Derby County V WBA Match Ratings

[sage]

8 minutes ago, Ellafella said:

“Drop” is a perjorative word. 
Competition is healthy; footballers accept it. It’s a squad game (cf Stearman).

1. Collins

2. Barkhuizen 

3. Dobbin 

Mended-Laing has “domestic issues” just now so Barks may keep his place or Dobbin. NML would be a huge miss because he’s our top player now.

 

So...? 

               Wildsmith

Odurah Stearman Cashin Roberts

            Bird.  Hourihane

Laing.        Sibley.           Knight

                McGoldrick

 

 

Edited August 24, 2022 by sage

[Ellafella]

27 minutes ago, sage said:

So...? 

               Wildsmith

Odurah Stearman Cashin Roberts

            Bird.  Hourihane

Laing.        Sibley.           Knight

                McGoldrick

 

 

Yes - except I’d have Bird and Knight together and adjacent with Hourihane left, Sibley slightly advanced and to the left of McGoldrick.     That side, right now, would shred most others for energy, pace and power. Shape might need some work - Mac1 said all he did to Nigel’s team was work on shape when not in possession and Bob was his uncle ?‍♂️ Or summat 

[Anag Ram]

                     Wildsmith

Odurah Stearman Cashin Roberts

    Knight         Bird      Sibley            

    NML           McGoldrick     Dobbin

 

Sibley and Dobbin work well together. Knight and NML work well together.

McGoldrick knits it all together fed by Bird.

Potential weakness at RB but sometimes you have to throw youngsters in and see how they cope.

[Ellafella]

19 minutes ago, Anag Ram said:

                     Wildsmith

Odurah Stearman Cashin Roberts

    Knight         Bird      Sibley            

    NML           McGoldrick     Dobbin

 

Sibley and Dobbin work well together. Knight and NML work well together.

McGoldrick knits it all together fed by Bird.

Potential weakness at RB but sometimes you have to throw youngsters in and see how they cope.

You do trade away Hourihane’s ball skill though and he was the architect general v Barnsley at home. 

[Geriatram]

21 minutes ago, Anag Ram said:

                     Wildsmith

Odurah Stearman Cashin Roberts

    Knight         Bird      Sibley            

    NML           McGoldrick     Dobbin

 

Sibley and Dobbin work well together. Knight and NML work well together.

McGoldrick knits it all together fed by Bird.

Potential weakness at RB but sometimes you have to throw youngsters in and see how they cope.

Steve Powell?

[angieram]

Matchday thread @Ghost of Clough? 

[Ellafella]

18 hours ago, Geriatram said:

Steve Powell?

Yep; good enough at 16 years of age.

[Ellafella]

Thanks again to those of you who provided ratings & comments following the tremendous performance and result against WBA in the Cup. I personally really enjoyed the game & thought the Team gave a superb display. The "reserve" team have provided a lot of food for thought for LR in deciding who gets a shirt V Peterborough this weekend. 

Summary 

Quelle surprise! Sibley got MotM {statistically} with an average rating of 7.99. Totally deserved. Worthy of mentions too are McGoldrick {7.65} and Dobbin {7.35}. I would start all three of them against P'Borough this saturday - in my book as a manager you must reward excellence and be evidence-led and the data strongly supports their inclusion from the start.

The team average player rating is 6.99 - the highest yet of all games. Sometimes, there is a tendency for ratings to be influenced by the outcome (a win and a clean sheet against Championship opposition) but I was at the game and felt this was a brave display by the team; Derby were brave and backed themselves against a very good opponent; I didn't agree with Steve Bruce's appraisal of his team. They played well but were thwarted by a great collective desire by The Rams, superbly led by Craig Forsyth who was a beacon of leadership for 96 minutes. 

8 players were rated above the team average for the night - and 7 were below; the red dottted line shows the cutoff.

Also of note: The average aggregate team rating is 98.43. Again noting the potentially inflating effect of a good result and outcome {clean sheet etc} that's the highest yet this season. The nearest was Shrewsbury Town at 90.5, so a whole 8 average points higher. I appreciate that each set of ratings comprises different raters and each set of raters tend to have different thresholds - Milleniumram is the most stringent of us all - so some of the variance is "background noise" - but it does point to probably the best display of the season to date.  

Others worthy of mention - although only based on 2 cup games, Rooney yet again scores highly. Some raters mentioned that they didn't really notice him in the game and marked him as "average"; sometimes players go under the radar and I think that's the case here. remember John Eustace? I heard people say  "what does he add?" when Eustace played for us. Then he got injured V Ipswich away, didn't play again that season  and our promotion push fizzled out. Coincidence? No - he was the girder in front of our back 4. Young Rooney also has girder-like ability- he snuffed out dangerous, wirey-quick, WBA attackers the other night and he did so almost imperceptibly. Some might say on that basis he deserves a start; interesting discussion but at the very least having him on the bench gives us defensive cover. 

The infographic is below. As always, comments, questions and observations welcome. I really will get a "season to date" analysis out soon.  

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 25, 2022 by Ellafella

[Ellafella]

Boom!