v Manchester United (H) - Matchday Thread

[Ambitious]

It also something that was said when Cocu first got the job: In his first season at PSV, he finished fourth in a three horse race. He then went on to win the league 3 times in the next four seasons. He never won the cup though, in fact he never got to a semi-final.  

[Steve How Hard?]

Not sure if it's been mentioned but it was good to see Ace out there before the kick-off. Brought back good memories of a truly talented player. 

[angieram]

Just a comment on the support tonight - lots of new faces around me, didn't seem to know Steve Bloomers watching, little in the way of clapping or encouraging our play. One might even suspect some of them weren't here to watch Derby at all? 

In defence of our South Stand, they were singing but it was hard for us in the other stands to pick up on it over that relentless wall of sound that 6,000 Man United fans created (Phil Spector would be proud.) If we can't hear it we can't join in.

 

[May Contain Nuts]

1 hour ago, Remy the hare said:

I get that if you have a squad that you can adjust ‘accordingly’ to a situation tactically.
To me Cocu makes changes for the sake of making changes, not because he’s a master tactician.   Play the Cocu kids for the rest of the season, we’ve nothing to lose now and they get great experience. 

 

The first bolded bit; I guess that will always be the case. I'd say that just because someone can't see the reasoning behind something doesn't mean there isn't any, There will be hundreds of little things we'll have been working on individually and collectively throughout the season, but the work put in won't always show itself immediately.

From what I've seen over the course of the season I'm happy that we're headed in the right direction and that the development of our players is being handled well. I'm happy to trust that the manager and his team, those brought in specifically with the aim of maximising the talents of our Academy and with a history elsewhere of doing just that, know how best to hadle our current situation. I think the proof is out there on the pitch for all to see.

The second bolded bit? We do still have something to lose, that would be suicide!

[Steve How Hard?]

1 minute ago, Ambitious said:

It also something that was said when Cocu first got the job: In his first season at PSV, he finished fourth in a three horse race. He then went on to win the league 3 times in the next four seasons. He never won the cup though, in fact he never got to a semi-final.  

Cocu never got a semi? Now there's a story for the headline writers. 

[Millenniumram]

A shame that we couldn’t cause another cup upset tonight, but really we were always the big underdogs, so you couldn’t have expected tonight to go much different to the way it did. We were outclassed by a side with much much higher quality technical players than we have, it’s as simple as that really. Not a great deal you can do. They dominated the game and deserved to progress, though I do think it’s a bit of a shame that the fight and desire we showed in the second half didn’t result in us getting at least a consolation goal to go home with. Oh well, we’d done very well to reach this stage in the first place having already seen Palace off, so it really was a free hit. Going out at this stage is nothing to be ashamed of, we should keep our heads held high and be proud of the battle we showed.

Anyway, how I saw it:

Roos 6- Distribution was pretty decent, but he shipped three goals so can’t really justify a higher rating, even though none were his fault particularly

Bogle 7- Our best player imo, couple of great defensive blocks and some really good driving runs forward, with dangerous crosses at the end. Still suspect positionally though at times.

Evans 6 - Theres a reason we haven’t really missed him while he was out. Passing was bank, went long far too often, and his defensive positioning was awful.

Forsyth 6 - Similar to Evans albeit a bit better defensively winning some decent headers. His passing as usual though, was dire

Lowe 7 - Had a good game defensively, battled hard and won some good challenges. Bit lax on the ball at times though

Bird 6 - First game where I’ve thought he’s struggled a bit, the Energy of the game caught him out a little and he got penned in a bit too often. Still showed his class in patches though, with some lovely composed passes

Rooney 7 - Turned it on against his old club, our best offensive player. Some brilliant bits of close control, and his passing was spot on. Shame he couldn’t grab a goal with his freekicks

Knight 7 - Good game I thought. Quiet start and struggled to make an impression going forward, but grew into the game as he relaxed and had some nice bits of interplay

Sibley 6 - Showed his incredible potential at times with some of his surging runs, but he’s still too naive atm for me. Needs more experience to develop his decision making and help with his discipline. Maybe a loan spell would be beneficial. 

Lawrence 6- Hope the injury isn’t too bad, but he was having a bit of a shocker before he was subbed anyway. Kept running into dead ends and losing possession

Waghorn 6- Put the effort in as usual, but was anonymous in possession other than that one chance.

Subs:

Shinnie 6 - Made a positive impact when he came on, adding a bit of energy and bit in the later stages

Marriott 6 - One good shot, otherwise anonymous 

Whittaker 6 - Needs to be braver and get on the ball more often 

In summary, a game of two halves for me. We lost the match in the first half where we were a little too nervy and afraid of them. We actually started fairly well - the first 15 minutes were fairly even with us looking pretty solid, so it looked like we were gonna compete. Sadly we just seemed to drop off too much and let them walk over us in that half hour spell, we let the nerves get the better of us and resorted to hit and hope rather than playing through the midfield. It’s a shame, because we were much better second half in terms of our play on the ball and deserved a goal, but the game was already lost. Poor defending was also a contributing factor to the defeat, our positioning wasn’t up to scratch - though it’s very difficult against class forward players like United have. Ah well, it’s always difficult against this level of opposition to put together a performance good enough to compete. Sadly we are deservedly out the cup - but we can hold our heads high for our efforts, and focus on a good end to the league season! COYR

 

[Sparkle]

Keeping things in perspective 

roos - 2 good saves and did nothing wrong

bogle - did ok with some over hitting of passes 

Evans - surprise selection but did ok but I wouldn’t want to see him against a big burly championship centre forward

forsyth - did well 

lowe - attacked well but got caught out several times behind him 

Bird - did ok, disappeared at times

Rooney - magnificent 

sibley - did very well - I like him

knight - worked very hard

Lawrence - unfortunate injury 

waghorn - worked hard

subs - Whittaker- I cant see anything yet to get excited about

Marriott - I would have started him in this one - one decent effort

shinnie - did ok

i thought we were unlucky with the goals we conceded - a fluke on the first very unfortunate ricochets for the second and the third the bill dropped for to the one red player in amongst 6 white ones whilst their keeper made at least 2 great saves   

[lukedcfc]

53 minutes ago, DazaDunn said:

I’m just going to say my thoughts and ignore any backlash. I watched Wednesday vs City last night thinking wow... Wednesday aren’t even giving it a go. That could never be my Derby.

Tonight I just felt we were very negative. Our starting 11 from our 3-1 win could have had United tonight. I thought they were poor. One thing that absolutely boils my blood is when my team whimpers out of an FA cup against higher opponents. Tonight I felt we whimpered out. Sorry Phil but tonight felt similar to the Forest cup game ?

Disagree with the 2nd paragraph, we were beaten by a better team.  

[Andicis]

4 minutes ago, Millenniumram said:

Lowe 7 - Had a good game defensively, battled hard and won some good challenges. Bit lax on the ball at times though

 

4 minutes ago, Millenniumram said:

Sibley 6 - Showed his incredible potential at times with some of his surging runs, but he’s still too naive atm for me. Needs more experience to develop his decision making and help with his discipline. Maybe a loan spell would be beneficial. 

These two are the ones I disagree with most. I thought Max Lowe was poor tonight. Rate him highly as a player, but his work in possession wasn't good enough. Sibley caused United a lot of problem with his directness, and never gave the ball away when he had it. I thought he was our most threatening player. I'd give Sibley an 8/10 and Max only a 5/10.

[Ambitious]

Bird v Aston Villa last season. Wow. What a mistake that was - he was completely and utterly out of his depth. Derby fans would've cheered his release from the club at that point. He had no future. 

Now, roughly 12 months on, he's seen as an ever-present name in our starting XI. I would say that experience definitely played a part in his progression. I'm not youth team football coach, but I know that challenges and adversity tend to focus minds, build character. 

We're actually sat here hammering Cocu for playing the kids, despite the only kid in the team who was inexperienced winning our MOTM by a comprehensive majority. Knight, Bird, Bogle & Lowe are fairly regular first team players now - or have been in 2020 at least. It would've been a bigger issue had he not played them IMO. 

[DRBee]

When I heard the team I was disappointed. I didn't expect to win this evening but it seemed less likely with that team selection.

However , the performances of some of the youngsters, Bird, Knight, Sibley, Bogle were great to watch and they are all really thrilling prospects for next season.I loved the way Sibley took on Mctominey. So often in recent season we 've lacked players who don't wilt under strong arm tactics from the opposition ( remember Ince?) Don't really know why Cocu chose this team but like against Fulham he clearly wanted a team with the energy to chase and press.

I left the match quite happy

However its sad to see some pompous twits  ( who clearly see themselves as superior ) criticising those who moaned about the team selection. It's a very respectable argument to want to see a team more used to playing together so that we have a better chance of wining. Its not short-termism to want to win a one-off cup match -whats the point of being in the competition if not? Its disingenuous to argue there were only 4 changes since there were positional changes as well and you can't argue that CB is Fozzies best position. There will be plenty of opportunities to give the youngsters a chance before the end of the season.

[Ramarena]

1 hour ago, DRBee said:

When I heard the team I was disappointed. I didn't expect to win this evening but it seemed less likely with that team selection.

However , the performances of some of the youngsters, Bird, Knight, Sibley, Bogle were great to watch and they are all really thrilling prospects for next season.I loved the way Sibley took on Mctominey. So often in recent season we 've lacked players who don't wilt under strong arm tactics from the opposition ( remember Ince?) Don't really know why Cocu chose this team but like against Fulham he clearly wanted a team with the energy to chase and press.

I left the match quite happy

However its sad to see some pompous twits  ( who clearly see themselves as superior ) criticising those who moaned about the team selection. It's a very respectable argument to want to see a team more used to playing together so that we have a better chance of wining. Its not short-termism to want to win a one-off cup match -whats the point of being in the competition if not? Its disingenuous to argue there were only 4 changes since there were positional changes as well and you can't argue that CB is Fozzies best position. There will be plenty of opportunities to give the youngsters a chance before the end of the season.

I haven't seen anyone argue that I think it's pretty obvious that everyone prefers him at LB.

[atherstoneram]

4 hours ago, Dcfcsr92 said:

After tonight at least it shows that they have eye on play offs if they don't then it's a awful team to put out 

Yes an eye on it, gazing at it in the distance, not a chance of the play offs

[Carl Sagan]

I don't think George Evans has enough to be good in our midfield. He was headed to League One until Lampard stepped in and he's clearly been overtaken by the youngsters coming through, and hopefully Bielik once back from injury. However, I think he could be a brilliant centreback for us. People have such short memories - many on this forum have raved about his occasional games at centre half. I was really pleased to see Cocu give him the chance there tonight. He can become a superb, strong ball-playing centreback and save us a lot of money.

[atherstoneram]

3 hours ago, LeedsCityRam said:

Probably not expecting them but the quicker we can get to 65 points the better, just in case. Can't be deducted more than 12 given the circumstances, that should be enough

I think tonight's team selection was more about next season's line up than anything. Sibley will be a starter & I suspect Evans will play a lot at CB. Why not give them time in a massively competitive environment to see how they get on?

 I think you could be right, next seasons starting Eleven or thereabouts and getting a good luck at them together. No Clarke/Martin/Marriott next season

[CBRammette]

3 hours ago, atherstoneram said:

 I think you could be right, next seasons starting Eleven or thereabouts and getting a good luck at them together. No Clarke/Martin/Marriott next season

Why where Martin and Wisdom going?

[IlsonDerby]

‘We played the kids’ seems to translate to ‘we played 9 first team players plus Evans and Sibley (who people have been crying out to get minutes) but I disagreed with the CB partnership’ 

 

Probably Clarke and Wisdoms best game for us last night lookin at some of the comments. 

[Angry Ram]

Sorry but Cocu lost me last night, his comments after when he said it’s right we focus on the Blackburn game, where disrespectful to the 23000 fans there. Always been on the fence with him,  now he can do one.  

[NottsRam77]

One thing to take from last night 

what an advert for future potential recruits to the academy 

pick Derby county, knuckle down, do well and u could be playing against man united in the fa cup

 

[duncanjwitham]

38 minutes ago, Angry Ram said:

Sorry but Cocu lost me last night, his comments after when he said it’s right we focus on the Blackburn game, where disrespectful to the 23000 fans there. Always been on the fence with him,  now he can do one.  

Except he didn’t say that at all.  He was asked about making the playoffs and responded to that by saying we’re just focussing on Blackburn. The same old “focus on the next game” stuff that every manager everywhere says. At no point did he say we’re focussing on the Blackburn game over the Man Utd one.