v Blackburn (A) Match Thread

[TINMANTED]

11 hours ago, kevinhectoring said:

Do you think there is really a chance that this owner would sack Warne before say February? 

That leaves another conundrum,if Warne proves not to be up to the task,and we are looking doomed, do we accept our fate and hope Warne can pull another rabbit out of the hat,or change manager in the hope we can turn it round 

[angieram]

1 hour ago, Tamworthram said:

According to my understanding, being a community asset doesn’t stop an individual or entity from owning it and appointing whatever person from managing it. It pretty much just restricts what it can be used for (broadly speaking I think).

 

 

Only the infrastructure can be registered as community assets, not the business/es. 

So, both Pride Park and Moor Farm are currently registered as community assets, DCFC is not. All this means is that the body that registers it, in our case RamsTrust on behalf of all supporters, would be notified and given an opportunity to bid against owners who wished to sell or to change the major use.

Whilst the Club itself can't be registered as a community asset, should the football governance bill become law shortly, then certain aspects of the club will become protected - name, badge, colours etc and can't be changed by owners without consultation with the fans. 

The law on community assets probably needs tightening too. For example, when Mel Morris sold the stadium to himself we weren't even notified, as it wasn't a "change of ownership". 

[Gabby'sThighs]

On 09/08/2024 at 21:59, Topram said:

1 game in and I’m running out of excuses?? You just summed you lot up

I'm running out of excuses to defend the guy who got us promoted 3 months ago...

[Chester40]

2 hours ago, brady1993 said:

One thing I wanted to talk about because I hadn't seen it mentioned so far really is all 4 goals come from bad positioning/organisation/pressing especially in midfield. Ozoh was a major culprit either getting sucked in to the danger late, overcommitting in a useless press or not anticipating where danger is unfolding. All 4 goals the danger originates from it being trivial to breakdown our structure. Yes there are individual mistakes past that don't help but at that point it's mostly panicked defending where you are relying heavily on individual quality to bail you out. It's the kind of thing we could get away with in league 1 because our individual player quality was higher than most teams so they could often recover and the average league 1 team would often not punish these situations. To highlight my point let me walk through the goals in how they unfold:

Goal 1:

• It starts at point of almost complete safety and the first big issue. The ball is being rolled out to their left back deep in their half. Osbourne who is already a bit out of position, decides to go press the left when there is no real chance of closing him down in time and pulls himself majorly out of position and pretty much taking himself out of the game.
• That is the major contributor in leaving acres of space in the middle allowing one of their forwards to drop into the space as Kenzo follows his marker out to the wing. The forward dropping drags Wilson out of position to follow him. I think their is a argument here that neither Kenzo or Wilson should follow their man into the positions they do. But it's following that trend of pressing/marking individually without consideration. And leads to Kenzo in a right back area and wilson in midfield for the rest of the play.
• Second big issue you can already see starting to unfold here by looking at Ozoh who's taken a terrible position up by sitting on the left side of midfield and not reacting to where the danger is going to be. 
• He only reacts to move over after it's already too late and overcommits himself allowing him to be taken out of the game. At this point you've effectively got a 5 (blackburn) on 4 with massive amounts of space on the right wing and a makeshift defence. Any good team is going to score here.

Goal 2:

• It's kinda staggering how similar this goal is in a lot of ways. Jackson presses the left back on his own but this time I think it's mostly fine based on starting positions.
• Ozoh however has allowed himself to get dragged right out to the wing. Then gets dragged further as he goes to win a ball he's not getting to a huge amount of the time. When he should have been talking to Kenzo to go cover it or communicating to Kenzo that he's left his space.
• Ozoh getting dragged out opens up a massive space in midfield for their forward to drop into with which Cashin has to follow him into to contest because if he doesn't the forward is going to have all the time in the world to turn and do what they want. But we are now at a point where we are majorly disorganised.
• Cashin does almost recover the situation (again relying on individuals to bail out team problems). This should have bought enough time to reset. Osborne though goes with him getting pulled into a spot Cashin is either going to win or Osborne won't be able to help
• Watch what Ozoh does whilst this is happening. He's coming back but stops when it looks like Cashin has won the ball rather than continue to come back into position he loosely stays hanging out the right wing. Where he's neither covering for if something goes wrong or taking up a meaningful position to provide a passing option.
• It means that when this breaks down again it becomes 7 vs 4 where one of our deepest players is Collins coming back to help out. Any good team is going to score here. 

Goal 3:

• Ozoh has the ball. And nobody is giving him a decent short option aside from Osborn to go slightly backwards. He makes a bad decision and a bad pass leading to the turnover.
• He then overcommits once again. Pressing right into the space that Osborn has occupied. Taking himself out of the game, leaving acres of space in the middle (which on this occasion the Blackburn player doesn't see and instead plays a good ball releasing their winger). It means that he's in no position to later cover for runners or take up defensive positions as the defence shifts across.
• Cashin gets dragged out of position in a point where he should probably leave it to Elder. And it's easy from that point especially given the lack of midfield to cover.

Goal 4:

• Blackburn break on the counter. Cashin steps out to press and challenge. Ozoh who's coming back checks his run back to watch what happens, when he should be sprinting to cover where Cashin came from or sprinting to go for the player free on our right wing.
• It's only after the ball has gone and released the player in space on the wing. Does Ozoh go over there, after the defence has already shifted across and he should be moving to cover centrally. By doing this it leaves a player in the centre in absolute acres of space.

 

In this I know I've criticised Ozoh a lot and I do think he's severely culpable in a lot of the goals. But to be honest in all of them there just seems to be structural problems. A lot of naive pressing and poor positioning as a team. Suggesting there hasn't been enough or good enough coaching around when players should press, how they should press, what positions to take up or hold and who should be looking to cover for who. It strikes me as a lot of individuals making decisions in a moment as opposed to a collective understanding of who should be doing what.

 

 

Great analysis.. presumably Warne and staff are doing the same and addressing it with the team.

Its what bugged me about the sarcasm when I among others moaned about preseason. Not that we didn't win every game,  but that we didn't play players in a team/structure/position they would start the season in so these little tweaks could be worked on. 

[brady1993]

1 hour ago, Ambitious said:

It was a new system and a brand new midfield three, your excellent breakdown over their goals provides a lot of context. I have absolutely no worries about our ability to be defensively sound in the long run. 

I hope your right but I do find it alarming as if even with the above being correct I'd have expected better. My concerns aren't helped by Warne's comments around only looking at things tactically later into the pre-season, 433 only being settled on in the last pre-season game and it's liable we try to shift off 433 further down the line.

These were also issues that were on display last year as well, but it was never as obvious because our player quality relative to the division and having Bird (to a lesser extent Hourihane) who was excellent positionally. His Rotherham sides also exhibited issues like this as well from what I recall of watching them.

Either way it's something that needs to be addressed rapidly.

[kevinhectoring]

2 hours ago, brady1993 said:

One thing I wanted to talk about because I hadn't seen it mentioned so far really is all 4 goals come from bad positioning/organisation/pressing especially in midfield. Ozoh was a major culprit either getting sucked in to the danger late, overcommitting in a useless press or not anticipating where danger is unfolding. All 4 goals the danger originates from it being trivial to breakdown our structure. Yes there are individual mistakes past that don't help but at that point it's mostly panicked defending where you are relying heavily on individual quality to bail you out. It's the kind of thing we could get away with in league 1 because our individual player quality was higher than most teams so they could often recover and the average league 1 team would often not punish these situations. To highlight my point let me walk through the goals in how they unfold:

Goal 1:

• It starts at point of almost complete safety and the first big issue. The ball is being rolled out to their left back deep in their half. Osbourne who is already a bit out of position, decides to go press the left when there is no real chance of closing him down in time and pulls himself majorly out of position and pretty much taking himself out of the game.
• That is the major contributor in leaving acres of space in the middle allowing one of their forwards to drop into the space as Kenzo follows his marker out to the wing. The forward dropping drags Wilson out of position to follow him. I think their is a argument here that neither Kenzo or Wilson should follow their man into the positions they do. But it's following that trend of pressing/marking individually without consideration. And leads to Kenzo in a right back area and wilson in midfield for the rest of the play.
• Second big issue you can already see starting to unfold here by looking at Ozoh who's taken a terrible position up by sitting on the left side of midfield and not reacting to where the danger is going to be. 
• He only reacts to move over after it's already too late and overcommits himself allowing him to be taken out of the game. At this point you've effectively got a 5 (blackburn) on 4 with massive amounts of space on the right wing and a makeshift defence. Any good team is going to score here.

Goal 2:

• It's kinda staggering how similar this goal is in a lot of ways. Jackson presses the left back on his own but this time I think it's mostly fine based on starting positions.
• Ozoh however has allowed himself to get dragged right out to the wing. Then gets dragged further as he goes to win a ball he's not getting to a huge amount of the time. When he should have been talking to Kenzo to go cover it or communicating to Kenzo that he's left his space.
• Ozoh getting dragged out opens up a massive space in midfield for their forward to drop into with which Cashin has to follow him into to contest because if he doesn't the forward is going to have all the time in the world to turn and do what they want. But we are now at a point where we are majorly disorganised.
• Cashin does almost recover the situation (again relying on individuals to bail out team problems). This should have bought enough time to reset. Osborne though goes with him getting pulled into a spot Cashin is either going to win or Osborne won't be able to help
• Watch what Ozoh does whilst this is happening. He's coming back but stops when it looks like Cashin has won the ball rather than continue to come back into position he loosely stays hanging out the right wing. Where he's neither covering for if something goes wrong or taking up a meaningful position to provide a passing option.
• It means that when this breaks down again it becomes 7 vs 4 where one of our deepest players is Collins coming back to help out. Any good team is going to score here. 

Goal 3:

• Ozoh has the ball. And nobody is giving him a decent short option aside from Osborn to go slightly backwards. He makes a bad decision and a bad pass leading to the turnover.
• He then overcommits once again. Pressing right into the space that Osborn has occupied. Taking himself out of the game, leaving acres of space in the middle (which on this occasion the Blackburn player doesn't see and instead plays a good ball releasing their winger). It means that he's in no position to later cover for runners or take up defensive positions as the defence shifts across.
• Cashin gets dragged out of position in a point where he should probably leave it to Elder. And it's easy from that point especially given the lack of midfield to cover.

Goal 4:

• Blackburn break on the counter. Cashin steps out to press and challenge. Ozoh who's coming back checks his run back to watch what happens, when he should be sprinting to cover where Cashin came from or sprinting to go for the player free on our right wing.
• It's only after the ball has gone and released the player in space on the wing. Does Ozoh go over there, after the defence has already shifted across and he should be moving to cover centrally. By doing this it leaves a player in the centre in absolute acres of space.

 

In this I know I've criticised Ozoh a lot and I do think he's severely culpable in a lot of the goals. But to be honest in all of them there just seems to be structural problems. A lot of naive pressing and poor positioning as a team. Suggesting there hasn't been enough or good enough coaching around when players should press, how they should press, what positions to take up or hold and who should be looking to cover for who. It strikes me as a lot of individuals making decisions in a moment as opposed to a collective understanding of who should be doing what.

 

 

Some of this is about midfield mix. I think it’d be fine for Ozoh to be playing a less disciplined, more advanced, role if we started with Adams. Defence needs to be tighter too.

it’s also about players getting accustomed to the pace of this league. Or reaccustomed, atcmb 

[brady1993]

1 hour ago, RoyMac5 said:

Whilst Warne seems to prefer athleticism in his footballers I prefer 'footballing intelligence'. We have had players that 'ate all the pies' but knew 'where to be and what to do when'. How would you rate some of our squad on the limited amount of showing?

It's too early to say and there are too many confounding factors. It's hard to say exactly what comes from tactics, coaching, cohesion between players and the player themselves.

[Marriot Ram99]

Ozoh and Goudminj did quite poorly on the defensive side imo as Brady said with Ozoh the positioning wasnt right I noticed how our midfield were very open and didnt provide a shield infront of the defence at all.

I think we have to play Ebou in there and I wouldnt play Ozoh and Goudminj as it looked a naive pairing and even Osbourne is hardly a midfield ratter and destroyer more a technical player. So we need to find the right balance and be more solid in the middle and that might mean only 1 of Ozoh and Goudminj start.

[brady1993]

6 minutes ago, kevinhectoring said:

Some of this is about midfield mix. I think it’d be fine for Ozoh to be playing a less disciplined, more advanced, role if we started with Adams. Defence needs to be tighter too.

it’s also about players getting accustomed to the pace of this league. Or reaccustomed, atcmb 

A different midfield mix might help but there are issues there that go beyond just who is playing. Ozoh was the easiest to highlight but the issues were present throughout the team.

With the defence it's hard to say they are culpable in some of the disorganisation but in a lot of cases they are being set up to fail. It'd take exceptional defenders to overcome some of the situations we found ourselves in with regularity.

I doubt it's down to the pace of the league, because the poor things structurally, positionally and with the pressing are bad irrespective of that. It's just you get punished more for it in this league and you can't overcome the issues with pure quality or athleticism.

[jimtastic56]

48 minutes ago, angieram said:

Only the infrastructure can be registered as community assets, not the business/es. 

So, both Pride Park and Moor Farm are currently registered as community assets, DCFC is not. All this means is that the body that registers it, in our case RamsTrust on behalf of all supporters, would be notified and given an opportunity to bid against owners who wished to sell or to change the major use.

Whilst the Club itself can't be registered as a community asset, should the football governance bill become law shortly, then certain aspects of the club will become protected - name, badge, colours etc and can't be changed by owners without consultation with the fans. 

The law on community assets probably needs tightening too. For example, when Mel Morris sold the stadium to himself we weren't even notified, as it wasn't a "change of ownership". 

Excellent info . Didn’t know that about Mel. I know it’s early days , what was your assessment of the Blackburn game ?  I know Dave hides behind the settee when we lose 🫣

[brady1993]

6 minutes ago, Marriot Ram99 said:

Ozoh and Goudminj did quite poorly on the defensive side imo as Brady said with Ozoh the positioning wasnt right I noticed how our midfield were very open and didnt provide a shield infront of the defence at all.

I think we have to play Ebou in there and I wouldnt play Ozoh and Goudminj as it looked a naive pairing and even Osbourne is hardly a midfield ratter and destroyer more a technical player. So we need to find the right balance and be more solid in the middle and that might mean only 1 of Ozoh and Goudminj start.

Kenzo I thought was mostly ok considering his role in the team to be the most advanced midfielder. When he'd been led into bad positions it was mostly as a result of other decisions compounding. 

But going past this my whole point with that post was more that the issues are deeper than just individuals. Like why is Osborn pressing so deeply onto their left back by himself for that first goal?

[Archied]

13 hours ago, Comrade 86 said:

Again, I'd say unconditional is overstating it. I try to be supportive, despite a wobble mid-season last year, but if it becomes clear to me that Warne really isn't up to managing a Championship club, then that's where it ends for me. I just think that after one game, some of the criticism has been a tad too fervent! By the same token, I understand that not all will take to his personality (I didn't initially) and that's perfectly reasonable.

No. Never bought me flowers either.

Does he a least take you out for dinner first ?

[May Contain Nuts]

35 minutes ago, brady1993 said:

A different midfield mix might help but there are issues there that go beyond just who is playing. Ozoh was the easiest to highlight but the issues were present throughout the team.

With the defence it's hard to say they are culpable in some of the disorganisation but in a lot of cases they are being set up to fail. It'd take exceptional defenders to overcome some of the situations we found ourselves in with regularity.

I doubt it's down to the pace of the league, because the poor things structurally, positionally and with the pressing are bad irrespective of that. It's just you get punished more for it in this league and you can't overcome the issues with pure quality or athleticism.

Spot on. 

Often it's that overeagerness to go and win a game without taking proper precautions should we lose the ball, such as allowing both full backs to push up the pitch without a DCM dropping back between the CBs.

...but we know that it's just not PW's mindset to settle for a draw, and I'll eat my hat if we ever see him playing someone as a dedicated, defensively minded CDM with any regularity. 

As the saying goes, “Courage is knowing it might hurt, and doing it anyway. Stupidity is the same"

In League One it worked well enough to be considered courageous...

[jimtastic56]

14 hours ago, DerbyAleMan said:

First game of the season, Cashin 2 mistakes just after we scored and we was on top, no need to panic, thought we played better than we did against Oxford on the first game of the season last season, get a few more in, we should be ok, for me it's all about our home form, so on saturday lets all get PP rock  from the first whistle to the last and drive the team onto 3 points. Once A Ram Always A Ram. 

There is a midweek game by the way . A good chance to put things right . 

[JuanFloEvraTheCocu'sNesta]

2 hours ago, TINMANTED said:

That leaves another conundrum,if Warne proves not to be up to the task,and we are looking doomed, do we accept our fate and hope Warne can pull another rabbit out of the hat,or change manager in the hope we can turn it round 

No point keeping Warne if we go down. Yeah he might get us back up but then what? We let him get another Championship relegation on his CV? If this season goes tits up we need a new manager. I hope it doesn't come to that.

[DE56Ram]

3 hours ago, brady1993 said:

Honestly I think it more speaks to the opportunities we gave them were gift wrapped. And honestly given how they didn't have to work for it, I worry it won't be the last time we see 4 or more put past us. Unless we address issues structurally. 

Are you a football coach at a reasonable level? 
that’s a very detailed appraisal for a fan. 🤔

I honestly feel that our coaching staff can see and will address our opening day shortcomings. You aren’t chosen to be the management team of a top 40 football club if you’re not up to it. Clearly from past experiences the coaches can and will.

Ozoh has been sent out to learn and his club stated that his learning can not be served better at this stage of his career than under PW at Derby 😊

We didn’t mark runners at all well, they worked VERY HARD for their win though, and we do need at least three more better quality players. 👍

[Archied]

For me what’s clear and exactly as I expected is you will get punished far more for mistakes and not having a bit more caution when attacking at this level and much as some won’t like it you can’t go all out to win every game unless you are at the top of the tree financially in terms of the quality of squad you can carry ,

beyond that the main contention on here will be how much slack you cut Warne or any other manager come to that , that’s where we will all differ , im pro Warne but if there come a point where I don’t think he can cut it then I will want us to move on to another manager , that will be based on results and other factors and will be like anybody else based on gut feel and what I’m watching , some would have him gone now or even before the season started , that’s they’re choice and probably based on exactly the same feelings , crack on , it might be a long season on forum more so than on the pitch😂

[Chellaston Ram]

3 hours ago, Marriot Ram99 said:

Ozoh and Goudminj did quite poorly on the defensive side imo as Brady said with Ozoh the positioning wasnt right I noticed how our midfield were very open and didnt provide a shield infront of the defence at all.

I think we have to play Ebou in there and I wouldnt play Ozoh and Goudminj as it looked a naive pairing and even Osbourne is hardly a midfield ratter and destroyer more a technical player. So we need to find the right balance and be more solid in the middle and that might mean only 1 of Ozoh and Goudminj start.

Why not put Osborn LB/LWB and bring in Adam’s and play Ozoh higher up in midfield 

[Marriot Ram99]

33 minutes ago, Chellaston Ram said:

Why not put Osborn LB/LWB and bring in Adam’s and play Ozoh higher up in midfield 

Yes I thought about that but not sure if we will create alot in a back 5 and it doesnt suit NML.  Might need to play a 532 until we get some more new signings in though . NML and Collins upfront like last season with Goudminj, Ozoh and Adams in midfield.

Edited August 11 by Marriot Ram99

[scout's dad]

 

It’s only the first match of the season ffs, there’s a long way to go yet. COYR🐏