Match Thread: vs Northampton Town (a)

[rammieib]

10 minutes ago, Chester40 said:

Not sure it's failure to deal with pressure, but he definitely started the season clumsily and then really improved ...before being really tentative,  sluggish and ultimately losing his head yesterday.

Doesn't use his size in the opposition box as much as I'd hoped, less of a leader than Cashin/Nelson and worse on the ball than I feared.

Ends all talk of a back 3 I guess now. 

I'm not excusing his headbutt but when he was being rugby tackled at every corner and then the red gives the softest foul the other way, I understand why you lose your patience and snap.

Anyway it should force us to go back to a back four where I think we look far better.

[CBRammette]

Depending on how busy he is in life, one forum member who may have felt a tiny guilty hint of relief we lost is @Rampant

Thanks for your wonderful opening of match threads over the last few weeks - hope you enjoyed doing them as much as we enjoyed reading them 🐏🐏

[IlsonDerby]

4 minutes ago, rammieib said:

I'm not excusing his headbutt but when he was being rugby tackled at every corner and then the red gives the softest foul the other way, I understand why you lose your patience and snap.

Anyway it should force us to go back to a back four where I think we look far better.

This is fine if we’re talking about an inexperienced defender learning a lesson the hard way. We’re talking about an experienced pro who was part of a promotion to the premier league last season. He should be thoroughly embarrassed that he couldn’t control himself and in doing so has left the team with 2 centre backs for the next 3 matches. I’d pay him off at the end of this season and cut our losses - dread to think what championship strikers would do to him. 
 

This isn’t just about the sending off either. Constantly passing it behind the player he was playing it to. Constant poor touches including needing Wildsmith to rush out and spare his blushes to stop a repeat of match day 1. 
 

These mistakes shouldn’t be happening from a player at this stage in his career who has dropped down a level. 

[AndyinLiverpool]

Why didn't we play in white?

[Leeds Ram]

So frustrated about yesterday. We had such a good chance to actually go clear and put all the pressure on those chasing us. Now all the pressure is all on us. I would imagine by after the Portsmouth game we'll be 3rd or 4th given the difficulty of those games. I would hope we would be sitting on a cushion so all we'd have to do would be to win the games against Carlisle, Cambridge and Leyton Orient. If we want automatics we'll need to beat Blackpool and perhaps even get a point from Portsmouth. In the playoffs who knows if we win or not. I'd back us to get to the final if we finished 3rd as Pride Park will be a fortress for the home leg. 

[Old Spalding Ram]

7 minutes ago, HorsforthRam said:

Listening to PW on Radio Derby post match… he thought they didn’t look right in the warm up so no idea what you were watching 🤣🤣

Yep, passing to each other, balls into feet, good possession,  I agree with Warne, they didn’t look right,

[EulogyForEvolution]

14 hours ago, HorsforthRam said:

NML has a hamstring injury. barks is out for 3 weeks. Can Warne either adapt his system or use a different one to keep us in the hunt?

Looking at who we have available, we might have to go for something like this next game:

            Wildsmith
Smith Nelson Cashin Elder
      Adams  Thompson
Ward      Sibley      Wilson
          Washington

We don't have the attacking players available to afford having Ward, Sibley or Wilson in the fullback positions. I'm still not sure CBT is ready for a start - he showed glimpses yesterday when he game on, though.

To put our injury crisis into perspective, here's a alternate eleven with players that are injured or suspended:

                     Vickers
Nyambe  Bradley  Rooney  Forsyth
                Fornah   Bird
NML                                Barkhuizen
              Gayle    Collins

I think any team would struggle with so many players out.

[Chester40]

8 minutes ago, rammieib said:

I'm not excusing his headbutt but when he was being rugby tackled at every corner and then the red gives the softest foul the other way, I understand why you lose your patience and snap.

Anyway it should force us to go back to a back four where I think we look far better.

Well your pre-match negativity came to fruition mate, so let's see what a back 4 can do... yesterday was very disappointing. 

Fact remains that I think if Waghorn scores we coast home, if Adams doesn't miss that sitter I think we win too. As it was, our 'percentage' football failed and we need to go again.

[IlsonDerby]

My opinion of Warne as a manager is well known and he is what he is so I’m not going to go over those talking points again. 
 

I’m sick of slating the woeful tactics so My anger yesterday is directed at the players. Can any of them come off the pitch with any sort of credit? 
 

Their goal was Sunday league defending. Bradley letting him get the cross in too easy. Cashin and Sibley breakdown in communication allowing the scorer the freedom of half of the pitch. 
 

Passing accuracy was abysmal. Even the passes that went to our players were always causing the receiver to turn back and collect it from behind them or to stretch for it. Wasted the 3 real opportunities we had with awful finishing.
 

Constant hoofed balls up rather than the composure to play it through a pretty crap league 1 press. 
 

Honestly a good chunk of the team yesterday printed their own P45s for the end of this season regardless of division. 

[HorsforthRam]

4 minutes ago, AndyinLiverpool said:

Why didn't we play in white?

Metaphorically, we did

[Rampant]

4 minutes ago, CBRammette said:

Depending on how busy he is in life, one forum member who may have felt a tiny guilty hint of relief we lost is @Rampant

Thanks for your wonderful opening of match threads over the last few weeks - hope you enjoyed doing them as much as we enjoyed reading them 🐏🐏

Cheers @CBRammette. 

My tangerine / orange fruit / Joe Longthorne joke which I had lined up for the Blackpool match was probably in poor taste anyway! 

[BaianoPOTY98]

I watched the match on Ramstv and first half I thought we did ok except for putting the ball in the back of the net, by the second half I was both pissed and pissed off so can’t remember a lot. For me the big loss is Fozzy, I don’t really care about Bradley except for the fact we’re now gonna have to play a back four, which I prefer except Sibs and Ward aren’t suited. Did any of us really expect a win yesterday? I was more hopeful than expecting, this is the Derby way🙈

[kevinhectoring]

6 hours ago, Jourdan said:

Thank you for all the love, well wishes and oh matron moments, everyone.

Shame about the result, but I suppose it would not be Derby County if it was all smooth sailing.

With six games to go, we have our destiny in our own hands and that’s what counts. Blackpool will be tough but we’ll hopefully bounce back and flicker into life again.

Must admit I am a bit disappointed that it was just me who rose to the occasion and performed when it mattered.

Every cloud….
You might have heard -  NML has tweaked his hammie. So maybe he’ll lay off your spanking new missus for a while yet 

[RoyMac5]

31 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

I agree, it's ridiculous that football players are being asked to run during a football match, what is Warne thinking?

 

He wasn't.

[Van der MoodHoover]

17 minutes ago, AndyinLiverpool said:

Why didn't we play in white?

Needed the shirt fabric for the surrender flags?

[kevinhectoring]

10 minutes ago, IlsonDerby said:

Passing accuracy was abysmal. Even the passes that went to our players were always causing the receiver to turn back and collect it from behind them or to stretch for it

I think the (narrow) pitch was quite cleverly prepared to play into their hands. It was bobbly and seemed very slow, so it was difficult for us to find weight of pass. That led us to resort to route A and that’s a leveller despite that we had more quality on the pitch

[Tamworthram]

43 minutes ago, Tamworthram said:

I said pretty much the same to a friend on messenger last night. Four wins SHOULD do it but it’s hard to be especially confident where four wins will come from. Blackpool aren’t as good away from home as they are at home but could still prove tricky. Same applies for Orient. Carlisle is obviously the one that stands out as the most winnable. Where will the away win come? Most likely at Cambridge. I could see us nicking a point at Pompey and maybe at Wycombe but not much more.

This isn’t just a knee jerk reaction to yesterday’s defeat. I felt the same before the game but was a little more confident as I saw Northampton as one of those four wins.

I said a while back that it might well come down to who has the least games in which they drop unexpected points. We dropped three yesterday (based on what I was expecting not how we played). We might need the chasing pack to return the favour.

I retract what I said about Blackpool not being as good away from home. I’ve just realised that they have won three of their last five away games including at the mighty Northampton and at Peterborough. ☹️

[Crewton]

6 minutes ago, IlsonDerby said:

Passing accuracy was abysmal. Even the passes that went to our players were always causing the receiver to turn back and collect it from behind them or to stretch for it. Wasted the 3 real opportunities we had with awful finishing.
 

Constant hoofed balls up rather than the composure to play it through a pretty crap league 1 press. 
 

I totally understand your take after watching the game, but the reality was long balls were 15% of the total passes, which is again similar to our average for the season (only Bolton, Peterborough and Wigan play fewer long balls per game than us) and accuracy was 72%, only marginally below our seasonal average of 73% (so not great, but not unusual either). I think the difference was the pitch - both the bobbly surface and the apparent narrowness of it, which @Owen87ITK and Barks mentioned several times as a restricting factor, made control difficult and helped slow down our play. Without Bird, I think trying to play through such a blanket defence on that surface could have been even more frustrating than watching us trying to play passes behind the defence and failing, as we often did.

[ziggazagga]

One of a few frustrations I have is that not for the first time this year we play the first twenty minutes as if it were a pre season friendly and I have to point the finger at the mgt three as well as the seasoned pros. Is it complacency or arrogance, I don't know but it's a frequent occurrence 

[Gabby'sThighs]

It's beyond frustrating that those same players put in a never-say-die fight against Bolton then rolled over against Northampton.
Not a total disaster but even a point would've made a huge difference. It's just got tighter but I'm pretty confident the rest of the top 4 are going to drop points. They've all got some tough games coming up against teams fighting for survival or promotion.

Keep the faith!