Barnsley (A) Match Thread

[NottsRam77]

6 hours ago, TuffLuff said:

Also I know the defending has been poor but I think it’s worth pointing out that Davies and Clarke was our fourth defensive combination in ten games without considering changes to full backs. Top defending comes from partnerships being formed, which takes game time. This also naturally makes your players more organised when they know their jobs, which grows confidence. It will take time, but I do think the whole first 11 needs more consistency in it before it works as a unit.

Agree, cocu very quickly needs to decide which two from 3 he’s playing and stick with it 

[IlsonDerby]

8 hours ago, Sexydadbod said:

They sung his name because they think it’s funny committing crimes and think it’s banter.  My personal view is that both him and Lawrence should be sold in January. I don’t feel comfortable with either of them plying for the club I support and pay money to. After the court date and if they show GENUINE remorse rather than apologising(that’s if they even do) for the sake of it for PR reasons, maybe my position will change and I will learn to forgive them. 

I’m not saying I necessarily disagree with you but where was this outcry when we signed Rooney? Banned for the same thing? 

Fans seems to regularly sing his name too. 

 

Or is it only a career ending incident if they’re frustrating players to watch?  

[CBRammette]

I am very biased but we fell apart after time of Martin substitution. He may have been tired but lost any shape and looked like pub team. 

[TheresOnlyWanChope]

7 hours ago, Steve Buckley’s Dog said:

The problem is that our players aren’t very good. I am not an expert but I would have thought having a goalkeeper who can catch a football would be enormously helpful. A decent shot stopper but we are being targeted with corners and long throws because everyone knows what we do. Also the lack of control at times and inability to play pretty simple passes is quite staggering. The lack of football intelligence is rather worrying as well-that corner, dear me, as well as Waghorn’s antics in the last 10. think we will have enough to stay up but I can’t say there’s many here, in the match day group, who have much of a future or who I particularly care about.

A lack of fitness  is also something I have noticed in pretty much every game. I had put it down to our amateurish pre-season but now wonder how much is due to our amateurish behaviour off the pitch, which is one thing this group will be forever tainted with in my eyes.

As the stranglers put it, no more heroes anymore. 

Looking forward to Saturday and Jacob butterfield’s rather inevitable winner.

Carson is the best keeper Derby have had in a long time. Can’t believe he isn’t here playing

[NottsRam77]

4 hours ago, Jourdan said:

People will say we should have won tonight and Barnsley were there for the taking. Let’s be honest, so were Swansea, Cardiff and WBA.

I think we are treading a fine line here. When do we stop saying it’s a hard luck story and when do we say these players can’t cut it?

I am hoping this is just another bump on our road to improvement and consistency but there are some worries. Our inability to take our chances when we are on top, our inability to kill off games, our inability to see out games, our inability to stay calm and composed under pressure - it’s all really hurting us.

A good team gets those things right more often than they don’t. We have managed it twice in 10 games. We have got it wrong again tonight and you would imagine it won’t be the last.

Two valuable points dropped, in the sense of the momentum it would have given us. It would have been back to back wins, four unbeaten, and to within four points of the top 6, all with a favourable home game coming up.

In isolation, it looks a poor result. But as always it depends on how you follow it up.

A win on Saturday and 7 points out of 9 definitely looks more encouraging than 8 out of the previous 24.

Let’s see how we respond.

Great post 

nail on head mate 

[desirelines]

How did Lowe do in his preferred position? 

[Arsene Titman]

In my eyes, we have recurring problems in the team:

- Roos is a liability

- We are vulnerable at free kicks and corners

- Our passing and control is sub standard and I do wonder if the current crop of players are capable of implementing what Cocu asks of them.

[SaintRam]

12 minutes ago, desirelines said:

How did Lowe do in his preferred position? 

He was excellent

[desirelines]

26 minutes ago, SaintRam said:

He was excellent

Brilliant! Very excited about having Bogle and Lowe on opposite wings. 

[Shang]

Positives from last night since someone has to:

• Chris Martin retuning to form scoring 3 in 3
• Interplay between Holmes and Paterson, they look like they'll be a great partnership this season
• Lowe looking great at left back
• Davies looking close back to his best

[erathirea]

Objective decision time:

Roos: 7 - No chance with either goal. One punch towards the end when he could have collected, but otherwise made a few smart saves and commanded the area better claiming several crosses.

Bogle: 6 - Think he lacked a little match sharpness - few things he tried he wasn't quite getting the ball in the right places and didn't provide as much threat as normal. Let's put that down to coming back from injury

Lowe: 7 - Solid threat down the left and linked well with Paterson and Lawrence. Reasonable defensive display

Bielik: 7 - Game of two halves - first half thought he was caught out of position a couple of times, but second half looked a lot better. Clearly a player with a lot of class and sometimes a step or two too far ahead. Linked play up well

Davies: 7 - Typical Davies display

Huddlestone: 7 - Didn't do anything wrong - looked settled and composed, and was the one filling in when Kristian wandered out of position. Good penalty

Holmes: 8 - Good evening - looked dangerous and kept on finding little spaces - final ball was occasionally not *quite* on the money, but that wasn't always his fault

Paterson: 8 - See Holmes

Lawrence: 7 - Played "his game" pretty well. Kept taking on players - sometimes got past them, sometimes didn't, won a penalty, played some nice football and probably should have scored. Got his head down and got on with it pretty well under the circumstances.

Waghorn: 6 - Not a good game last night. Didn't really impact play as much as he would have liked, in fact his main contributions were defensive. Almost like he didn't have the right studs on.

Martin: 7.5 - Alert when Barnsley weren't to nick a goal, and did the hold up play very well- probably could have had a couple of assists on another day. Only minor concern was the old "frustrated" side of him started to come out a bit just before he got subbed.

 

Subs:

Clarke: 7 - Thought he looked good when he came on - worth noting that whilst their goal came from a set piece, it wasn't from a cross - think we looked a lot more solid at set plays with him and Davies at CB.

Knight: 6 - Not enough time to make a real impact

Bennett: N/A - Didn't touch the ball.

 

Cocu: 6.5 - Made the right call at half time to bring on Clarke and push up Bielik (think that's how we'll start at the back on Saturday, and I'm ok with that). Think he should have brought on Knight a bit sooner (and for Waggers), and very much question bringing on Bennett with 5 minutes left when you're trying to see out a result. 

 

Overall: Fairly happy with the performance. We tried to play some good football, and whilst it didn't always come off, there were the flashes of brilliance in there. Few nice partnerships developing in the middle of the park, and the signs were promising. Barnsley's main threat came from set pieces- we were very good at breaking up the play when they came forward otherwise, but even their set piece threat dropped once we had Clarke and Davies in there together.

[Will Hughes Hair]

I'm sorry that I've woken up quite angry this morning.  There is no way that either Lawrence or Bennett should have been anywhere near the squad and their inclusion to my mind introduced a sideshow that placed undue pressure on the team and meant we drew a game that should have been a straight forward victory.

Brentford gave Cocu the perfect blueprint on how to beat Barnsley, and if we'd been able to follow that plan for the whole game with 100% focus it is my conviction that we win.

The icing on the cake was Bennett turning his back on the equalising shot and Lawrence failing to react in time as it passed by him.

[Bubbles]

All anger and rage aside, can't wait to see The Three Drunkateers up top, Lawrence, Rooney, Bennett

[BucksRam]

So it was a disappointing result for me, to lose in the 95th minute.  Altho' did we really warrant the win? Barnsley were very poor but by accounts so were we (going by comments on here as I didn't see the game).  I've said on here a few times I'm an eternal optimist. Overall though, I am a realist. 

I took an objective look through the team and sadly even I struggle:

Yes

Martin, Waghorn, Marriott, Bogle, Lowe, Bielik, Holmes, Huddlestone, Davis and maybe Malone

But need to play it right, Mariott and Waggers playing off Martin and dare I say off an occasional long ball from the back rather than scare us with playing from the back with players perhaps not skillful enough. 

Holmes is attacking and scares defences, but Huds is slow and relies on having someone available to pass to.  If they're not available he goes backwards, or is at risk of being robbed as he can't run out of trouble.  Bielik has to play DM not CB.  We need more drive in the midfield. Bogle and Lowe show maturity and skill going forward and defending. Davis is a leader.  Malone gives 100% but there's something there that I'm not convinced about.  His final ball maybe. 

Paterson  -  showing signs but jury out still. Same for Shinnie.

Clarke  -  had a great debut but been suspect since so he's currently a no for me. Far too slow too.

Knight, Buchanan, Sibley, Bird, Mitchell-Lawson, Whittaker -  don't doubt their potential but still young and raw. 

Roos, Dowell, Lawrence, Bennett, Jozefzoon, Evans  -  too inconsistent or shown little to show me their PL potential. Dowell is most definitely falling far short of his being an apparent Mount replacement. Roos scares me literally every time I see him. 

Anya  -  I blow hot and cold on him but is he worth a punt?  He's nothing if not direct. 

Having had 3 true PL players last year, in Mount, Wilson & Tomori they plugged a lot of the gaps we have. Rooney will help but I don't expect him to be a "save our season" signing. We need a good Jan transfer window for a solid, decisive keeper, quick CB and a bullish attacking CM.

Sorry for the slightly negative download.  Perhaps someone can pick holes in my lack of faith and make me feel more positive again?!

[ramjit]

How did Lawrence play last night?honest question.i would of kept the same team from Saturday,did tom do enough to justify picking him.

[erathirea]

44 minutes ago, ramjit said:

How did Lawrence play last night?honest question.i would of kept the same team from Saturday,did tom do enough to justify picking him.

Yes - He was better than Zoon.

[Andicis]

56 minutes ago, ramjit said:

How did Lawrence play last night?honest question.i would of kept the same team from Saturday,did tom do enough to justify picking him.

Rubbish. His usual self, careless on the ball, no quality, too weak etc. The only thing he did well was to fall over in the box and win us a penalty.

[HorsforthRam]

Cocu’s post match interview was interesting. He seems to to be acknowledging that some of the players, both defensively and offensively do not have the “desire” that he requires. I think he’ll be ear marking his own signings in the next two windows (obviously). 

[belperram9]

Not great at times and scrappy, however, when we did get it into Martin's feet and played off him we looked a lot more threatening going forward. Personally, I prefer this kind of play rather than shelling it into the channels hoping Mariott can get 'in behind'. If we play like that the passes have to be inch perfect and not run out of play for a goal kick or placed straight onto a centre-halves head. I don't think we have the quality for that, and it's easier to play into Martin's feet. We know he will bring people into play and he did at times last night with Paterson and Holmes linking up.

Also, on Huddlestone, it's clear that Cocu likes him. He gets a lot of criticism on this forum, however, the 2nd half turned scrappy in my opinion when he went off and we lost that element of 'control' in the middle. It may not seem like he is doing a lot passing the ball backwards and sideways at times, but that's because he doesn't have people making runs off the ball and a lot of the time when he receives it he has someone up his backside so he can only play it back where it came from. You can't deny the little drag he did with his right foot and the chip to Paterson which eventually lead to Martin's goal was class.

All IMO.

[Mucker1884]

13 hours ago, angieram said:

Have been avoiding Twitter all night so I don't spoil watching the athletics when I get home from the match. Thought I would be safe on a dcfc match thread. ???