V Shrewsbury Town (H) 4th March 15.00

[Crewton]

1 hour ago, Steve How Hard? said:

Anyone else notice their player move the ball the whole of 6 inches several times whilst Hourihane waited to take a free kick in the 2nd half? A booking surely referee?

Yeah, I did. I can only commend Hourihane for resisting the temptation to kick the ball through their player when he bent down to pick it up and move it for the 4th time, which is what I would have done in parks football. Of course, the ref would have penalised him and not the Shrewsbury player. 

[Crewton]

9 minutes ago, kevinhectoring said:

Not what I said but I didn’t say what I mean. Technically the push on Dobbin was a foul. It was a foul that would very rarely be given outside the box and, rightly, would almost never be given in the box, because it’d be too soft a penalty. If rough and tumble like that in the box was penalised there would be four penalty offences  each time there is a corner. So on average 15 penalties per game 

I know what you mean, but I saw the ref give them free kicks on two occasions outside the penalty area yesterday, rare or not. 

It's very unusual for refs to award penalties for perceived pushes or trips when the attacking player isn't in possession and isn't likely to get to a pass or cross. The striker looking up to see if the ref had noticed after writhing on the ground, to me at any rate, told its own story. 

[Tamworthram]

37 minutes ago, LeedsCityRam said:

OK, lets apply some context to that particular stat.

The reality is Derby are flat track bullies under Warne - we fill our boots against the minnows of this division by utilising quality players that 20 other clubs in this division could only dream of fielding but when we play anyone in the top half, our record is particularly poor. Remember we're not talking exclusively top 6 sides with these massive squads that you seem to believe Warne is bravely competing against but also includes the llkes of Lincoln, Exeter & Shrewsbury, all non-league sides in recent memory.

The situation after 25 league games under Warne is as follows;

 

Even if you accept that you're more likely to get better results against lesser sides than better sides, that is a staggering mismatch & highlights that Warne's record is embellished by the paucity of opposition he has faced as manager. It also does not bode well for the playoffs, should we make them.

The record against top half sides suggests that Warne is struggling to engineer results against better organised & well resourced teams - this is where tactical nous & proper use of his squad is essential. There is much discussion about the squad but the reality is Curtis Davies, Sibley (in his right position), Liam Thompson, Jake Rooney (until yesterday) & Tony Springett are not being used to any extent at all - this makes no sense given the style of play & energy levels needed to employ that style. I don't accept these players are a significant step down in quality from the first XI.

Warne has a very functional & predictable style of play where he is heavily reliant on the individual parts of his team rather than the sum being greater than the parts - that is going to come unstuck against better teams & is borne out by both the results so far this season & his record with Rotherham in the Championship. To return to your quote, that is why some of us have significant reservations about him.

Good post. One small caveat though. Six out of those ten games against teams in the top half have been away from home. There are also four home games against top half teams PW cannot be tested against as we played them at home before he arrived. Lots of ifs buts and maybes but if we’d still beaten Barnsley, Wycombe and Peterborough at home under PW the picture looks a bit brighter. Maybe we wouldn’t have surrendered our lead against Plymouth and hung for a draw or win. Who know’s? it’s impossible to tell.

[jono]

1 hour ago, Steve How Hard? said:

 

Frustrated we had another ref that wanted to be centre of attention. How many times did he stop us taking a quick free kick? Then he proceeded to let us take the free kick from the same place. ?

Frustrated that yet another team comes to Pride Park with their main objective being to time waste. Says it all when you have a man booked for time wasting when you're losing. Anyone else notice their player move the ball the whole of 6 inches several times whilst Hourihane waited to take a free kick in the 2nd half? A booking surely referee?

I saw that. Farce. It was repeated and blatant. I think he was about to book him but then they subbed him and the ref let it go. 

[Tyler Durden]

50 minutes ago, LeedsCityRam said:

OK, lets apply some context to that particular stat.

The reality is Derby are flat track bullies under Warne - we fill our boots against the minnows of this division by utilising quality players that 20 other clubs in this division could only dream of fielding but when we play anyone in the top half, our record is particularly poor. Remember we're not talking exclusively top 6 sides with these massive squads that you seem to believe Warne is bravely competing against but also includes the llkes of Lincoln, Exeter & Shrewsbury, all non-league sides in recent memory.

The situation after 25 league games under Warne is as follows;

 

Even if you accept that you're more likely to get better results against lesser sides than better sides, that is a staggering mismatch & highlights that Warne's record is embellished by the paucity of opposition he has faced as manager. It also does not bode well for the playoffs, should we make them.

The record against top half sides suggests that Warne is struggling to engineer results against better organised & well resourced teams - this is where tactical nous & proper use of his squad is essential. There is much discussion about the squad but the reality is Curtis Davies, Sibley (in his right position), Liam Thompson, Jake Rooney (until yesterday) & Tony Springett are not being used to any extent at all - this makes no sense given the style of play & energy levels needed to employ that style. I don't accept these players are a significant step down in quality from the first XI.

Warne has a very functional & predictable style of play where he is heavily reliant on the individual parts of his team rather than the sum being greater than the parts - that is going to come unstuck against better teams & is borne out by both the results so far this season & his record with Rotherham in the Championship. To return to your quote, that is why some of us have significant reservations about him.

Wouldn't you expect that stat though for any team? That's like why the teams are where they are in the table as they generally succumb to being beaten by teams above them in the league which then dictates their league position?

Not sure what that "stat" tells us other then the lower half teams are there because they get beaten by more teams more frequently above them and the teams higher in the league the converse is true. 

If you're now also starting to say that our head to head record against teams which we will likely to face in the playoffs will now determine the outcome if we do get there then really that's a step too far. 

[Ghost of Clough]

10 hours ago, HorsforthRam said:

It’s not an EFL conspiracy. It’s not. It’s not. Grow up. It’s the midfield. When we lose the midfield, we’re on the back foot. They packed the midfield and we didn’t respond.  Lose a winger and gain control of the middle ffs. 

At the very least, it's an unconscious bias due to the long term EFL/media assault on our club during the stadium/amortisation saga, which then changed to tax dodging when exiting administration.

Edited March 5, 2023 by Ghost of Clough

[Tyler Durden]

2 hours ago, DavesaRam said:

Or its both. Crewton points out how the ref applied the rules of the game differently to each side, especially in the second half. This is not a new phenomenon - it has been happening all season bar about 3 matches, and it has been a consistent match day feature ever since the EFL started to squeeze the trigger.

If the match officials only made occasional errors during a match, affecting both sides equally then you might have a point. I know we are all biased as possible, but they son’t inly make occasional mistakes, and they don’t affect the teams evenly. And this has been going on week in, week out, week in, week out for over 4 years now. 
 

There is nothing we can do about it. - Rick Parry and his cronies have been supplied with mountains of evidence of what us happening, and all he does is send out a patronising, condescending letter telling ys thst match officials are trained to the highest standards and all perform well. ?

All we can do is go out and try and beat the opposition whether their team has 11, 12, 13 or 14 players.

It was the guy on the grassy knoll actually not Rick Parry.

Rookie error when it comes to paranoid conspiracy theories 

[DCFC1976]

We’re in the third tier of English football, the further down you go the worse the refereeing is going to be especially now they have all been bumped up because of VAR in the Premier League. Because of this lack of experience some I feel do get caught up in the atmosphere at PP and feel they shouldn’t be seen as a home ref and sometimes go the other way… some just aren’t very good!!

Yesterday’s game was frustrating, played really well first half and bar the first 15 of the second I thought we were ok after that but we had already let them back in. Liked Rooney at right back, more pace than Smith and got forward well. Smith was good in midfield as well, positioning very good and seemed to pick up a lot of second balls because of it. Would liked to have seen Warne drop Knight back deeper into midfield to counter their change at half time which may have helped us keep control? On that I don’t think Knight was at his best yesterday, worked hard but quite a few things he tried didn’t come off, he’s more than allowed that given recent performances. 

Anyway, bit of a free hit on Tuesday in that for once we are the underdogs, I would start the same team and go for it, nothing to lose?!

[Rampant]

20 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

At the very least, it's an unconscious bias due to the long term EFL/media assault on our club during the stadium/amortisation saga, which then changed to tax dodging when exiting administration.

No it isn't. There is no anti-Derby agenda by referees or their assistants. None whatsoever. 

Our anger should be directed at the self-serving piece of work who got us into this mess but Melvyn Morris CBE isn't a referee I suppose.

[Blondest Goat]

34 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

At the very least, it's an unconscious bias due to the long term EFL/media assault on our club during the stadium/amortisation saga, which then changed to tax dodging when exiting administration.

So if you were a ref you would allow that narrative to influence whether you thought someone had been fouled or not?   I wouldn't.

[i-Ram]

9 hours ago, Jourdan said:

Over the last 12 league games, we have won 8, drawn 2 and lost 2. Yes, 8 points in our last 6 is probably 4-6 points worse than many expected, but hardly troubling.

I think bar probably two positions - left back and left winger - the team is largely set in stone. Bird’s injury has obviously unsettled things mind you. Similarly, we play a version of 4-3-3 / 4-2-3-1 for the majority of games.

The most games we have gone without a win this season is three and that’s not recent, so I don’t see great cause for concern yet.

Criticism like this seems premature. If we lose v Plymouth and Oxford and don’t beat Fleetwood and put our spot in the top six in danger, then fair enough. It’s a sustained poor run of form and Warne will have to answer for that.

But as it is we’ve lost four times in 25 league games and yet the manager is not convincing you? I wonder if he’s simply fighting a losing battle.

Glad to see you remain fully on board with a manager of the club. It makes a nice change. Criticism seems premature? You are having a laugh. Rosenior had lost you after a few games of assembling the squad. Not many of which he had McGoldrick to pick.

My position hasn’t really changed over the last six months. The proof of the pudding with Warne is can he get us up. I can’t find my post from back when I said I didn’t expect top two this season, but I thought the playoffs should be a certainty, and that Warne’s most important judgment time would come if he had us primed for the last three games of the season. My position remains unchanged.

Not losing 4 times in 25 league games is not a high benchmark in this league I would suggest too. I can’t be bothered to do the stats review, but I suspect the points accumulation of the Wendies, Plymouth, Ipswich, Barnsley, and maybe a couple of others will have been as good during that period.

We have a good squad. Top 6 was always available to any competent manager. We however are getting to the business end of the season and the team doesn’t appear settled, some of Warne’s starting selections look baffling, and a lot of players seem spent because of his requirement for high intensity football for a full 90 minutes in every match. He doesn’t seem to subscribe to game management, it’s all out Alamo.

COYR!!!

[i-Ram]

10 hours ago, Brailsford Ram said:

He's walked the walk in each of his last three seasons in this League. Does the view from Littlehampton indicate that  has taken too much out of him and this time he is Warne out?

I like the pun. I suspect the 3 sides he took up were less footballers, and more athletes, able to physically battle their way out of the league, and keep running as he demands for a full 90 minutes match after match. He is at risk of completely tiring out some decent footballers at the business end of the season.

[MadAmster]

Deservedly 2 up at HT. 2nd half, they edged it, however, not heard PWs reaction yet but I think "disappointed" will be mild compared to what he actually says. Fozzy, on his 10th anniversary, didn't need to make the foul. Rooney idem ditto for the push for the penalty. I have no issue with either decision but both actions were totally unnecessary. Two points thrown away. We managed 18 shots, 4 on target. Their stats are 6 and 5.

Apart from the push for the penalty, I thought Rooney didn't play badly. Also thought Smith wasn't that good in what is his normal role. White coming on was no surprise and having to make way for Smith was probably the price Roo made for the penalty push.

Bolton drew at Morecambe, Wycombe could only draw at home to Exeter, Barnsley drew at Brizzle. We got away with this unnecessary dropping of points.

 

 

With regard to the thoughts on our record against top/bottom half teams. It's the reverse of the trend in recent seasons where we often did well against the better teams and struggled against bottom half sides.

[Ram-Alf]

11 minutes ago, Blondest Goat said:

So if you were a ref you would allow that narrative to influence whether you thought someone had been fouled or not?   I wouldn't.

Referees are a differing breed, Who'd want to be one?, No one knows what goes through the officials minds are some affected by the crowd?, Do they welcome being at a stadium like PP and are in awe? the Ref we had against P Vale was taking pictures of PP well before K Off and look how that game ended.

They have all passed their courses, They have been promoted through the system, A good few were fast tracked, Stuart Atwell ? was a product of the George Courtney school of Refs and was fast tracked, Refereeing in todays game is so easy in the EPL as their back up is VAR.

Some think it's about them and they like the attention(Barnsley Ref)some go about their business with no fuss(Cheltenham Ref)Some interpret the game and rules as they see fit(McGoldrick booking)Refereeing isn't a fine science where all that go in for their courses come out exactly the same, It's what the Referee thinks is right at the time, The ass essor in the stands marking them are the real directors at play, As these people have the power to keep you where you are or mark you up as potential promotion fodder.

There's no conspiracy non what so ever, There's just those we see as poor...?

 

[angieram]

8 minutes ago, MadAmster said:

 

With regard to the thoughts on our record against top/bottom half teams. It's the reverse of the trend in recent seasons where we often did well against the better teams and struggled against bottom half sides.

I think we're still struggling against the same sort of teams - those who are well organised, muscular, good at game management.  It's just that those teams tended to be at the bottom of the Championship , but tend to be towards the top of League One.

[MadAmster]

8 minutes ago, angieram said:

I think we're still struggling against the same sort of teams - those who are well organised, muscular, good at game management.  It's just that those teams tended to be at the bottom of the Championship , but tend to be towards the top of League One.

By game management, I presume you mean "teams that nick a goal (and some who try to go for the 0-0 from the off) and then take an age to take a throw/corner/free kick/goal kick etc. When any of the above are for us, they intercept the ball and stop us taking the restart quickly, stand 1 foot away from the ball to stop a quick restart, fall down as if poleaxed if a Derby player looks at them too hard etc.

I refer to it as 5hithousery. Unsporting behaviour that should get a yellow every time they do it. It would mean we end up seeing more football and less time where the ball isn't in play.

Aint gonna happen, I realise that.....

[angieram]

4 minutes ago, MadAmster said:

By game management, I presume you mean "teams that nick a goal (and some who try to go for the 0-0 from the off) and then take an age to take a throw/corner/free kick/goal kick etc. When any of the above are for us, they intercept the ball and stop us taking the restart quickly, stand 1 foot away from the ball to stop a quick restart, fall down as if poleaxed if a Derby player looks at them too hard etc.

I refer to it as 5hithousery. Unsporting behaviour that should get a yellow every time they do it. It would mean we end up seeing more football and less time where the ball isn't in play.

Aint gonna happen, I realise that.....

That's exactly what I mean and if/when Warne has time to sign his own players expect us to be doing it too. I used to hate playing Rotherham when he was manager for exactly those reasons.

[Jimbo Ram]

1 hour ago, Ghost of Clough said:

At the very least, it's an unconscious bias due to the long term EFL/media assault on our club during the stadium/amortisation saga, which then changed to tax dodging when exiting administration.

What about the ref who gave us 2 pens in 1 game that were a bit dodgy, did he make a stand and not go along with the conspiracy ? Every time things go wrong or not quite to plan we get this back lash and talk of this ludicrous refereeing conspiracy which is just embarrassing. When we win the ref hardly gets a mention, strange that ?Was the decent woman referee we had not part of the conspiracy either? Will those who make a stand and are not biased against us be reprimanded ? 

[May Contain Nuts]

3 minutes ago, angieram said:

That's exactly what I mean and if/when Warne has time to sign his own players expect us to be doing it too. I used to hate playing Rotherham when he was manager for exactly those reasons.

We did play Rotherham as the Goliath to their David though,  I'm not sure I expect us to be taking that approach under Warne when it's the other way round as it has been for most of this season. I think if he wanted us to time waste he could still have done it with this squad.

Edited March 5, 2023 by Kokosnuss

[angieram]

Just now, Kokosnuss said:

We did play Rotherham as the Goliath to their David though,  I'm not sure I expect us to be taking that approach under Warne when it's the other way round. If he wanted us to time waste he could still have done it with this squad.

Yep, and we do - Wildsmith especially. 

What I think Warne doesn't have at his disposal are the tall, strong "s********" players whose game is right on the verge of what is legal. 

Anti-footballers, imo. 

I hope he never buys them for Derby because I like to watch good football.