Paul Warne

[Jourdan]

For me, Warne has done a very respectable job in the circumstances and I would love to see him take us up and turn a few heads in the Championship. There’s no question that he deserves that shot if we go up in two weeks’ time.

He’s a likeable person with good people-centred principles and he is still very early in his coaching career with room to grow and improve and time to learn and adapt. Could our club be the environment where he does that? Absolutely no reason why not.

I don’t think staying at Rotherham for six years where he got set in his ways and could touch the ceiling of what they could achieve without standing on his tiptoes did him any favours. He has arguably learnt more in his two years managing us than in his entire time there. It’s a challenge, but one where the goals are actually tangible and scaleable.

All that said, I do find his relationship with the fans to be a major issue. One that only promotion really begins to resolve and as such leaves his future very much hanging in the balance. Clowes will ultimately decide but you can see how fan disengagement in the summer may sway him given the tight nature of the finances.

It strikes me that Warne is trying to build a culture at the club, much like Klopp has at Liverpool. It is one that very much relies on togetherness and everyone pulling in the same direction. The board and the higher ups have bought into it. The players have bought into it, even though that doesn’t always translate into performances. But without the fans, how far can it really go? 

He still has a love-hate relationship with the fans and this is where it all falls down. This is such a key relationship to get right when it comes to what Warne is trying to achieve. Can he take the fans on a journey? Can the fans stay onside? Can the fans buy in?

The novelty of League 1 football is rapidly wearing off and while I don’t think a third season in League 1 would be a disaster for the club given what came before, it would certainly be a stain on Warne’s reputation and one that would be difficult for him to recover from without regrouping and starting afresh somewhere else.

7th to 3rd or 4th in terms of league finish would still be a step forward, but the feeling is different. If you are coming from where Lincoln were, for instance, you feel a buzz. But having been in 2nd with six games to go and having a clear points advantage over the teams in 3rd-5th, to let it slip now would be a body blow despite the healthy competition.

If we slip out of the automatic promotion places and/or lose in the playoffs, I just can’t see the fanbase rallying around Warne. There would be appetite for change and sadly that would be something Clowes is unable to ignore.

These three games could well be make or break.

[Rammy03]

17 minutes ago, Jourdan said:

All that said, I do find his relationship with the fans to be a major issue. One that only promotion really begins to resolve and as such leaves his future very much hanging in the balance. Clowes will ultimately decide but you can see how fan disengagement in the summer may sway him given the tight nature of the finances.

It strikes me that Warne is trying to build a culture at the club, much like Klopp has at Liverpool. It is one that very much relies on togetherness and everyone pulling in the same direction. The board and the higher ups have bought into it. The players have bought into it, even though that doesn’t always translate into performances. But without the fans, how far can it really go? 

He still has a love-hate relationship with the fans and this is where it all falls down. This is such a key relationship to get right when it comes to what Warne is trying to achieve. Can he take the fans on a journey? Can the fans stay onside? Can the fans buy in?

Thing is you wouldn't know this from inside the stadium. We are getting exceptionally good crowds week in week out and the atmosphere is good for the most part. There is no animosity towards the manager at the games, you only hear it on here when we drop points.

[Jourdan]

5 minutes ago, Rammy03 said:

Thing is you wouldn't know this from inside the stadium. We are getting exceptionally good crowds week in week out and the atmosphere is good for the most part. There is no animosity towards the manager at the games, you only hear it on here when we drop points.

Of course there isn’t when we get results. It is easy to back a winning team, which we have been doing for the majority of games since November.

But there is definitely something bubbling under the surface. You could feel that in the ground away at Exeter even when we were 1-0 up at HT. I dread to think what it was like at Wycombe on Wednesday.

[Bris Vegas]

I have zero confidence in Warne being a success at Championship level.

I don’t think he is at the level of Nigel Pearson, let alone a Bielsa or Farke.

And as Derby aren’t going to have the biggest budget in the Championship, far from it, we’re going to need somebody great to ultimately have us challenging at the top of the table.

But maybe Clowes just doesn’t want to take the risk.

Maybe keeping Warne on a moderate wage and surviving in the Championship with a bottom half wage budget is enough to make profits provided 25,000+ fans are willing to suck it up.

 

 

[GeneralRam]

2 hours ago, Jourdan said:

For me, Warne has done a very respectable job in the circumstances and I would love to see him take us up and turn a few heads in the Championship. There’s no question that he deserves that shot if we go up in two weeks’ time.

He’s a likeable person with good people-centred principles and he is still very early in his coaching career with room to grow and improve and time to learn and adapt. Could our club be the environment where he does that? Absolutely no reason why not.

I don’t think staying at Rotherham for six years where he got set in his ways and could touch the ceiling of what they could achieve without standing on his tiptoes did him any favours. He has arguably learnt more in his two years managing us than in his entire time there. It’s a challenge, but one where the goals are actually tangible and scaleable.

All that said, I do find his relationship with the fans to be a major issue. One that only promotion really begins to resolve and as such leaves his future very much hanging in the balance. Clowes will ultimately decide but you can see how fan disengagement in the summer may sway him given the tight nature of the finances.

It strikes me that Warne is trying to build a culture at the club, much like Klopp has at Liverpool. It is one that very much relies on togetherness and everyone pulling in the same direction. The board and the higher ups have bought into it. The players have bought into it, even though that doesn’t always translate into performances. But without the fans, how far can it really go? 

He still has a love-hate relationship with the fans and this is where it all falls down. This is such a key relationship to get right when it comes to what Warne is trying to achieve. Can he take the fans on a journey? Can the fans stay onside? Can the fans buy in?

The novelty of League 1 football is rapidly wearing off and while I don’t think a third season in League 1 would be a disaster for the club given what came before, it would certainly be a stain on Warne’s reputation and one that would be difficult for him to recover from without regrouping and starting afresh somewhere else.

7th to 3rd or 4th in terms of league finish would still be a step forward, but the feeling is different. If you are coming from where Lincoln were, for instance, you feel a buzz. But having been in 2nd with six games to go and having a clear points advantage over the teams in 3rd-5th, to let it slip now would be a body blow despite the healthy competition.

If we slip out of the automatic promotion places and/or lose in the playoffs, I just can’t see the fanbase rallying around Warne. There would be appetite for change and sadly that would be something Clowes is unable to ignore.

These three games could well be make or break.

He comes out with the same crap after every game. I loved the guy when he first come in but now I’ve soured and everything he does just annoys me.

All he has to do is say “We are Derby County, we should be pissing this league against these electricians and plumbers“ and show a bit of fight about him and I might start to change my opinion.

[G STAR RAM]

10 hours ago, rammieib said:

But won’t be in the Championship…. Still we have to get there first so it’s a mute point until we do.

Based on?

[Archied]

3 hours ago, GeneralRam said:

He comes out with the same crap after every game. I loved the guy when he first come in but now I’ve soured and everything he does just annoys me.

All he has to do is say “We are Derby County, we should be pissing this league against these electricians and plumbers“ and show a bit of fight about him and I might start to change my opinion.

You see we are all different, if he was coming out saying that I would just think he was a bit of a twxt and so would most people with any connection to football🤷🏻‍♂️

[IlsonDerby]

16 hours ago, Tamworthram said:

So you think he should be sacked for wearing his heart on his sleeve and saying he failed but, if he'd been a little more measured with his response (which I believe was given immediately after we'd just lost the last game of the season) it might be a different story? I don't get that at all and he should be applauded for recognising his part in our failure to get promoted (but not necessarily sacked for saying it).

With regard to our end of season form, our most comfortable position was 9 points clear of Posh but still with 39 point to play for so, I wouldn't count that as "hugely secure".  We did indeed have a bad spell in March (losing 4 out of 5 between 7th March and 1st of April) which, unfortunately, coincided with Peterborough's purple patch. However, those defeats included Plymouth and Ipswich, it was immediately preceded by our own purple patch (that included only 2 defeat in 21 games) and was followed by a run of 6 games without defeat. 

So, if you want to take that Month in isolation, yes we fell away. But, if you look at the bigger picture (including our fantastic run immediately prior and, to an extent, our bounce back afterwards) it wasn't such a mighty decline as you may think. 

Not necessarily but it can’t be overlooked that Warne was brought in to bring promotion. If Clowes wanted to give time then you might as well have stopped with Rosenior. 
 

I don’t particularly want him sacked either I just want to be excited by some of the football played by us. 
 

Im not one of those misers that haven’t been able to enjoy this season - I’ve loved every goal and every win this season and will keep backing them to get us over the line. 

[ilkleyram]

10 hours ago, i-Ram said:

Difficult for me to say C86. I have not watched many of our performances of late, other than highlights, but notwithstanding I wouldn’t hold Paul Warne to account for any specific game in isolation, whether it Wycombe (A), Northampton (A), or Charlton (H). All 3 of them poor performances recently, with vital points lost, when a win could have created real pressure on teams around us.

I think he had really limited options on Wednesday, but part of that I feel is because he ‘breaks’ players. How many players have we had on the treatment table this season with niggling injuries to soft tissue, hamstrings, calf pulls, etc.  He works players too hard in my opinion, prioritising stamina and athleticism over ball retention and passing finesse. Fortunately we have a good, deep squad funded by Clowes, because we need it to cover for the number of injuries that are being sustained. Didn’t I read that he was saying on Tuesday how the players didn’t look right, and how some were jaded on Wednesday evening. I wonder whether he ever thinks it’s because he wears them out with his demands.

I am not a fan of his ‘tactics’ either - conceding midfield and hitting the ball quickly to the wings to get crosses in is ok, if we had a really decent (old fashioned) centre forward to get his head on most of the crosses, and if it wasn’t our only actual tactic (other than loading up at free kicks and corners). Seems to me that when the tactic isn’t working that we just try to do more of the same, but more quickly, with our players treating the football like it’s a hot potato.

In answer to @G STAR RAMand @YorkshireRam being second, per se, is not the problem, and he may well get us up. If he does it would be churlish for me not to say well done, you did your job. The players too. However, he disappoints me as I think we have the best squad overall in the league, and that the league is at its lowest quality for years. When I say in spite of Warne, I mean that I think a decent coach could have got this squad promoted by now, keeping the players fit through better rotation and the use of a few younger lads near the end of games, and playing a better brand of football suiting better the skill set of a number of our players. Rather than having a nail biting finish, we could and should be well clear of the third place team in my opinion.

And that is all it is, my opinion. Not concerned a jot if someone, or everyone, doesn’t agree with it, or doesn’t understand it. Equally I don’t feel the need to strongly debate it either. As you say I have been pretty consistent with my opinion on him since he joined, and I haven’t seen much over the last 18 months that that changes my viewpoint. 

 

 

On the ‘Warne breaks players’ topic Sportscene on Radio Derby was interesting last night listing many clubs across the leagues (including Orient) with high numbers of injuries this season. Perhaps it’s nothing to do with our training methods 

If you look at the way he dealt with TJJ for example - a very careful reintroduction that unfortunately went wrong - or Rooney’s freak injury or Ward’s or Collo’s - then maybe there’s other factors at play. 

[i-Ram]

5 minutes ago, ilkleyram said:

On the ‘Warne breaks players’ topic Sportscene on Radio Derby was interesting last night listing many clubs across the leagues (including Orient) with high numbers of injuries this season. Perhaps it’s nothing to do with our training methods 

If you look at the way he dealt with TJJ for example - a very careful reintroduction that unfortunately went wrong - or Rooney’s freak injury or Ward’s or Collo’s - then maybe there’s other factors at play. 

Thanks Ilkley. I don’t get Radio Derby down here in the tropics, so didn’t hear the piece.

Of course Rooney was a freak injury, and even Lazarus’s doctor would probably be shaking his head with TJJ, but the number of players unavailable with day-to-day knocks does seem very high to me. A few recently being made known when the team sheet is announced. I may be wrong, I often am, but it would be interesting to analyse his time with Rotherham and Derby to see if players were spending more time on the treatment table under his watch, than other times in their career.

[DRBee]

17 hours ago, Rammy03 said:

Of course it's important but ultimately it's the players on the pitch who do the business as the great man once said. You can have the best setup and the best plan in the world but without the players to execute it you have nothing.

Naive at best. There are many examples in our clubs history and of other clubs where a managerial change ( without change in players) leads to an upturn or drop in performance and matches won. The quality of the players may place a ceiling on performance but there examples where a new managers have drastically raised the performance level of what was previously viewed as an average squad of players.

[Crewton]

6 hours ago, GeneralRam said:

He comes out with the same crap after every game. I loved the guy when he first come in but now I’ve soured and everything he does just annoys me.

All he has to do is say “We are Derby County, we should be pissing this league against these electricians and plumbers“ and show a bit of fight about him and I might start to change my opinion.

You want him to write every other team's pre-match teamtalk?

[Ram-Alf]

35 minutes ago, i-Ram said:

Thanks Ilkley. I don’t get Radio Derby down here in the tropics, so didn’t hear the piece.

Of course Rooney was a freak injury, and even Lazarus’s doctor would probably be shaking his head with TJJ, but the number of players unavailable with day-to-day knocks does seem very high to me. A few recently being made known when the team sheet is announced. I may be wrong, I often am, but it would be interesting to analyse his time with Rotherham and Derby to see if players were spending more time on the treatment table under his watch, than other times in their career.

I asked a question on the injury thread concerning players in the 60s n 70s not getting the injuries that todays players got, I received a good response from @roboto...below

It’s more to do with the level these athletes are playing at these days and the toll it takes on the body. To get to the peak of physical fitness can often put you at a breaking point where you push your body beyond its comfort zone too often, leading to more muscle strain/tear injuries.

Plus with modern physios and doctors checking in on players regularly, these problems are identified much more regularly than they used to be.

Im not saying players from back in the day weren’t skilful, but the game was different physically and training wasn’t as intense as it is these days. This meant there were more rest and recovery periods for players compared to todays daily schedule for professional squads.

[Tamworthram]

1 hour ago, IlsonDerby said:

Not necessarily but it can’t be overlooked that Warne was brought in to bring promotion. If Clowes wanted to give time then you might as well have stopped with Rosenior. 
 

I don’t particularly want him sacked either I just want to be excited by some of the football played by us. 
 

Im not one of those misers that haven’t been able to enjoy this season - I’ve loved every goal and every win this season and will keep backing them to get us over the line. 

Depends on whether DC thought Rosenior was likely to get us promoted and if so, how much time he might have needed. Perhaps he thought PW was a much safer bet even if it did take 2 or 3 seasons. Rightly or wrongly, only time will tell, DC chose PW because of his record of getting teams promoted out of league 1 whereas LR had no such record. It’s easy to say with hindsight that LR seems to be proving himself as a very capable manager but of course he had no such track record at the start of last season. 
 

My theory is that DC appointed Warne at the start of last season with the hope that we’d get promoted straight away (although, given we’d still be under restrictions this season, perhaps it was a good thing we weren’t) but the expectation that it would be difficult given the traumatic start, the business plan restrictions and change in personnel. That would then give PW a season to establish himself. I think promotion this year was probably a genuine expectation for Clowes. If we had failed, and not even made the play offs, I reckon Warne’s position would have been very precarious. As it is, if we fail, we will have at least made the plays off. On that basis, I think Clowes will be disappointed but not sufficiently so to sack Warne.

[ap04]

1 hour ago, DRBee said:

Naive at best. There are many examples in our clubs history and of other clubs where a managerial change ( without change in players) leads to an upturn or drop in performance and matches won. The quality of the players may place a ceiling on performance but there examples where a new managers have drastically raised the performance level of what was previously viewed as an average squad of players.

This may ignore the majority who haven't, that correlation doesn't mean causation for those who have, and also the longer term trend.

You may be interested in this research that covered a large period, basically the impact of a change is minimal after an initial "bounce", and that bounce is just the preceding dip in results, quite often due to luck, that led to the change regressing to the mean. There has also been evidence showing the same would happen without a change.

 

Edited April 13 by ap04

[Comrade 86]

12 hours ago, i-Ram said:

Difficult for me to say C86. I have not watched many of our performances of late, other than highlights, but notwithstanding I wouldn’t hold Paul Warne to account for any specific game in isolation, whether it Wycombe (A), Northampton (A), or Charlton (H). All 3 of them poor performances recently, with vital points lost, when a win could have created real pressure on teams around us.

I think he had really limited options on Wednesday, but part of that I feel is because he ‘breaks’ players. How many players have we had on the treatment table this season with niggling injuries to soft tissue, hamstrings, calf pulls, etc.  He works players too hard in my opinion, prioritising stamina and athleticism over ball retention and passing finesse. Fortunately we have a good, deep squad funded by Clowes, because we need it to cover for the number of injuries that are being sustained. Didn’t I read that he was saying on Tuesday how the players didn’t look right, and how some were jaded on Wednesday evening. I wonder whether he ever thinks it’s because he wears them out with his demands.

A not unfair take to be honest, though we don't really know how hard he trains the lads in comparison to other teams. Seems to me that there is a greater focus on athleticism, pace and stamina as you move down the leagues, with the players having more natural ability being priced out of range by Champ and Prem outfits. I did note from Barker's interview prior to the game that the squad had been given time off and returned to their families during the break between Pompey and Wycombe and I do wonder whether the rigours of a 50 game season on some pretty poor pitches (our own at times!) might have more to do with the injuries than a martinet's approach to training. In any case, hopefully we put it all together for the next 3 games, as I'm not sure anyone wants another season of L1 football irrespective of whether Warne is still the incumbent.

Slight tangent, but I was sorry to read that 2024 has proved difficult for you and yours thus far. Hopefully a resounding win today signals changes sooner, rather than later.

[RadioactiveWaste]

I still think Paul Warne is more comfortable and his virtues more evident when it's an underdog situation - getting the squad to stick together and believe in each other, work hard, be fitter, know how we're defending x,y,z the other team try to do (etc) which you need if you're trying to stay up but aren't super exciting when you're supposed to be dominating most games and rolling over lesser teams. I also feel like that's where some of the disgruntlement with him stems from, we're supposed to be the big fish in this little league 1 pond.

Partly because of that I feel like he'd actualy be OK with us in the championship as we look to consolidate. He probably does a limit and I perhaps don't see him taking us to the promotion fight in the championship but, getting us to lower mid table, I can see.

 

[Jimbo Ram]

Wasn’t Warne brought in for a specific job, a League 1 specialist with a track record, to get us up? I didn’t expect beautiful football and what we have seen has not been pretty. However, surely if he gets us up he will have done his job? I think we should wait and see where we are at the end of the season and evaluate then. In the meantime, Come on you Rams 🐏 

[Van der MoodHoover]

10 hours ago, Jourdan said:

Of course there isn’t when we get results. It is easy to back a winning team, which we have been doing for the majority of games since November.

But there is definitely something bubbling under the surface. You could feel that in the ground away at Exeter even when we were 1-0 up at HT. I dread to think what it was like at Wycombe on Wednesday.

Don't know as I was stuck in semi-recline mode and couldn't see the screen properly.

Perhaps it was just as well......

[FlyBritishMidland]

2 hours ago, i-Ram said:

Thanks Ilkley. I don’t get Radio Derby down here in the tropics, so didn’t hear the piece.

Of course Rooney was a freak injury, and even Lazarus’s doctor would probably be shaking his head with TJJ, but the number of players unavailable with day-to-day knocks does seem very high to me. A few recently being made known when the team sheet is announced. I may be wrong, I often am, but it would be interesting to analyse his time with Rotherham and Derby to see if players were spending more time on the treatment table under his watch, than other times in their career.

Injuries is interesting.  This weeks episode of the Rams Daily podcast building up to the game is worth a listen.  Injuries is discussed and Martin Fisher said it seems to be a problem in all the divisions this season.  They discussed the stop start nature of the game now affecting muscles, etc and the length of injury time.  The Orient chap they spoke too alluded to the same.  Their manager has said the extra injury time at the end of matches has had an affect on his players fitness.  Particularly at the start of the season when players were still building up their fitness and they haven’t recovered from this.