Transfer rumours

[LeedsCityRam]

2 minutes ago, Elwood P Dowd said:

I do wonder if PW has replaced the CF, would hold the ball up, with a group of players who have the pace to attack as a unit.

A defenders nightmare must be having three pacy players running at him, the big question is can we turn the players pace into goals, can someone stick the ball in the net.

I remember Raheem Sterling when he was all pace and no end product.

 

I think having the variety to do both would be the ideal. Games where we are inviting the opposition onto us, could go with 3 quick forwards to punish them whereas games where we are struggling to get any kind of foothold, we have a strong number 9 to get us a platform higher up the pitch. That would also be useful in games where we have more of the ball (thinking likes of Millwall at home) when attacks might be concentrated out wide to evade their low block & hence we'd need presence in the final 3rd to make most of that delivery.

Agree about attacking as a unit by the way - my assessment is the attacking play seems to be very individual still (perhaps not surprising given how new the squad is) instead of forward players making runs to create space/providing those key final 3rd passes to others.

[brady1993]

16 minutes ago, jono said:

I think it’s rose tinted. Some great games for sure but I really don’t think this Warne Ball monika is honest. We played in a way the worked in L1 . We did play the ball on the ground at times. Our midfield lacked mobility. We played pragmatic football for the league we were in and the players we had. There is a huge amount of work to do, rebuilding a team with new faces and facing higher quality opposition. One thing Warne does is adapt .. which Mac didn’t and Mac had considerable advantages at his starting point. Give Warne a chance that extends beyond a handful of matches before branding him with an assumed style. 

The thing is how Warne talks about the game and tactics, how Rotherham set up and how he's set up with us so far are all extremely consistent with each other. Where it's veered from that it's mostly been surface changes in things like formation through necessity. 

It can essentially be summarised by playing ideally a 352, a team built and focused around athleticism and trying to outwork the opponent, always press aggressively and mostly on a 1-1 basis, don't keep the ball get it wide and forwards as fast as possible through whatever means and then cross it into the box as quickly as possible. We will look better or worse largely depending upon how easily the opposition gives the ball up, how easily they can stop or deal with crosses and how we compare in terms of athleticism and individual quality. My main issue with his approach is it's largely an overly simplistic boiling down of the game to athleticism and individual battles when at this level I think you need to do more.

Whether he has got more in his locker we shall see, my hopes is having to rely on Yates as a sole striker might force a bit of a change in ideas.

[May Contain Nuts]

Personal rating of the window: 8/10

In theory I like all of the new additions on an individual basis, although the kid from Wolves seems somewhat surplus to requirements now we have Harness.

The lack of a hold up striker is a blow, but Yates still has plenty of potential to score a good number, and I see a strong central defence and solid midfield (once Ozoh settles and Adams is fit).

My expectation from the squad we've assembled is now that we stay up. That may be by the skin of its teeth but it's now an entirely plausible outcome IMO and something that's in our own hands.

[Pikeyram]

Just seen Ebosele has "signed" for Watford from their Italian "sister" club.....modern day football is so crap and corrupt.

Would like to see Festy in a rams shirt, very exciting player in the relegation season.

Edited August 31 by Pikeyram
Mis spelt

[Elwood P Dowd]

24 minutes ago, LeedsCityRam said:

I think having the variety to do both would be the ideal. Games where we are inviting the opposition onto us, could go with 3 quick forwards to punish them whereas games where we are struggling to get any kind of foothold, we have a strong number 9 to get us a platform higher up the pitch. That would also be useful in games where we have more of the ball (thinking likes of Millwall at home) when attacks might be concentrated out wide to evade their low block & hence we'd need presence in the final 3rd to make most of that delivery.

Agree about attacking as a unit by the way - my assessment is the attacking play seems to be very individual still (perhaps not surprising given how new the squad is) instead of forward players making runs to create space/providing those key final 3rd passes to others.

If we have a solid defence and are able to turn defence into attack very quickly it should be an interesting season. 
 

We just need to turn those pacy attacks into goals, the “putting the ball in the net” is the bit that causes me a little concern🐏🐏🐏

[StaffsRam]

Given our obvious limitations we were probably a bonafide #9 away from having a pretty good window. As it is, it was still decent, we just missed out on our main target. That's the disappointment, given that it's been no secret, for a long time, that we needed one. That would have added an another dimension to our attacking play, but I think we can probably see from the Middlesbrough game where the bulk of our points this season are going to come from. Resolute defensive displays and nicking the odd goal here or there. The addition of JWZ and Phillips will help there. Cash has had a....shaky, start to the season, but if he comes good like he did last year then we'll have a solid foundation at the back as we get into the season IMO. 

At this point I'd happily take 21st position. Looking at the previous seasons in the Champ, we need to be aiming for 55 points, which is 1.2 points per game. After 3 games, we're currently averaging 1. Not the end of the world, especially considering who we've played. I'd have taken 3 from 3 from those games before the start of the season. It does mean however that those sides around us, who're also going to be in the mix at the bottom come the end of the season, we really need to be taking points from those games. 

[Spender]

2 hours ago, angieram said:

We need a different emphasis on coaching through balls, low crosses and pull backs instead.

Just like our academy coaches set their teams up? 😉

[Jimbo Ram]

I don’t think we can decide how successful the window has been until Christmas time. Then we can judge having given the players time to show what they can do.

[StaffsRam]

9 minutes ago, Pikeyram said:

Just seen Ebosele has "signed" for Watford from their Italian "sister" club.....modern day football is so crap and corrupt.

Saw Don Hutchison last night questioning what sort of system we have when clubs are actively encouraged to sell their homegrown talents for FFP.

The whole set up is a (bad) joke at this point. The top % of clubs can just hoover up talent, usually for peanuts if they're from lower league clubs, and then just loan them back out to recoup costs and cover their wages. 

Unless you're a top-half Prem club then you essentially need to just be happy to watch your local club play football, win nothing, and if you're really lucky you might yo-yo between the leagues for a bit of excitement.

[Loughborough Ram]

If, going into this window, we were told that we would bring in Zetterstrom, Phillips, Ozoh, Adams, Osbourne, Goudmijn, Jackson, Harness, Chirewa, and Yates, only a fool would have said that we'd had a bad window. I would say that there are 10 players there who are an upgrade on what we already had.

Of course the missing target man is disappointing but come on, seriously, Warne and the recruitment team should be very pleased with the work they've done thus summer. Anybody who tries to claim differently either doesn't understand the game or has an entirely different agenda.

[MadAmster]

5 minutes ago, Loughborough Ram said:

If, going into this window, we were told that we would bring in Zetterstrom, Phillips, Ozoh, Adams, Osbourne, Goudmijn, Jackson, Harness, Chirewa, and Yates, only a fool would have said that we'd had a bad window. I would say that there are 10 players there who are an upgrade on what we already had.

Of course the missing target man is disappointing but come on, seriously, Warne and the recruitment team should be very pleased with the work they've done thus summer. Anybody who tries to claim differently either doesn't understand the game or has an entirely different agenda.

and/or are serial moaners who'd complain if we won the League by 15 points that it should have been by >20

[Rampant]

8 minutes ago, Loughborough Ram said:

If, going into this window, we were told that we would bring in Zetterstrom, Phillips, Ozoh, Adams, Osbourne, Goudmijn, Jackson, Harness, Chirewa, and Yates, only a fool would have said that we'd had a bad window. I would say that there are 10 players there who are an upgrade on what we already had.

Of course the missing target man is disappointing but come on, seriously, Warne and the recruitment team should be very pleased with the work they've done thus summer. Anybody who tries to claim differently either doesn't understand the game or has an entirely different agenda.

Absolutely spot on. 

[jono]

50 minutes ago, LeedsCityRam said:

I think having the variety to do both would be the ideal. Games where we are inviting the opposition onto us, could go with 3 quick forwards to punish them whereas games where we are struggling to get any kind of foothold, we have a strong number 9 to get us a platform higher up the pitch. That would also be useful in games where we have more of the ball (thinking likes of Millwall at home) when attacks might be concentrated out wide to evade their low block & hence we'd need presence in the final 3rd to make most of that delivery.

Agree about attacking as a unit by the way - my assessment is the attacking play seems to be very individual still (perhaps not surprising given how new the squad is) instead of forward players making runs to create space/providing those key final 3rd passes to others.

Yep, for me we have the personnel to do something reasonable, but it is the whole “unit” thing that would make it work. If Warne is the going to be recognised as a quality manager this is his chance. I am very interested to see if we make progress over say the next 10 games. I certainly don’t want to judge until then 

[Paultheram]

No striker through the door but I am quite happy with the 2 new additions,

I think our main problem was service and with now all the wide players at our disposal that should be sorted,

excited to see harness play as he was a regular last season in a really good Ipswich side.

free agent strikers are avail but let’s only use them If we need to,

[Ghost of Clough]

1 hour ago, brady1993 said:

Most of the signings are short term with many in key positions, 5 signings are loans with what looks like at least 4 are going to be first choice then and a further two signings are in their 30s. This exacerbates that a lot of the signings last year were short term, meaning going into next summer we likely need another big overhaul.

I felt that way too earlier in the window, but on reflection it doesn't look like too much of an issue, especially if we can add a LWB and CF in January.

If we extended the contracts of just Nelson, Wilson and LThompson, amd promote DRobinson to being the 6th CM, I think we'll only need 7 players for next season. 5 of those being starters - CB, LWB, CM, LW, CF. The other two being RW and another CF.

It's also not unreasonable for Yates to become a permanent signing, lessening the level of overhaul.

[IlsonDerby]

Harness and Phillips are probably a level higher than I was expecting us to go for so I have to congratulate the club on getting them in the door. We now need to gel and gel quickly so we can start to claw our way to the 50 point mark. 

[FlyBritishMidland]

I think it’s been a pretty good window.  We’re still on a bit of a rebuild so it looks like we’ve made the best of our budget with mixing permanent and loan signings.  Phillips is an excellent addition.  Bags of experience, good age and he’ll be good for Cashin.  The only real disappointment is that one or two on the periphery didn’t leave (e.g. Washington) to free up space in the squad.  That could make strengthening in January tricky given the limitations on squad size.

Now that we know Brown is staying we have to use him.  Yates is obviously 1st choice but when we need to bring one on we need to use Brown ahead of Collins, depending on the circumstances.  I can see you might bring Collins on if we’re holding on in a game for his presence, and he’s good in our own penalty area.  But otherwise we need to use Brown.  If we play a front 2, again I’d like to think Brown can have his fair share of starts alongside Yates.

[Barney1991]

1 hour ago, May Contain Nuts said:

Personal rating of the window: 8/10

In theory I like all of the new additions on an individual basis, although the kid from Wolves seems somewhat surplus to requirements now we have Harness.

The lack of a hold up striker is a blow, but Yates still has plenty of potential to score a good number, and I see a strong central defence and solid midfield (once Ozoh settles and Adams is fit).

My expectation from the squad we've assembled is now that we stay up. That may be by the skin of its teeth but it's now an entirely plausible outcome IMO and something that's in our own hands.

It’s not just the players who manage to keep us up though. We need warne to start believing in himself and this squad and get us 10 to 20 yards further up the pitch 

[maxjam]

Ok... Got some ITK news and unlike other posters on this forum I'm gonna share my source.

Just turned over my Derby desk calendar to mark some dates for Sept and...

[MadAmster]

7 minutes ago, Barney1991 said:

It’s not just the players who manage to keep us up though. We need warne to start believing in himself and this squad and get us 10 to 20 yards further up the pitch 

We do, indeed, need to play further up the pitch. I'm uncertain as to whether that dropping back is:

a) Warne's tactics

b) something the players just "do" once they get ahead

c) in some cases caused by the quality of the opposition