Coventry v Derby Match Day Thread

[Rampage]

Lose against Barnsley and we are well back in it. Coventry, Brum, Uddersfield and Rovrum would be on a par. Rovrum would need to win their two games in hand but it will be tight again for us.

[Curtains]

Just now, Rampage said:

Lose against Barnsley and we are well back in it. Coventry, Brum, Uddersfield and Rovrum would be on a par. Rovrum would need to win their two games in hand but it will be tight again for us.

Rotherham would have 3 games in hand .

 

[Rampage]

Just now, Curtains said:

Rotherham would have 3 games in hand .

 

Even worse. Forgot about that.

[Curtains]

1 minute ago, Rampage said:

Even worse. Forgot about that.

They are 6 points behind us though so I think without being conceited we should be ok. 
 

I think we want to finish the season on a high though 

[May Contain Nuts]

1 hour ago, Jimbo Ram said:

We don’t seem to have anybody who has the pace, confidence or skill to run at opposition defences and try and beat their man....

Closest we have is Louie Sibley.

Funny thing is you look at Rooney, and you look as Sibley and you think, if there's anyone who should be able to bring the best out of a tenacious player with good shooting ability who just needs to control himself a bit better, it would be Wayne... 

...but for some reason he seems to be in the naughty step and only gets given a chance in the team out on the wing.

Talking of which our insistence on only ever playing one 'winger' at a time and never is also killing us - would it be so bad to try out Roberts on one side, Jozwiak on the other and give them license to swap sides now and then?

Give the opposition something to think about rather then making it so bloody easy for them to close one player out of the game.

[MickD]

3 hours ago, jono said:

Right now we need Tom .. badly !  

Well, that's how he usually plays.

[brady1993]

14 minutes ago, Coconut said:

Closest we have is Louie Sibley.

Funny thing is you look at Rooney, and you look as Sibley and you think, if there's anyone who should be able to bring the best out of a tenacious player with good shooting ability who just needs to control himself a bit better, it would be Wayne... 

...but for some reason he seems to be in the naughty step and only gets given a chance in the team out on the wing.

Talking of which our insistence on only ever playing one 'winger' at a time and never is also killing us - would it be so bad to try out Roberts on one side, Jozwiak on the other and give them license to swap sides now and then?

Give the opposition something to think about rather then making it so bloody easy for them to close one player out of the game.

I do think that's a big part of why both have struggled a bit. When they play they both are expected to be the sole creative outlet and it's trivial for teams to recognise it and adapt especially we have no real plan for chance creation other than get it wide.

[MickD]

3 hours ago, Rampage said:

Do not rub salt in the wounds. It is giving me a haddock and sore trout 

Yes we continue to flounder, a plaice outside the drop zone cod do us though.  

[Curtains]

1 minute ago, MickD said:

Yes we continue to flounder, a plaice outside the drop zone cod do us though.  

We need to get our Skate on 

[Rampage]

4 minutes ago, MickD said:

Yes we continue to flounder, a plaice outside the drop zone cod do us though.  

I do not want to be a stickleback for detail but it could be a very tench finish to the season of coarse. No perch asing power and only a ray of hope for those below us. Our app roach is raising questions but in a dogfish eat dogfish battle we must play at the pike of our ability and salmon up all our determination if we are to retain our plaice in this division. The rudd to mackerel the play offs has gone and we must put our heart and lemon sole into it, tighten up in de fins and find the net more often.

I know.

[Andicis]

Horrible performance. Our players need to stand up and be counted now, they're all playing the safe pass (and not even doing that well), rather than risking a creative pass forward. We played at a pedestrian speed the whole game today. We need to start getting our act together soon or we'll be sucked into a relegation battle. 

[DavesaRam]

A Forest fan on a Derby-Forest Banter Group on Facebook said that Derby were in for a right spanking today. But all it took was for Coventry to vaguely waft a feather duster somewhere in the vicinity of our team, and it was game over.

Yet again we have proved that resting half the squad results in incredible levels of lethargy in the next match. I don't know how many times we've tried it,. but the result is always the same. But this particular time around we have ended up worsening our goal difference by 5! By golly we may well need goal difference to come to our rescue, but what we have done is knicked his horse so he can't come riding in over the horizon to rescue us!

Apart from team selection and formation, (I'm beginning to sound like the start of a Monty Python sketch here) the major difference is that as soon as we got the ball, Coventry were in on the press, and virtually always with great intensity. But when Coventry were in possession we simply stood back and watched the play, admiring it from a distance. So yet again the opposition had the freedom of the pitch to play in. No wonder they could run straight through us, while we struggled to pass to a team-mate. It wasn't all down t  our incompetence, no matter how hard we tried. We have also lost Shinnie biting into tackles to win the ball back. No doubt the EFL vendetta to card us for the temerity of being on the same pitch as the opposition has had its effect, and Wayne has probably had a word with our Graham to try and keep the card count down. For the Scotsman this means not going in for the tackle.

Talking of cards, Clarke got a yellow for his first offence. It was probably justified, but Roberts was taken out 5 times before a yellow was issued. And both Knight and Buchanan were carded for very mild challenges, and again it was Buchanan's first. And what happened when both Roberts and Gregory were kicked in the head, at head height, right on front of the ref? And CKRs card - he was penalised for actually making no contact at all, as were most of the fouls given against him. Was his card for actually querying what the ref was up to? 

And yes, I'm back on "slag the ref off", because he was awful. We haven't done too badly of late, but bad reffing was back with a vengeance today. Perhaps he was aware that there was an award for being absolutely crap, and went for it. Sorry mate - this is Derby County you are up against. You didn't stand a chance - that award is ours.

I was groaing before kcik-off, because yet again Waghorn gets a start. We have for the last few matches got a team which has found it increasingly difficult to score, difficult to pass to our team mates, difficult to stay onside, difficult to control the ball. And Waghorn is the answer? Come on Wayne. What's he got on you that he keeps getting game time? Jimbo ~~Ram said that we  struggled because we didn't have anyone who would run at the opposition and take their man on. Actually we did. It wasn't Waggy. It was the three guys sat on the bench, ie Sibley, Watson and Joswiack!

And guess what? As soon as Joswiack and Watson came on we started to look at least a little threatening. Well, we frowned at them a bit, anyway! But yet again, we ended up a the end of the match with the team which should have started it. Until Joswaick and Watson came on, the only player who could hold his head up was Max bird, who constantly looked to turn the play into a positive. he rest were firmly "mehhhhh"!

What is the solution? Well all I can do is keep driving my HGV to the best of my ability, I don't set off driving at a snail's pace because there's bound to be a caravan, tractor or some breadhead in a Fiat 500 sized car in the way slowing everyone down. It is time Wayne stopped constantly meddling with the team to counter what the other lot my be doing. He needs to find out where each player is best suited and then play them there. So stop putting knight out on the wing, stop playing Sibley on the bench, stop playing two DMs, and put Sibley at number 10 playing of CKR, who will suddenly have someone he can lay the ball off to, with knight playing deeper in the middle, keeping Bird further forwards.

And secondly, play a high press, high tempo game. We have proven time and time again that it works, and that when we do it, we make the opposition look very ordinary. And as soon as we stop, we look distinctly ordinary.

Shall I bother for the Barnsley mauling? It isn't looking to likely, but I will probably punishing myself come kick-off time.

[uttoxram75]

What did my head in today was the lack of urgency during the last 10 minutes. We are losing to a very average side and still taking our time to get the ball forward. 

Coventry didn't have to waste time, we did it for them. Buchanan wasted a few minutes taking throw ins, Roos and the back line insisted on knocking it about until they were under that much pressure they had to hit it long.....ffs, hit it long first time, theres minutes left and were losing.......I can cope with a lack of quality, poor passing, genuine mistakes, but for the first time in ages I actually thought the players didn't care enough today. It didn't seem important enough for them to hurry everything up and go for it.

Its very rare I'm down, I love DCFC with all my heart and I always look for the positives, but when were struggling, the one thing I want is for the players to care. I didn't see that today.

Come on Wayne, you always cared as a player, you gave everything every time you played for your clubs and England. It mattered to you, make it matter to your players.

[Archied]

6 hours ago, uttoxram75 said:

What did my head in today was the lack of urgency during the last 10 minutes. We are losing to a very average side and still taking our time to get the ball forward. 

Coventry didn't have to waste time, we did it for them. Buchanan wasted a few minutes taking throw ins, Roos and the back line insisted on knocking it about until they were under that much pressure they had to hit it long.....ffs, hit it long first time, theres minutes left and were losing.......I can cope with a lack of quality, poor passing, genuine mistakes, but for the first time in ages I actually thought the players didn't care enough today. It didn't seem important enough for them to hurry everything up and go for it.

Its very rare I'm down, I love DCFC with all my heart and I always look for the positives, but when were struggling, the one thing I want is for the players to care. I didn't see that today.

Come on Wayne, you always cared as a player, you gave everything every time you played for your clubs and England. It mattered to you, make it matter to your players.

Caring , work ethic , urgency are the basics ,Rooney came in and went back to the basics and we ground out some results 

for me the problem comes when we try to build on and go beyond the basics and we find a group of players probably not good enough to go beyond that who then lose they’re way and look very poor , I’m also starting to think we are perhaps over rating our young players because we bring them in and they look as good or slightly better than what we see from the established players which doesn’t automatically mean they are good enough or ready for the job we need ,magnified by being in a poor team, let’s be honest when cocu tried to get them playing football they couldn’t put it together with the basics and it was the same mess we are seeing now

im really starting to believe we needed one of the so called dinosaur experienced manager to actually sort out and assess what we’ve actually got at the club,

[kevinhectoring]

12 hours ago, brady1993 said:

Well that's was a bit naff and compounds the selection issues on Saturday. Once again we got it tactically wrong and had no clear plan to progress. Knight on the left meant we had no way to progress down the left, a two man midfield with a player in Shinnie who isn't interested in getting the ball meant going through middle was difficult and both strikers pushed right up meant we had no way to progress up the pitch first half bar Roberts. And that seemed our only plan first half, hope Roberts does something. Coventry quickly sussed out that due to lack of technical quality if they pressed us into our left side we'd lose possession almost at will. 

The formation change at half time was inadequate to solve the clear problems; Knight just isn't a ten and  Waghorn on the left is inneffectual. All that still meant we had no way to progress the ball which only changed when we brought on Watson and switched to a lot sided 433. We actually started playing a bit of football at that point, create openings if not chances and the midfield started to look functional. The only problem we still couldn't effectively go down the left because of putting Gregory there and Coventry had something to defend and not long to defend it.

As much as they may have served us well we have to stop playing both Shinnie and Knight especially against teams in and around us. We need better quality in midfield or else we are going to progressively slip further back. The lesson we should be taking away from this game and Cardiff is we should be starting Watson, Bird and one of Shinnie or Knight if we want to try to vaguely have any control in a game. 

As an aside what I'm quickly realising is how technically iffy a lot of players in the squad are. There was so many times today where a player would wait for the ball to come to them, take a touch, wait a second, look up, take another touch and only then look to make a pass. It's basically only Bird, Watson, Roberts and to an extent CKR that can reliably shift possession on with any speed at all.

Hope Wayne reads your post. Since he came in he’s gone for Shinnie and Knight’s energy in midfield instead of balance. The energy is waning and the oppo have worked us out - they close down the very few players who pose a threat. And a good high press leaves us incapable of playing football. 
 

Agree we need to see more of Watson maybe also Baningime. They both have good technique and know BEFORE they get the ball what they need to do to progress forward quickly. That was sorely lacking yesterday. 
 

I still think there’s a top half team in there but following the January arrivals it’s taking the coaches much too long to find it. It’s as if they didn’t know the players they’d recruited. And they need to be positive and stop setting up to neutralise the oppo. Cardiff has confused the selection because he was half way to what you suggest. But he had Sibley and Edmundson out of position and it was a big mistake to rest Byrne

Quite excited about Barnsley. I’m hoping Watson will start, and Shinnie and Waggie will be on the bench - it could mark a very different approach 
 

[AndyinLiverpool]

It was noticable to me that Bird, who gets a bit of stick for sideways passing was a lot more positive in the last 20 minutes or so once he had players with him (Jozwiak and Watson) who actually showed for the ball.

[Norwichram2]

Waghorn contributes nought except a bloody good in swinging corner left footed from the right. So what do we do? Give the ball to Roberts whose corners and free kicks were poor. Sigh..... 

[DavesaRam]

1 hour ago, Norwichram2 said:

Waghorn contributes nought except a bloody good in swinging corner left footed from the right. So what do we do? Give the ball to Roberts whose corners and free kicks were poor. Sigh..... 

I also noticed that he gave their left back a torrid time, until one of the defenders was on a yellow, at which time we stopped  giving him the ball! Surely we should have gone for the jugular and forced a second yellow?

[RamNut]

3 hours ago, AndyinLiverpool said:

It was noticable to me that Bird, who gets a bit of stick for sideways passing was a lot more positive in the last 20 minutes or so once he had players with him (Jozwiak and Watson) who actually showed for the ball.

Yes, there is some truth in that.

If only we would stop setting ourselves about the opposition and be a bit bolder. There’s nothing in this league to be scared of.

[The Scarlet Pimpernel]

Makes me laugh when our players whilst being interviewed trot out stuff like "we know we have the quality in the dressing room" pah!!!