Derby Managers In Focus (March 2021): From Nigel to Wayne

[nottingram]

4 minutes ago, Jimbo Ram said:

The Brighton play off win was under Steve Mac, not Wassall...

Late in the season we went there under Wassall and bossed them when they needed a win to go up, or something. Ultimately drew 1-1 with them scoring a 95th minute equaliser. Hughes absolutely ran the show on his return from injury if I remember correctly. Was a performance under Wassall that showed under him we were easily able to compete with the very best teams in the division. Shame we threw that away the next season by hiring Pearson to rip up a team that didn’t need ripping up, then compounding that by sacking Mac to allow Rowett to rip it up even further.

[RadioactiveWaste]

3 minutes ago, Jimbo Ram said:

Or stopped the nonsense and let him continue the great job he was doing, being successful and football that was a joy to watch...all seems such a long time ago....

So you've forgotten just how bad the second half of that season was, and, that even though he said he was committed to Derby, basically no one believed him?

We can look back with the rose tints about the innocent rise, we can look back with hindsight about those who followed, but capitulating against Reading the last day, was that good football? If he was so committed to Derby why did the speculation never go away? People can have their takes on it, but I'll likely believe til my dying day he'd agreed to go to Newcastle that summer.

I remember at the time I was disapointed we sacked him but plenty were happy because "he'd lost the dressing room", "no plan B", "should still have had enough" (etc)

[Jimbo Ram]

3 minutes ago, nottingram said:

Late in the season we went there under Wassall and bossed them when they needed a win to go up, or something. Ultimately drew 1-1 with them scoring a 95th minute equaliser. Hughes absolutely ran the show on his return from injury if I remember correctly. Was a performance under Wassall that showed under him we were easily able to compete with the very best teams in the division. Shame we threw that away the next season by hiring Pearson to rip up a team that didn’t need ripping up, then compounding that by sacking Mac to allow Rowett to rip it up even further.

Yes, I remember the game. I think they had a player sent off didn’t they?

[Jimbo Ram]

1 minute ago, RadioactiveWaste said:

So you've forgotten just how bad the second half of that season was, and, that even though he said he was committed to Derby, basically no one believed him?

We can look back with the rose tints about the innocent rise, we can look back with hindsight about those who followed, but capitulating against Reading the last day, was that good football? If he was so committed to Derby why did the speculation never go away? People can have their takes on it, but I'll likely believe til my dying day he'd agreed to go to Newcastle that summer.

I remember at the time I was disapointed we sacked him but plenty were happy because "he'd lost the dressing room", "no plan B", "should still have had enough" (etc)

Or maybe losing 8 first team players to injury all at the same time contributed too ?

[nottingram]

1 minute ago, Jimbo Ram said:

Yes, I remember the game. I think they had a player sent off didn’t they?

Yeah, just checked and Dunk was sent off at 1-0. 

I remember being remarkably happy despite conceding in the 95th minute because we had played so well

[Jimbo Ram]

1 minute ago, nottingram said:

Yeah, just checked and Dunk was sent off at 1-0. 

I remember being remarkably happy despite conceding in the 95th minute because we had played so well

Yes, think it was a lunchtime kick off live on SKY, we played very well...

[RadioactiveWaste]

1 minute ago, Jimbo Ram said:

Or maybe losing 8 first team players to injury all at the same time contributed too ?

Of course it contributed, no one is saying it didn't. The Newcastle stuff also contributed, players have said as much here and there, and he wasn't managing that well with the players who weren't crocked towards the end of that season.

I'm trying to say I understand the sacking, i'm not saying it turned out to be right.

And for the recoed, Mel deciding to sack him 1st time was a lot to do with Newcastle.

[Jimbo Ram]

Just now, RadioactiveWaste said:

Of course it contributed, no one is saying it didn't. The Newcastle stuff also contributed, players have said as much here and there, and he wasn't managing that well with the players who weren't crocked towards the end of that season.

I'm trying to say I understand the sacking, i'm not saying it turned out to be right.

And for the recoed, Mel deciding to sack him 1st time was a lot to do with Newcastle.

What more could Mac have done to commit himself to Derby in your view? When a Manager is doing the great job he did for us it is inevitable that bigger clubs will show interest . He was asked on numerous occasions about the link and each time committed to the Rams. What would you have liked him to have done differently? In terms of the second half of the season, we were great and top of the table up until the end of February when the core of the team were all out because of injury. Did the rumours of the Newcastle job only affect performance from March then? He was linked well before then with the Toon. To my dying day I will believe without the injuries Mac would have got us up automatically that season...and I would have him training with the team and on the bench for matches through until the end of the season......

[May Contain Nuts]

It wasn't just losing players in 2014/15 or the Newcastle stuff,  it was not having suitable backups and bringing the wrong sort of players in at the end of January, leading to us messing up the balance of the squad, switching to a less team oriented style of play and giving up completely on trying to stem the tide of goals against.

[RadioactiveWaste]

8 minutes ago, Jimbo Ram said:

What more could Mac have done to commit himself to Derby in your view? When a Manager is doing the great job he did for us it is inevitable that bigger clubs will show interest . He was asked on numerous occasions about the link and each time committed to the Rams. What would you have liked him to have done differently? In terms of the second half of the season, we were great and top of the table up until the end of February when the core of the team were all out because of injury. Did the rumours of the Newcastle job only affect performance from March then? He was linked well before then with the Toon. To my dying day I will believe without the injuries Mac would have got us up automatically that season...and I would have him training with the team and on the bench for matches through until the end of the season......

We're going to have to agree to dsagree. Without the injuries, who knows what would've happened.

[Jimbo Ram]

7 minutes ago, Coconut said:

It wasn't just losing players in 2014/15 or the Newcastle stuff,  it was not having suitable backups and bringing the wrong sort of players in at the end of January, leading to us messing up the balance of the squad, switching to a less team oriented style of play and giving up completely on trying to stem the tide of goals against.

So we are playing superbly until the end of Feb that season and I think we went top by 5 or 6 points. Nobody could have legislated for losing all the players to injuries that we did at that time, all in one go. Of course it affected balance, like it would have any other team. Take Salah, Mane, Firminho, Van Dyke, Henderson etc etc out of the Liverpool team and see what would happen and has happened to a certain degree with all of the injuries they have had....

[Jimbo Ram]

8 minutes ago, RadioactiveWaste said:

We're going to have to agree to dsagree. Without the injuries, who knows what would've happened.

We will ?

[Chris_Martin]

19 minutes ago, Coconut said:

It wasn't just losing players in 2014/15 or the Newcastle stuff,  it was not having suitable backups and bringing the wrong sort of players in at the end of January, leading to us messing up the balance of the squad, switching to a less team oriented style of play and giving up completely on trying to stem the tide of goals against.

i'm sorry but at championship level you cannot afford to buy and keep a large number of quality players just to have as backup in case we pick up 5/6 injuries at the same time. 

You have to just class that period as unfortunate and move on.

[May Contain Nuts]

11 minutes ago, Jimbo Ram said:

So we are playing superbly until the end of Feb that season and I think we went top by 5 or 6 points. Nobody could have legislated for losing all the players to injuries that we did at that time, all in one go. Of course it affected balance, like it would have any other team. Take Salah, Mane, Firminho, Van Dyke, Henderson etc etc out of the Liverpool team and see what would happen and has happened to a certain degree with all of the injuries they have had....

You can't legislate for losing all of them, but you can try to find a striker capable of holding the ball up incase the one player in your squad capable of doing that gets injured.

We signed Darren Bent.

 

Oops typo, Darren not Marcus!

Edited March 21, 2021 by Coconut

[Anon]

4 minutes ago, Coconut said:

You can't legislate for losing all of them, but you can try to find a striker capable of holding the ball up incase the one player in your squad capable of doing that gets injured.

We signed Marcus Bent.

We signed Darren Bent.

As good as Bent and Ince were for us I do agree with the point about Mac signing good players, but not necessarily considering how they'd fit in the team. I've always said that Mac is a world class coach, but a pretty average manager.

[Jimbo Ram]

9 minutes ago, Chris_Martin said:

i'm sorry but at championship level you cannot afford to buy and keep a large number of quality players just to have as backup in case we pick up 5/6 injuries at the same time. 

You have to just class that period as unfortunate and move on.

And the injuries all happened after the end of the transfer window.....just incredibly unfortunate ?

[Chris_Martin]

10 minutes ago, Coconut said:

You can't legislate for losing all of them, but you can try to find a striker capable of holding the ball up incase the one player in your squad capable of doing that gets injured.

We signed Darren Bent.

 

Oops typo, Darren not Marcus!

Darren Bent was a decent option at that time and could cover well enough for Martin. The problem was that we lost about 5 other first team players at the same time.

[Chris_Martin]

2 minutes ago, Jimbo Ram said:

And the injuries all happened after the end of the transfer window.....just incredibly unfortunate ?

exactly.

 

[Chris_Martin]

6 minutes ago, Anon said:

We signed Darren Bent.

As good as Bent and Ince were for us I do agree with the point about Mac signing good players, but not necessarily considering how they'd fit in the team. I've always said that Mac is a world class coach, but a pretty average manager.

hence his title was first team coach

[Jimbo Ram]

5 minutes ago, Anon said:

We signed Darren Bent.

As good as Bent and Ince were for us I do agree with the point about Mac signing good players, but not necessarily considering how they'd fit in the team. I've always said that Mac is a world class coach, but a pretty average manager.

Well, after taking over from Clough Jnr in the November through until the end of the season we gained the most points during that period and we were the best team. Had he been in charge from the start the chances are we would have gone up automatically. He then the following season gets us top by 5 or 6 points at the end of February. Without the catastrophic injuries that hit all at once the chances are we would have gone up automatically again.  Events conspired against us but I thought he was pretty decent as a Manager for us and really enjoyed watching his Rams teams play.