Derby vs Ipswich (H) Match Thread

[Jimbo Ram]

56 minutes ago, EtoileSportiveDeDerby said:

I don't buy this ref conspiracy engineered by the EFL against us. I just think the ref's aren't great at this level. In the same way that players quality go down, from the PL down So do the refs, so does the level of ref's. Simple as that. The best one this,season was the lady ref, but she's off to the Women's world cup in OZ.

Exactly. The refs were sort of ok during our 16 game unbeaten run. Total nonsense 👍

[RoyMac5]

1 hour ago, JustOneBiblicalKazim said:

I’ll carry on making this point until I’m blue in the face because I just don’t get it, Louie Sibley is the last player to score a goal for us, won the game with a brace at Oxford, should’ve had a run of games in the 10 after that to help him put some form together. Yet here we are 3 games later and he’s back on scrap minutes as though it’s last season, coming on with 12 to go at 2 down and expecting him to change the game is a joke...That midfield yesterday was severely lacking goals and creativity, at least Sibley will take risks and try things.

Although I'm starting to think he's having that 'smoothed' out of him. Like you I can see no real reason why he has been dropped - at worst he should still be playing fullback.

[Jimbo Ram]

11 hours ago, Millenniumram said:

Ain’t my job to work that one out. I would yes, that’s modern football - but the idea is to get the next appointment right. Warne was never the right man for the job, Clowes messed that one up as much as I love him for saving the club. Stability with managers is a myth these days, it’s not 1990, I’m more than happy to have a different manager every season if it brings us success.

So Clowes is going to pay off over 3 years of Warne’s contract and his back room team to bring in a new Manager that you can’t even name…..that makes sense 🤔 Alternatively he could give Warne another transfer window and a full pre season and see how things go next season….just a silly thought on my part mind 🤡

[PistoldPete]

I hope Ipswich get automatic and we get in the play offs. I don't fancy playing them in the play offs because they are better than us. 

I have been critical of Warne, his team selections and tactics. But yesterday i don't think it would have made any difference,  Warne made 5 subs and not a scrap of difference. Ipswich were still better than us. 

[Tamworthram]

45 minutes ago, On the Ram Page said:

Although I rarely contribute to this site, reading some of the post during the last week or so, I was compelled to:

I would like to think I am as passionate a supporter as anyone on this forum, but hopefully are a little more realistic and balanced in my thoughts.

Firstly, thank goodness we still have a Club to support! Only a last minute intervention from David Clowes saved us. He deserves our support and backing for evermore.

From having hardly any players at all, we rapidly accumulated a set of out of contract players, mostly very experienced but ageing on the whole. Well Liam during this time. We started the season with a team which couldn’t have been match fit and started ok but not as we would have hoped, soon falling back on the division leaders points wise with too many draws.

Our saviour decided to make a change by replacing out Temporary Manager with a serial Division One winner in Paul Warne and his team. Probably surprised us all, but we were not blessed with knowing the inside details of the club.

This brought about a change in style, some say “long ball”, I don’t agree. Players certainly got fitter, as demanded to play in the new manager’s style. Who can not support that?

An early Away win followed - rare indeed. Gradually results improved and a tremendous unbeaten run followed where most fans were happy with the style of football, which at times was exhilarating and everyone thinking at least Playoffs were guaranteed.

A few warning signs were there, injuries to Chesters and Davies, players playing unfamiliar roles, Knight/Smith/Sibley etc. McGoldrick a little injury prone but scoring bucket loads at home. Our squad was basically very small, either very young and inexperienced or ageing with great experienced. We were scoring goals and keeping clean sheets, rising up the league but still not really making headway on the leaders.  We started to play some of the leading teams and were all a little shocked at losing at Barnsley having trounced the in the cup. We’ve been in the doldrums since.

Reasons:

Defensively - we have been making mistakes and conceding some soft goals, penalties etc

Midfield - we haven’t got a tackler in there, even Smith, put in there occasionally to add steel, is pretty lightweight. We are getting outfought in there. Despite some silky skills messrs Bird, Hourihan & White are not aggressive or quick enough - circa Ipswich.

Forwards - apart from Dobbin, this is our most ageing part of the team and shows signs of tiredness. We lack pace up front to frighten defences.

Our squad size allows little scope for genuine quality changes.

The January transfer window was disappointing, in not getting at least one more striker (apparently broken promise).

The Manager has tried to remain upbeat in my opinion despite the players performing so well in part of games but slipping away in the remainder. 

The future - we still have a very good chance of making the playoffs - our next few games are all winnable, which will increase our currently low confidence. We also need a bit of luck which has currently deserted us (Ref decisions etc etc). 

Bearing in mind where we started from - potentially no club, 5 players etc - we all ought to count our blessings as to where we are - albeit a little disappointed not to have done better. Are we currently ready to get promoted - probably not. 

I am not expecting the EFL to move their stance on our financial situation thus allowing payment for transfers etc. Our punishment was for 2 years and don’t forget all those creditors who lost money.

I am looking forward to seeing what Paul Warne will do during the summer. He will surely add height, aggression, pace all over the pitch to be able to play the way he wishes. He said Ipswich were the blue print for getting out of Division One - despite a few dark arts - they were good - and if we can play like that I wouldn’t moan.

Summary - regardless of how we finish the season (hopefully well) , let’s all try to be realistic in our views and assessments. Paul Warne deserves the right to produce his own team over a year or so - and even if you can’t support him personally, the support David Clowes decision. He deserves it.

 

 

 

 

 

Top post. The only thing I’d change is to downgrade our chances of making the playoffs from “very good” to “good”.

Assuming Peterborough and Wycombe don’t slip up (they did yesterday though so, anything can happen. Saturday at 5pm we ended up slightly better than I had feared), I think we’re going to need to win maybe 5 of our remaining games which means a couple of away wins. Add to that Portsmouth at home could be tricky as could Burton (even though on paper it should be a straightforward win).

So it’s certainly doable but we need to start getting our game together sharpish starting with 6 points over Easter.

[Jimbo Ram]

57 minutes ago, On the Ram Page said:

Although I rarely contribute to this site, reading some of the post during the last week or so, I was compelled to:

I would like to think I am as passionate a supporter as anyone on this forum, but hopefully are a little more realistic and balanced in my thoughts.

Firstly, thank goodness we still have a Club to support! Only a last minute intervention from David Clowes saved us. He deserves our support and backing for evermore.

From having hardly any players at all, we rapidly accumulated a set of out of contract players, mostly very experienced but ageing on the whole. Well Liam during this time. We started the season with a team which couldn’t have been match fit and started ok but not as we would have hoped, soon falling back on the division leaders points wise with too many draws.

Our saviour decided to make a change by replacing out Temporary Manager with a serial Division One winner in Paul Warne and his team. Probably surprised us all, but we were not blessed with knowing the inside details of the club.

This brought about a change in style, some say “long ball”, I don’t agree. Players certainly got fitter, as demanded to play in the new manager’s style. Who can not support that?

An early Away win followed - rare indeed. Gradually results improved and a tremendous unbeaten run followed where most fans were happy with the style of football, which at times was exhilarating and everyone thinking at least Playoffs were guaranteed.

A few warning signs were there, injuries to Chesters and Davies, players playing unfamiliar roles, Knight/Smith/Sibley etc. McGoldrick a little injury prone but scoring bucket loads at home. Our squad was basically very small, either very young and inexperienced or ageing with great experienced. We were scoring goals and keeping clean sheets, rising up the league but still not really making headway on the leaders.  We started to play some of the leading teams and were all a little shocked at losing at Barnsley having trounced the in the cup. We’ve been in the doldrums since.

Reasons:

Defensively - we have been making mistakes and conceding some soft goals, penalties etc

Midfield - we haven’t got a tackler in there, even Smith, put in there occasionally to add steel, is pretty lightweight. We are getting outfought in there. Despite some silky skills messrs Bird, Hourihan & White are not aggressive or quick enough - circa Ipswich.

Forwards - apart from Dobbin, this is our most ageing part of the team and shows signs of tiredness. We lack pace up front to frighten defences.

Our squad size allows little scope for genuine quality changes.

The January transfer window was disappointing, in not getting at least one more striker (apparently broken promise).

The Manager has tried to remain upbeat in my opinion despite the players performing so well in part of games but slipping away in the remainder. 

The future - we still have a very good chance of making the playoffs - our next few games are all winnable, which will increase our currently low confidence. We also need a bit of luck which has currently deserted us (Ref decisions etc etc). 

Bearing in mind where we started from - potentially no club, 5 players etc - we all ought to count our blessings as to where we are - albeit a little disappointed not to have done better. Are we currently ready to get promoted - probably not. 

I am not expecting the EFL to move their stance on our financial situation thus allowing payment for transfers etc. Our punishment was for 2 years and don’t forget all those creditors who lost money.

I am looking forward to seeing what Paul Warne will do during the summer. He will surely add height, aggression, pace all over the pitch to be able to play the way he wishes. He said Ipswich were the blue print for getting out of Division One - despite a few dark arts - they were good - and if we can play like that I wouldn’t moan.

Summary - regardless of how we finish the season (hopefully well) , let’s all try to be realistic in our views and assessments. Paul Warne deserves the right to produce his own team over a year or so - and even if you can’t support him personally, the support David Clowes decision. He deserves it.

 

 

 

 

 

Spot on, excellent post 👍

[Millenniumram]

9 minutes ago, Jimbo Ram said:

So Clowes is going to pay off over 3 years of Warne’s contract and his back room team to bring in a new Manager that you can’t even name…..that makes sense 🤔 Alternatively he could give Warne another transfer window and a full pre season and see how things go next season….just a silly thought on my part mind 🤡

He isn’t going to I agree (giving any manager a 4 year contract is stupid, said as much at the time), but he needs to. Paul Warne will never get this team promoted, you can quote me on that. He’s like Nathan Jones at Luton, he will only succeed at a small club where working hard is all that’s needed. Allowing him to build his own squad will take us further away from a team that can get us promoted, and take longer for a proper manager to sort out in future.

[MadAmster]

Outplayed for 10 minutes. Got into it for 3. They counter and score. Why did Smith seem to totally ignore Chaplin? Why did he choose to go towards a ball he was never ging to get and leave Chaplin in a dream position? After 30 minutes we got into it and played well for the rest of the half.

2nd half we played well. Looked dangerous without really being so, until Cashin nodded home only for the assistant ref to tell the ref he'd seen a foul.... he hadn't and later admitted he was wrong. That goal stands and you've got a totally different game on your hands. A draw or a win may well have been on the cards. They get another counter goal. Why was Smith ambling back rather than sprinting? When he eventually did decide he maybe should have been running rather than dawdling it was too late. 0-2. Played OK the rest of the game but to no avail.

Ipswich are good and are now on 7 wins on the bounce with 0 goals against. No disgrace losing to them but it was so unnecessary. Goals on the counter seem to becoming a habit. We need to rearrange to stop conceding them.

Hate to sound like a broken record but the ref wasn't at all good again and this time it was one of his assistants who pointed out the ghost foul that saw our goal disallowed. Having said that, another ref may have red carded Cash instead of a yellow. The penalty shout when Knight went down was rightly turned down. When Chaplin went down in our box and claimed a penalty should have seen him yellowed for diving. Didzy's yellow was correct as was White's, less sure about Smith's which was, IMO, debatable as a foul. They had 2 booked for time wasting, too little, too late. Clarke might have had a 2nd as well but was let off by the ref and then subbed off to avoid a second. He was off the pitch when he saw he was to be subbed off and should have stayed off and walked round the pitch back to the dugout. Instead he he wandered back onto the pitch at the North end and then took his sweet time walking almost up to halfway, turning right and heading, nice and slowly, to the dugout....

Playoffs are still a possibility but not a great one as we appear to have the hardest of the run-ins. Average League position of our opponents being higher than those of our rivals. If we make the playoffs great. Idem ditto if we win them. IMO we are in profit on the season. My forecast was midtable and anything better would be a welcome bonus. It's bonus time.

[DavesaRam]

1 hour ago, Gritstone Ram said:

If the reason for disallowing our goal was a foul on the keeper then we should have had a penalty for a push on Knight and in the first half the goalkeeper pushed McGoldrick when we had a corner. These refs have to be consistent. If the linesman gave a foul it was a guess whether a foul was committed but he must be thinking any guess decision must go against Derby so the officials have either been given a mandate or they just want to see Derby not succeed.

When the goal was disallowed the only foul being committed was the headlock on James Collins. 😡

[Jimbo Ram]

8 minutes ago, Millenniumram said:

He isn’t going to I agree (giving any manager a 4 year contract is stupid, said as much at the time), but he needs to. Paul Warne will never get this team promoted, you can quote me on that. He’s like Nathan Jones at Luton, he will only succeed at a small club where working hard is all that’s needed. Allowing him to build his own squad will take us further away from a team that can get us promoted, and take longer for a proper manager to sort out in future.

But that is what you are suggesting he should do 🤔 How many big clubs that have gone down to League 1 have come straight back up??? That’s without the restrictions we are under. Florist, Ipswich, Leeds, Wednesday all have failed. Let’s have some pragmatism and a bit of patience……

[May Contain Nuts]

39 minutes ago, PistoldPete said:

Warne made 5 subs and not a scrap of difference. Ipswich were still better than us. 

They could allow unlimited subs with players coming off and back on again  every 10 minutes but it won't make a jot if difference if the opposition have your number.

Everyone who came on just resumed carrying out  the same futile tasks the person they replaced had been doing.

[strawhillram]

Promotion via the Play-offs this season isn’t going to happen. We might scrape into 6th, but we then have to get results over 3 games against teams that are better than us.
Unless the EFL lift their restrictions on us then next season won’t be any better. We will lose players and can only add journeymen or youth players. If we did get up to the Championship it would  be a difficult season for us.

I reckon we might have a chance the season after next, when we can start on a level playing field again.

 

[angieram]

4 minutes ago, MadAmster said:

Outplayed for 10 minutes. Got into it for 3. They counter and score. Why did Smith seem to totally ignore Chaplin? Why did he choose to go towards a ball he was never ging to get and leave Chaplin in a dream position? After 30 minutes we got into it and played well for the rest of the half.

2nd half we played well. Looked dangerous without really being so, until Cashin nodded home only for the assistant ref to tell the ref he'd seen a foul.... he hadn't and later admitted he was wrong. That goal stands and you've got a totally different game on your hands. A draw or a win may well have been on the cards. They get another counter goal. Why was Smith ambling back rather than sprinting? When he eventually did decide he maybe should have been running rather than dawdling it was too late. 0-2. Played OK the rest of the game but to no avail.

Ipswich are good and are now on 7 wins on the bounce with 0 goals against. No disgrace losing to them but it was so unnecessary. Goals on the counter seem to becoming a habit. We need to rearrange to stop conceding them.

Hate to sound like a broken record but the ref wasn't at all good again and this time it was one of his assistants who pointed out the ghost foul that saw our goal disallowed. Having said that, another ref may have red carded Cash instead of a yellow. The penalty shout when Knight went down was rightly turned down. When Chaplin went down in our box and claimed a penalty should have seen him yellowed for diving. Didzy's yellow was correct as was White's, less sure about Smith's which was, IMO, debatable as a foul. They had 2 booked for time wasting, too little, too late. Clarke might have had a 2nd as well but was let off by the ref and then subbed off to avoid a second. He was off the pitch when he saw he was to be subbed off and should have stayed off and walked round the pitch back to the dugout. Instead he he wandered back onto the pitch at the North end and then took his sweet time walking almost up to halfway, turning right and heading, nice and slowly, to the dugout....

Playoffs are still a possibility but not a great one as we appear to have the hardest of the run-ins. Average League position of our opponents being higher than those of our rivals. If we make the playoffs great. Idem ditto if we win them. IMO we are in profit on the season. My forecast was midtable and anything better would be a welcome bonus. It's bonus time.

I was a bit gobsmacked when Smith was awarded MOTM at the ground yesterday. Thought he was partly responsible for both of their goals, regardless of how well he played in the rest of the game. 

I was screaming at him for their second, he was just watching rather than busting a gut to get back. When he did finally sprint he got almost up to their player, if he'd done it earlier he'd have been in a position to clean up that rebound.

[Carnero]

17 minutes ago, Jimbo Ram said:

But that is what you are suggesting he should do 🤔 How many big clubs that have gone down to League 1 have come straight back up??? That’s without the restrictions we are under. Florist, Ipswich, Leeds, Wednesday all have failed. Let’s have some pragmatism and a bit of patience……

👏

Add Sunderland, Southampton & Sheff Utd to that list too!

[kevinhectoring]

1 hour ago, On the Ram Page said:

I am not expecting the EFL to move their stance on our financial situation thus allowing payment for transfers etc

If we sell, say, Knight, it will be interesting to see whether we are allowed to spend the proceeds on transfer fees. Surely we’ll ask 

[Rich3478]

1 hour ago, RoyMac5 said:

Although I'm starting to think he's having that 'smoothed' out of him. Like you I can see no real reason why he has been dropped - at worst he should still be playing fullback.

Still not seen mcgoldrick and sibley play together up top. 

[Tamworthram]

51 minutes ago, StrawHillRam said:

Promotion via the Play-offs this season isn’t going to happen. We might scrape into 6th, but we then have to get results over 3 games against teams that are better than us.
Unless the EFL lift their restrictions on us then next season won’t be any better. We will lose players and can only add journeymen or youth players. If we did get up to the Championship it would  be a difficult season for us.

I reckon we might have a chance the season after next, when we can start on a level playing field again.

 

The only thing I’d say about next season is at least Warne will have had a pre-season which neither he or LR had this season and arguably, the league won’t be as strong next season as at least 2 out of the likes of Wednesday, Bolton, Ipswich, Plymouth and Barnsley will get promoted. I don’t watch a lot of Championship football but, subject to what players PW is able to get in, I’d fancy our chances a little more against the likes of Wigan and Blackpool than those likely to go up.

[ram59]

48 minutes ago, StrawHillRam said:

Promotion via the Play-offs this season isn’t going to happen. We might scrape into 6th, but we then have to get results over 3 games against teams that are better than us.
Unless the EFL lift their restrictions on us then next season won’t be any better. We will lose players and can only add journeymen or youth players. If we did get up to the Championship it would  be a difficult season for us.

I reckon we might have a chance the season after next, when we can start on a level playing field again.

 

I disagree, we will have much more choice in the next transfer window. Last summer we couldn't sign players until after the takeover in July and so missed the boat. In the January window we could only sign players that a club wanted rid of.

However, this summer there will be quite a few players throughout the league who have refused to sign a new contract, believing that they can do better elsewhere. These are the players that we can target, we can offer wages, although limited, that are higher than virtually every other club in league 1 next season and a good portion of the championship, we can offer fantastic training facilities and playing in front of nearly 30,000 every week at PP. I'm sure that the club are aware of these players and have a list of those who could do a job in either the championship or league 1.

I think that we struggle with both pace and height and this will need to be addressed in the close season. I seems that every time a corner is awarded against, the opposition have at least 3 players taller than our tallest player and by some margin. The pace of Ipswich's breaks yesterday also done for us, none of our younger players seemed to be blessed with blistering pace, even Dobbin.

[G STAR RAM]

15 hours ago, DavesaRam said:

Well I have no complaints of the players after today. They gave everything they had, and for long periods matched and were the better side in all departments except the final third. My main complaint is with the match officials. Yes, here he goes again - blame the ref, blame the EFL. Well today I am just being like virtually everyone else - I could fill several pages with all the bad decisions the man in yellow got wrong today. I suggested in previous seasons that referees were trying to outdo each other to win the "Worst ref of the season trophy". If that were the case, this season's trophy was sorted today.

Today we saw the players perform better than most recent matches, but what we are seeing is a club with a squad of only 15 players, with the only one in the prime age group being the goalkeeper. That is not enough to rotate the players in order to keep them fresh, and is also limiting because we also lack the capacity to change the match from the bench. Any club playing to these restrictions would have run out of steam by now, but then you have to dial in Warne's "flat out till you gas out" regime and it surprising that we have lasted so long. So to turn up and play like we did was remarkable. 

Like most I would like more than simply look for the long ball at the earliest opportunity, especially given the players we have. Having said that, the ball-to-feet style would not have been too effective against Ipswich because they pressed and harried really well, and also did plenty of "roughing us up" which tends to nullify actual football.

Mendez-Lang had his fullback on toast, but was less effective because he was playing wing-back instead of winger, and Collins had a better match today - largely because it wasn't as bad as other games! Plus he won two headers, including one on target, which can' be bad.

Finally: Come on Rick - THIS HAS GOT TO STOP! A penalty given against us with virtually no contact at all, a penalty denied after comparative GBH, a reasonable penalty shout today on Knight, and today's goal ruled out for a foul on the goalkeeper, who literally had no-one anywhere near him. WE have had two apologies from the match officials, but apologies do not get a team into the play-offs.

At least the EFL have changed their view, because last season, it was "Derby: you're going down". Whereas this season it is "Derby - you are not going up".

Well come on Derby - let's show them!!! COME ON YOU RAMS!

Referee was poor but it was not a reasonable penalty shout on Knight and he is not going to be getting many decisions go his way if he continues diving trying to con referees. 

If we want officials to be consistent then at least lets be consistent ourselves in calling out blatant cheating?

[Ramarena]

21 minutes ago, ram59 said:

I disagree, we will have much more choice in the next transfer window. Last summer we couldn't sign players until after the takeover in July and so missed the boat. In the January window we could only sign players that a club wanted rid of.

However, this summer there will be quite a few players throughout the league who have refused to sign a new contract, believing that they can do better elsewhere. These are the players that we can target, we can offer wages, although limited, that are higher than virtually every other club in league 1 next season and a good portion of the championship, we can offer fantastic training facilities and playing in front of nearly 30,000 every week at PP. I'm sure that the club are aware of these players and have a list of those who could do a job in either the championship or league 1.

I think that we struggle with both pace and height and this will need to be addressed in the close season. I seems that every time a corner is awarded against, the opposition have at least 3 players taller than our tallest player and by some margin. The pace of Ipswich's breaks yesterday also done for us, none of our younger players seemed to be blessed with blistering pace, even Dobbin.

We desperately need a dominant combative center mid. We haven’t had one since Thorne.

They need to be able to win the physical battles, regain possession for us and distribute it to the more creative players.

Its imperative to have a players like that in this division, as we saw with Morsy yesterday. We currently don’t have anyone with those qualities in our squad.