the play-offs again. So this is what we're going to work hard for but, like we said in the presentation, it's not only this one goal we're setting. We want to develop the style of play we have in the team, develop the young players who join the team: this is as important as the objective we have with the first team."

Please remember this quote, ladies and gents. This season is not just about points and a league finish. It's about our progression and evolution as a football club. It's about developing our own brand of football and getting bloody good at it. Building a team that won't get promotion off the back of a good run, but will at some point dominate the league. This is, for me, the right attitude to approach this division with and is something to get really excited about. 

[cheron85]

34 minutes ago, Nuwtfly said:

PC: "The ambition has to be playing in the play-offs again. So this is what we're going to work hard for but, like we said in the presentation, it's not only this one goal we're setting. We want to develop the style of play we have in the team, develop the young players who join the team: this is as important as the objective we have with the first team."

Please remember this quote, ladies and gents. This season is not just about points and a league finish. It's about our progression and evolution as a football club. It's about developing our own brand of football and getting bloody good at it. Building a team that won't get promotion off the back of a good run, but will at some point dominate the league. This is, for me, the right attitude to approach this division with and is something to get really excited about. 

Agreed

If we can build the right style of play, bring through some of the younguns to learn from the likes of Keogh, Davies, Huddlestone, Martin etc and finish 8th with the ambition of smashing everyone the season after I'm fine with that

[Rammy03]

13 hours ago, Ambitious said:

We don't need players of their quality to replace them, because that is difficult to find, all we need is players with consistency. 

Spot on mate. Consistency is what Derby have been lacking and is arguably the reason we don't finish the season in top 2. If we play the way we know we can play for most of the season, not just in parts, we have a great chance of doing something special.

[Hathersage Ram]

If Clarke, Bielik, settle in quickly.

And we get possibly a right winger I think top 2

[TomG]

After watching Sky Sports News for most of the morning and listening to the second rate 'pundits', apart from mentioning the Matt Clarke signing, Derby seem to be moving under the radar at the moment, they were talking about the new managers in the EFL, but did not mention Phillip Cocu.  I'd actually prefer that they don't talk about our great club because when they do it's usually completely disrespectful or utter b****cks!  I'm looking forward to seeing one or two new faces come in this weekend...COYR!

[Rampage]

I expect every man to do his duty and get us promotion.

Euphoria has set in.

Very excited about who the other two or three incoming players may be. GK, RW and left fullback or right fullback or left wing. Huddersfield watch out 

[ThePrisoner]

An open top bus parade late May.