Crewe Alexandra versus Derby County - Match Day Thread ( FA Cup 1st Round )

[Sheff Ram]

19 hours ago, sage said:

We all have our peccadilloes 

The Congregation Smiles...

[DavesaRam]

5 hours ago, On the Ram Page said:

I agree that is is what Hourihane said and that Paul Warne has said in the past that his preferred method of play (maybe to get out of League One only?) is to play with wing backs, high energy, press and get crosses into the box. This is what Liverpool do and Man City to a great extent although they do play through the lines as well.

Whether we currently have the right personnel to play as he would prefer is another matter - I don’t think we have (aging  players, lack of pace, aggression in places etc). 
 

No one apart from the dressing room knows what Warne asks the players to do on the pitch. I would be amazed if he just tells them to hoof it up the field! But there are times you need to, particularly when a player is under pressure away from home. cashin also seems to have the desire to hit a “worldly” on a regular basis. On other occasions when have played on the floor, when given time and the players have worked hard to make space for a pass (something I do not think we are good at - unlike Liverpool and Man City who are never static). We passed pretty well on Sunday and occasionally tried to play through the lines but they had so many players in the box it was very difficult. Totally agree our crossing is generally “naff” for the way he wishes to play. I am hoping the standard will improve when Ward reaches match fitness and is selected. He looked pretty good pre-season and created a few goals.

We need more pace up front, better positioning of players in the box for crosses and above all a better standard of crossing. The last two are coachable and I hope this is being worked on. The pace will only come if the Arsenal laddie makes an appearance or through the next Transfer Window. We are still Work in Progress, not the finished article.

I haven’t heard anyone ask Paul Warne the specific question of what are your tactics and what messages are you giving the players in the dressing room? There’s lot of speculation on here, but that’s all it is.

And quite rightly if a player doesn’t play or try to play as the Manager wishes, he shouldn’t be picked. I think even you would agree with that if you were manager.

Still have faith we will improve.

 

Someone said on another thread that hoping things will improve given the evidence do far is like waking up knowing that your house is on fire and staying in bed and hoping that the fire will go out by itself.

[Foreveram]

25 minutes ago, ketteringram said:

Anyone know which match day this season has had the longest thread?

I don’t know, but 14 pages of this thread is about tuning the tele in☺️

[DavesaRam]

1 hour ago, RedSox said:

But just to bring a rather more dismal viewpoint to it, Crewe could only manage 5 players on their bench and I believe had 8 players out injured.  Why didn't we change our gameplan by halftime to overrun a makeshift Div 2 team?  We were too slow and deliberate in our build up, giving Crewe time to pack out the final third. You're right, we should have been out of sight and with better game management, maybe we would have been.  The jury is still out on our tactical nouse - whether that lies at PW's door or the players  - or maybe both, I don't have an informed view of.  It's still very frustrating to watch.....

Nope - sorry. Tactical nouse? Sorry you’ve got me there. What is it? - Paul Warne (allegedly).

[Ghost of Clough]

47 minutes ago, ketteringram said:

Anyone know which match day this season has had the longest thread?

This is the longest this season, beating Oxford and Cheltenham, both on 50 pages.

The longest ever matchday thread was Sheff Weds on the last day of the 20/21 season - 88 pages. 2nd (79 pages) and 3rd (75) were in November 2020 (Wycombe and Boro). There were a lot of 50+ page matchday threads in that 20/21 season, potentially the majority of them.

[RoyMac5]

Just now, Ghost of Clough said:

This is the longest this season, beating Oxford and Cheltenham, both on 50 pages.

The longest ever matchday thread was Sheff Weds on the last day of the 20/21 season - 88 pages. 2nd (79 pages) and 3rd (75) were in November 2020 (Wycombe and Boro). There were a lot of 50+ page matchday threads in that 20/21 season, potentially the majority of them.

But do you know why? 😄

[Foreveram]

1 hour ago, Stockport Ram said:

Was chatting to a friendly Crewe fan in a pub post match and he said home ticket prices were £25 yesterday so quite a few stayed away - not sure if that was true but it’s certainly why that STH watched online not in person.

Not true, it was £20 for all adult fans in all of the stands.

The price for league games is £27 main stand and £25 in the other stands.

[europia]

14 hours ago, Comrade 86 said:

I think @ariotofmyown's joke may have passed you by there fella! Might need to recalibrate your sarcasm detector.

I've read some steaming hot takes on yesterday's game, but suggesting Crewe looked the better side is the funkiest yet. Did you watch the game on radio Crewe? 

I think I may have seen you actually....... the person wearing rose tinted specs

[FlyBritishMidland]

1 hour ago, Ghost of Clough said:

This is the longest this season, beating Oxford and Cheltenham, both on 50 pages.

The longest ever matchday thread was Sheff Weds on the last day of the 20/21 season - 88 pages. 2nd (79 pages) and 3rd (75) were in November 2020 (Wycombe and Boro). There were a lot of 50+ page matchday threads in that 20/21 season, potentially the majority of them.

Unlike you to produce some stats!!

[hintonsboots]

1 hour ago, Ghost of Clough said:

This is the longest this season, beating Oxford and Cheltenham, both on 50 pages.

The longest ever matchday thread was Sheff Weds on the last day of the 20/21 season - 88 pages. 2nd (79 pages) and 3rd (75) were in November 2020 (Wycombe and Boro). There were a lot of 50+ page matchday threads in that 20/21 season, potentially the majority of them.

I really miss the Administration thread.

[i-Ram]

On 05/11/2023 at 20:27, On the Ram Page said:

Alfie May wanted to play down south.

So do I, but the wife ain’t having it.

[i-Ram]

If most of Crewe’s players on Sunday came through their youth ranks you could understand a ‘backs to the wall’ mentality. 

[Rich84]

4 hours ago, Ghost of Clough said:

Crosses as a percentage of total passes:

Derby: 6.25%

Liverpool: 3.13%

Newcastle: 2.79%

Man City: 2.50%

I do like a stat, but is this a true reflection? 

I'd suggest they all make far more passes per game with a lot of Cocu and Rosenior preferred style of keep ball, so the number of crosses in the game may well be far closer than that % suggests.

I must admit, I prefer us to get the ball forwards quicker than what those bore fest style of pointless passing at the back management styles served up, and our biggest problem currently is we slip into those old bad habits too much and move it forwards too slowly.

Need to play from the beginning with the same urgency we did in the last 10 minutes on Sunday.

[Rich84]

Just another point on stats, compare ours on Sunday to Liverpool's.

Similar possession, same % of shots on target from total shots (25%) with us scoring from 25% of ours compared to their 16.667%.....

And I'd argue there's a bigger gulf in quality between Liverpool and Luton than us (15 months out of admin) and Crewe at the minute!

[ilkleyram]

2 hours ago, i-Ram said:

So do I, but the wife ain’t having it.

Is she worn out?

[ossieram]

9 hours ago, ketteringram said:

Anyone know which match day this season has had the longest thread?

It's definitely not the Northampton one, nowhere near enough to moan about. 

[Ghost of Clough]

7 hours ago, Rich84 said:

I do like a stat, but is this a true reflection? 

I'd suggest they all make far more passes per game with a lot of Cocu and Rosenior preferred style of keep ball, so the number of crosses in the game may well be far closer than that % suggests.

I must admit, I prefer us to get the ball forwards quicker than what those bore fest style of pointless passing at the back management styles served up, and our biggest problem currently is we slip into those old bad habits too much and move it forwards too slowly.

Need to play from the beginning with the same urgency we did in the last 10 minutes on Sunday.

Average crosses per game:

Derby: 25.4

Luton: 23.5 (highest in PL)

Liverpool: 18.3

Man City: 16.4

Newcastle: 14.3

[Comrade 86]

9 hours ago, europia said:

I think I may have seen you actually....... the person wearing rose tinted specs

Saw you too mate, you were the bloke who kept asking everyone what colour we were playing in, right?

I mean, it's one thing to say something really fkn stupid in the heat of the moment, but it's another thing completely to double down on it days later.  

 

[Crewton]

1 hour ago, Ghost of Clough said:

Average crosses per game:

Derby: 25.4

Luton: 23.5 (highest in PL)

Liverpool: 18.3

Man City: 16.4

Newcastle: 14.3

It's interesting though that the only teams in L1 who average more crosses per game than us are both above us in the table - Portsmouth and Peterborough, both of whom have a striker(s) who feed off this service. It seems clear that the lack of a comparable available player is currently holding us back, though I also think that we're often sloppy with cut-backs from the by-line which, if executed properly like we saw against Northampton and Crewe could more than compensate for our profligacy from high crosses. 

[Elwood P Dowd]

48 minutes ago, Crewton said:

It's interesting though that the only teams in L1 who average more crosses per game than us are both above us in the table - Portsmouth and Peterborough, both of whom have a striker(s) who feed off this service. It seems clear that the lack of a comparable available player is currently holding us back, though I also think that we're often sloppy with cut-backs from the by-line which, if executed properly like we saw against Northampton and Crewe could more than compensate for our profligacy from high crosses. 

It is frustrating that our game plan appears to be to put in crosses when we do not have a striker(s) who feed off this service. It does make you wonder why we havn't identified that we do not have a striker(s) to benifit from the crosses and adjusted the way we play acordingly, why set up a game plan to serve the teams weakness.