Rams vs Luton Matchday Thread

[PistoldPete]

4 minutes ago, Tombo said:

I don't usually like to stick the knife in when a player makes an error because mistakes happen and we all make them. 

However.... Allsop....that was a very poor error to make. I think its worth dropping him over and getting him to work on that. You cannot be doing that in a game.

I know when you drop someone after a mistake, especially a keeper, you can hurt their confidence, but if we can't drop him when he plays well and we can't drop him after an error, when can we drop him? No, seriously, when can we drop him? Roos is clearly the better keeper. If you can't make that change after that egregious clanger, when can you make the change?

Sorry Ryan. I don't mean to be mean but there it is.

To be fair Roos was playing well before  he was suspended and his sending off was questionable. Bring him back for Coventry.  

[VulcanRam]

7 hours ago, Jourdan said:

Part of me wishes we were terrible and a long way from the rest of the division. It would make our situation easier to take.

Instead, I think the pride felt by many and the twice-weekly searching for crumbs of comfort will soon be replaced by genuine frustration.

Let’s be honest, if there was a year where a team could stay up even after having points deducted, I think this is the year.

This division is really poor and you look at Peterborough, Hull, Barnsley, Preston and Blackpool amongst others and can’t help but think there is more than a sliver of hope for us.

I think that’s what makes tonight feel worse. We have squandered points against genuinely beatable opposition, and not for the first time either this season.

Rooney, Rosenior and the coaching team deserve some credit, of course. They have done some good work. We are competitive, we are spirited, we are hard to beat. But how do we progress beyond that point?

For the season ahead, I felt we needed an experienced manager and even though Rooney has done a creditable job, I still harbour those feelings.

I do feel there are times where we fall into familiar traps that an experienced manager would more readily prevent. 

We concede poor goals, we waste a limited number of good chances, we rarely turn games, we squander points. Those are likely to be running themes throughout the season.

There’s no doubt that Rooney and the staff are showing heart and endeavour, but where is the little bit of know how, the little bit of ingenuity that can really impact a game? 

Maybe acceptance that this season will be a gallant effort and little more is the best medicine, but at the moment, every draw feels like a defeat.

I really do think we’ll be kicking ourselves come the end of the season at the number of missed opportunities and how close we could have actually come to pulling off the escape of all escapes.

I'm not really sure what you'd expect any manager to do about this though. Surely the only answer is better players? 

You can't blame Rooney for Morrison hanging onto the ball where there's a break on, for Shinnie backheading a ball into the path of onrushing Luton players, of Allsopp dropping a clanger. They are individual errors at moments in games. Nothing any coach can do about it. How can a coach legislate for some poor refereeing decisions?  

What Rooney can do is motivate, organise, set them up tactically. The rest, once the game starts, is on the players. We're so much better than last year with a team that is punching hard and perhaps above its weight. I don't think any manager could get more out of them at the moment than Rooney is doing. 

Genuine question, looking at last night's game, what bit of ingenuity are you referring to would have won us the game?  

[Sussex Ram]

This is why supporting Derby is so frustrating at times. Looking at it objectively (which I can more easily do, as I didn’t see the game last night) you can’t help but be impressed with the season so far. Only two teams have lost fewer games than us. Before last night, we’d conceded the joint fewest goals in the league. With a young squad, thrown together at short notice, with short term deals and massively reduced wages, our form places us mid table (ignoring the points deduction). That points towards significant overachievement in the circumstances, albeit underachievement when compared with where this club should be.

But- and here comes the frustration- I think we all agree that it could have been even better. Last night, it sounds like by rights we should have taken three points. I look at the collapse against Peterborough. The dominance against Preston without a win. Those disappointments make it easy to forget that, at one stage, everyone in the game was writing us off as relegated by a long, long way. We’re already getting within striking distance of safety, and it’s not even November. 

Long may it continue (and don’t mention the points deduction yet to come…)

[nottingram]

36 minutes ago, Tombo said:

I don't usually like to stick the knife in when a player makes an error because mistakes happen and we all make them. 

However.... Allsop....that was a very poor error to make. I think its worth dropping him over and getting him to work on that. You cannot be doing that in a game.

I know when you drop someone after a mistake, especially a keeper, you can hurt their confidence, but if we can't drop him when he plays well and we can't drop him after an error, when can we drop him? No, seriously, when can we drop him? Roos is clearly the better keeper. If you can't make that change after that egregious clanger, when can you make the change?

Sorry Ryan. I don't mean to be mean but there it is.

But then what do you do when Roos makes a mistake? Do you drop him? If we’re dropping a keeper after every mistake how can we expect them to perform under that level of pressure, they’ll end up second guessing everything they do.

Allsop has gained us points since he’s come in, yesterday he cost us points. It is what it is, he’s not the first to do that this season and he won’t be the last. I like Roos but chopping and changing isn’t the answer.

[G STAR RAM]

46 minutes ago, Tombo said:

I don't usually like to stick the knife in when a player makes an error because mistakes happen and we all make them. 

However.... Allsop....that was a very poor error to make. I think its worth dropping him over and getting him to work on that. You cannot be doing that in a game.

I know when you drop someone after a mistake, especially a keeper, you can hurt their confidence, but if we can't drop him when he plays well and we can't drop him after an error, when can we drop him? No, seriously, when can we drop him? Roos is clearly the better keeper. If you can't make that change after that egregious clanger, when can you make the change?

Sorry Ryan. I don't mean to be mean but there it is.

Didn't Roos do exactly the same thing at Wembley?

[24Charlie]

There's no point tying ourselves up in knots here. This is The Championship, if our players were error free they would be in the Prem. But all championship teams make errors. The Stoke keeper had a mind-womble when he came out and totally missed Curtis's nod on for 2-0. We won 2-1 so that error gifted us 2 points. I've highlighted that one because it was a goalkeeping error.

The point is when it comes to mistakes we are average and other teams also suffer.

Our issue is simple and has been for two seasons. It's goals. It's nothing new it's been spoken about a million times on here but I sense posters getting frustrated and starting to get annoyed around other things. We have been unable to address this problem due to the embargo. The strikers we have are not good enough and we can do nothing about it.

Rooney is trying to find ways to win and yesterday we scored two good ones but frustratingly our usual solid defence let us down. It's football.

We need a good striker we aren't going to get one. As it is I see us slowly creeping to safety this season as things stand but a further deduction will sink us.

 

[cosmic]

Enjoyed being back at Pride Park for the first time in around 3 years. Went over the fancy new bridge (did they have to make it look like the Wembley arches ?) which was nice, although I'll miss never seeing some bloke trip over the steps in the dark again.

I've been reading on here about the atmosphere this season, and it didn't disappoint. Thought the crowd was great, especially for a wet Tuesday night - I've certainly been to quieter games in the past with well over the 20k we had watching last night. South Stand of course doing the heavy lifting, but even the North Stand got loud a few times (and started a bounce!). It almost feels like medicine to the club, you can tell it's having a positive effect.

Obviously disappointed to see us throw away three points, but I was still plenty entertained. I think given our situation, that's all we can ask for. Here's hoping I don't have to wait so long next time to see a game live. COYR!

[May Contain Nuts]

1 hour ago, VulcanRam said:

What Rooney can do is motivate, organise, set them up tactically. The rest, once the game starts, is on the players. We're so much better than last year with a team that is punching hard and perhaps above its weight. I don't think any manager could get more out of them at the moment than Rooney is doing. 

What Rooney can also do is improve his tactical decisions when making subs, because despite all of the (excellent) hard work he's done in setting up and motivating the team his substitutions often have a habit of contributing to our undoing.

You could point out the limited options in the squad, but they are still options and mistakes were still made last season when we had more options; our only away win this season came at Hull when Stearman came on for the last 10 minutes and won everything in the air, could we not have taken a different tactical approach and got him on the pitch?

Yes it's all ifs, buts and maybes but perhaps Allsopp wouldn't have come for the punch if a fresh-legged Stearman had taken control of the situation? There are other variables of course, but was putting on an 18 year old LWB the best move? Another manager may have made a different call and we're sat here celebrating a victory.

To use another cliche though, it's swings and roundabouts - another manager may fail to beget the same team spirit and battling performances from this group so you'd be swapping some of that out for experience and tactical nous.

I suppose this is where having 'an experienced head' alongside him could have helped, rather than turning him around and getting the opinion of the even less experienced Rosenior on the best changes to make. Rooney has made it very clear that he's his own man and doesn't want that sort of arrangement.

Edited October 20, 2021 by Coconut's Beard

[Tombo]

55 minutes ago, nottingram said:

But then what do you do when Roos makes a mistake? Do you drop him? If we’re dropping a keeper after every mistake how can we expect them to perform under that level of pressure, they’ll end up second guessing everything they do.

Allsop has gained us points since he’s come in, yesterday he cost us points. It is what it is, he’s not the first to do that this season and he won’t be the last. I like Roos but chopping and changing isn’t the answer.

Not every mistake, but that mistake was very poor. Plus this is my point, how does Roos get back in the team? Do we wait for Allsop to cost us more points first? Why wait, we know Roos is a better goalkeeper.

3 clean sheets in 5 games for Allsop is good but I wouldn't really say he has been particularly impressive. Aside from maybe one game he hasn't really had much to do that wasn't pretty straightforward. 

[HorsforthRam]

It was almost like Alsop thought “I haven’t come for a cross all evening, better have a go at this one”… after that, his confidence was shot and he was in no man’s land again for the lob/cross that hit the bar. Having said that, with the weather conditions, I felt we were letting far too many crosses on and something could drop for one of their lads who were a physical handful. 

[Tombo]

55 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

Didn't Roos do exactly the same thing at Wembley?

Nope. That was poor but it was a deflected shot that ended up dipping into a crowded box that he misjudged the height of, and he didn't see McGinn sneak in front of him because he ghosted in through the crowd of Derby players who were blocking his vision. It was really bad and on the highest stage arguably a worse error because of what it cost us.

But Allsop last night....that should be a routine catch but he's not positioned to catch it. I don't know whether he made the call to the defenders that he had it but he'd have been better letting the outfield players challenge for it. Nonetheless, he somehow makes it out to the ball in time to be there for the catch and it is a simple one. Not much on the ball, no spin, no curve, quite a flat simple ball in. But he hesitates and does nothing. It's a shocker.

[angieram]

 

[ramsbottom]

53 minutes ago, Coconut's Beard said:

What Rooney can also do is improve his tactical decisions when making subs, because despite all of the (excellent) hard work he's done in setting up and motivating the team his substitutions often have a habit of contributing to our undoing.

You could point out the limited options in the squad, but they are still options and mistakes were still made last season when we had more options; our only away win this season came at Hull when Stearman came on for the last 10 minutes and won everything in the air, could we not have taken a different tactical approach and got him on the pitch?

Yes it's all ifs, buts and maybes but perhaps Allsopp wouldn't have come for the punch if a fresh-legged Stearman had taken control of the situation? There are other variables of course, but was putting on an 18 year old LWB the best move? Another manager may have made a different call and we're sat here celebrating a victory.

To use another cliche though, it's swings and roundabouts - another manager may fail to beget the same team spirit and battling performances from this group so you'd be swapping some of that out for experience and tactical nous.

I suppose this is where having 'an experienced head' alongside him could have helped, rather than turning him around and getting the opinion of the even less experienced Rosenior on the best changes to make. Rooney has made it very clear that he's his own man and doesn't want that sort of arrangement.

Got to agree with this.  Rooney got the subs wrong last night.  We were in complete control but taking off Morrison and Jozwiak (who I thought had a good game) undid us.  I know the bench is limited but I didn't see any reason to change things round other than giving CKR and the young lad some minutes.  If Morrison was blowing, just have him sit 5 yards deeper and ask him to sit in with Bird.  Once he went off we reverted to trying to get it into Kazim's feet but they were ready for that and crowded him out at every opportunity and started winning niggly fouls.

Speaking of fouls, the ref was shocking!!!

[PistoldPete]

18 minutes ago, angieram said:

 

Lovely goal from jason knight knight knight.

[angieram]

Here's Lawrence's.  I'm working backwards on Twitter! 

 

[angieram]

1 hour ago, Coconut's Beard said:

What Rooney can also do is improve his tactical decisions when making subs, because despite all of the (excellent) hard work he's done in setting up and motivating the team his substitutions often have a habit of contributing to our undoing.

You could point out the limited options in the squad, but they are still options and mistakes were still made last season when we had more options; our only away win this season came at Hull when Stearman came on for the last 10 minutes and won everything in the air, could we not have taken a different tactical approach and got him on the pitch?

Yes it's all ifs, buts and maybes but perhaps Allsopp wouldn't have come for the punch if a fresh-legged Stearman had taken control of the situation? There are other variables of course, but was putting on an 18 year old LWB the best move? Another manager may have made a different call and we're sat here celebrating a victory.

To use another cliche though, it's swings and roundabouts - another manager may fail to beget the same team spirit and battling performances from this group so you'd be swapping some of that out for experience and tactical nous.

I suppose this is where having 'an experienced head' alongside him could have helped, rather than turning him around and getting the opinion of the even less experienced Rosenior on the best changes to make. Rooney has made it very clear that he's his own man and doesn't want that sort of arrangement.

Agree. I love the way Stearman acts as cheerleader (and ballboy!) from the sidelines too. I'd have brought him on last night, needed experience and physicality on the pitch to see that one out. 

Although I wouldn't have taken Jozwiak off as he was looking after the ball well.

Easy to say with hindsight! 

[Ram-Alf]

1 hour ago, Coconut's Beard said:

What Rooney can also do is improve his tactical decisions when making subs, because despite all of the (excellent) hard work he's done in setting up and motivating the team his substitutions often have a habit of contributing to our undoing.

You could point out the limited options in the squad, but they are still options and mistakes were still made last season when we had more options; our only away win this season came at Hull when Stearman came on for the last 10 minutes and won everything in the air, could we not have taken a different tactical approach and got him on the pitch?

Yes it's all ifs, buts and maybes but perhaps Allsopp wouldn't have come for the punch if a fresh-legged Stearman had taken control of the situation? There are other variables of course, but was putting on an 18 year old LWB the best move? Another manager may have made a different call and we're sat here celebrating a victory.

To use another cliche though, it's swings and roundabouts - another manager may fail to beget the same team spirit and battling performances from this group so you'd be swapping some of that out for experience and tactical nous.

I suppose this is where having 'an experienced head' alongside him could have helped, rather than turning him around and getting the opinion of the even less experienced Rosenior on the best changes to make. Rooney has made it very clear that he's his own man and doesn't want that sort of arrangement.

Hindsight is a wonderfull thing?

[Ram-Alf]

1 hour ago, Tombo said:

Not every mistake, but that mistake was very poor. Plus this is my point, how does Roos get back in the team? Do we wait for Allsop to cost us more points first? Why wait, we know Roos is a better goalkeeper.

3 clean sheets in 5 games for Allsop is good but I wouldn't really say he has been particularly impressive. Aside from maybe one game he hasn't really had much to do that wasn't pretty straightforward. 

The Lone Ranger said to Tonto when 100 marauding Red Indians...had them both en-circled, We will fight to the death Tonto...Who's this WE? Kimosabi.

[archram]

Firstly thanks everyone who reacted to my post about going - I felt really supported by you.

It was so good to be back after 2years and never expected to get there. So many improvements round the ground - though I do miss taking my life in my hands crossing the road by ToysRus!

I really enjoyed the game even though the end was disappointing. I thought some of the play was excellent though the mistakes for their goals were difficult to take.

 Agree that footbridge is impressive. By the way @cosmici didn’t laugh much when I was the one who tripped up the step and broke my wrist!!

I haven’t been up that late let alone out for so long and I was shattered afterwards but, of course, I couldn’t get to sleep as I was still hyped up.

Feeling a bit fragile this morning but we’ll worth it. Can’t wait to go again some time!

[Foreveram]

I also tripped up THAT step and ended up with a slipped disc