Matchday thread: Rams v Sheffield Utd

[MadAmster]

This is a really important, and very much dependent on us remaining in this league. We'll struggle to get those players in L1.
It's a tough dilemma for the owner. Do they keep stick, hope we stay up, or hope that if we go down we come back up. Or do they intervene now, and make a change to try and inspire survival in the current league. Both are a gamble, there's no guarantee that changing manager will keep us up. There's also no guarantee that we'll stay up, or come back up if we go down.
Or, if the owner's intention is simply to survive as a club, is it such a big deal which league we operate in? Fluctuating between L1 and Championship might be viable for a club of Derby's finances.
Either way, I hope we stay up with PW, but replacing in the summer if the right manager is available would be my preference, unless PW shows some improvement. Odds may be against us, but those last 7 matches we should have picked up SOME points.

Not going down was what I meant, sorry if there was any confusion.

You would hope so but that's the trickery of a fixture list. You never know what form you'll be in at any given time. I thought we'd beat Cardiff but their win gave them an 8 game unbeaten run... which ended at Leeds last weekend. I reckon, we need a minimum of 7 points from our next 4 games. Away at 8th placed Norwich won't be easy but we owe them and the officials.... after that it's Oxford, QPR and Millwall. On current form 7 points looks a hard ask but we have to start somewhere and why not this month after having taken dry January rather too literally.

The other 7 were all top 9 and if those games had been spread over a period with "easier" games in between and we'd lost them but won/drawn some of the "easier" games, nobody would be grumbling. We've had the misfortune to have them in a bunch as opposed to spread about. That also means we have 75% of our remaining fixtures against bottom 13 sides. Sides we'd fancy getting a result against most of the time. Cash has gone, Nelson is injured but we now have Clarke and Langas at CD. Clarke is a known quantity and former Rams player of the season, an award he's picked up elsewhere 3 times as well. Langas is a full international at 23 and is said to be rapid. Lars looks like he knows where the net is and he and Yates looked to work well together..

We're still looking for a winger and a striker plus Barlaser is said to still be on the wanted list. We'll know more come 11PM and the window shuts.

Apparently we currently have 16 fit outfield players. Not helpful but pretty indicative of where we've been for much of the season. Hopefully the newbies stay fit and the walking wounded get fit and stay that way.

[MadAmster]

This is a really important, and very much dependent on us remaining in this league. We'll struggle to get those players in L1.
It's a tough dilemma for the owner. Do they keep stick, hope we stay up, or hope that if we go down we come back up. Or do they intervene now, and make a change to try and inspire survival in the current league. Both are a gamble, there's no guarantee that changing manager will keep us up. There's also no guarantee that we'll stay up, or come back up if we go down.
Or, if the owner's intention is simply to survive as a club, is it such a big deal which league we operate in? Fluctuating between L1 and Championship might be viable for a club of Derby's finances.
Either way, I hope we stay up with PW, but replacing in the summer if the right manager is available would be my preference, unless PW shows some improvement. Odds may be against us, but those last 7 matches we should have picked up SOME points.

Not going down was what I meant, sorry if there was any confusion.

You would hope so but that's the trickery of a fixture list. You never know what form you'll be in at any given time. I thought we'd beat Cardiff but their win gave them an 8 game unbeaten run... which ended at Leeds last weekend. I reckon, we need a minimum of 7 points from our next 4 games. Away at 8th placed Norwich won't be easy but we owe them and the officials.... after that it's Oxford, QPR and Millwall. On current form 7 points looks a hard ask but we have to start somewhere and why not this month after having taken dry January rather too literally.

The other 7 were all top 9 and if those games had been spread over a period with "easier" games in between and we'd lost them but won/drawn some of the "easier" games, nobody would be grumbling. We've had the misfortune to have them in a bunch as opposed to spread about. That also means we have 75% of our remaining fixtures against bottom 13 sides. Sides we'd fancy getting a result against most of the time. Cash has gone, Nelson is injured but we now have Clarke and Langas at CD. Clarke is a known quantity and former Rams player of the season, an award he's picked up elsewhere 3 times as well. Langas is a full international at 23 and is said to be rapid. Lars looks like he knows where the net is and he and Yates looked to work well together..

We're still looking for a winger and a striker plus Barlaser is said to still be on the wanted list. We'll know more come 11PM and the window shuts.

Apparently we currently have 16 fit outfield players. Not helpful but pretty indicative of where we've been for much of the season. Hopefully the newbies stay fit and the walking wounded get fit and stay that way.

[Geoff Parkstone]

rA: I'd stick regardless of results. Binning Warne would cost precious resources and no guarantee anyone else could keep us up. A new manager might inherit a squad built in a way he doesn't like and with no window left. If DC was going to sack PW he needed to have done it a few weeks ago.

Cue manager sacked next week!!

[swaledale]

If that was the case, why was he on the bench?

First game of 2025, against Wendy, Roons was om the bench and has been there ever since. If he's still not fit for 45 minutes then maybe he should retire.

Fair point, though obvs we had other CB's fit at that point and maybe If we hadn't been losing those games, he would have been put on for 25 mins or so? Perhaps Warne thought it a risk to put a player with no game time recently into a tough game? All decisions are a judgement call and it seems Warne got that one wrong in the last game.

[swaledale]

I know it's a results based business and out last 8 results have been negative but, managing and/or coaching a squad is a complicated process.

Let's look at the League defeats. Of the 7, 6 were against teams in the top 9 at the time of the game. Where we have been this past month in terms of injuries, not a single game there where we wouldn't have suspected we may well lose. The other? Cardiff who made it 8 games unbeaten thanks, in part, to a wrongly disallowed effort from Yates and a couple of minutes of kamikaze "defending". Eejits on "social media" fail to look at the entire picture. They focus singularly on the result. Behind every result there's a plethora of reasons. Unfortunately, for me, the UEFA B course taught me to look for the reasons and, when I was coaching, to address those reasons.

We can't do much about refs or their assistants(Norwich, Cardiff as examples).

Injuries? If it's training routines that are helping cause them we could change that but, the coaching staff are all qualified. The medical staff are all qualified. The scientific crew are all qualified. They are all also professionals and I'd like to think that if any of them had the suspicion that the training was the cause, they'd open their mouths.

PW took over part way into our first season in L1. He took over a L1 squad built on zero transfer outlay. We narrowly missed the plaoyffs, finishing 7th. About half that L1 squad was out of contract. They were replaced by more L1 level players, again with a view to gaining promotion. We did it finishing 2nd.

Back in the Championship with a L1 squad. The club had a limited budget to spend on transfer fees. Spent, IMO, reasonably sensibly, on JWZ, Ebou and Kenzo. Cash and Nels were also of the "right" quality. The rest have been injured and/or still L1 quality. We may be "Derby County" but even we can't turn a squad of 75% L1 standard players into a midtable or better Champ side in season 1. Cash has gone. Clarke, Lars and Langas in and we still have money for the wide man and striker we still want. Get those in and we don't know what will happen results wise.

The next games? Norwich are 8th so no great expectation of a win there. After that we have 15 games left, 12 of which are against teams currently in the bottom 13. Teams we need to get points off or we are going down. With the 2 new centre halves, Lars plus whatever we get in today and the walking wounded getting fit again, who knows what the run in will bring?

Why do we have a mainly L1 standard squad? We had 2 years of being restricted to freebies, be they on loan or permanent signings. No transfer fees, no loan fees and no agent fees. That drastically reduces the size of the pool of players you can attract. Most of them are free for a reason and it's not because they are world beaters.

Knight left after 1 season in L1. he wanted Champ football and was, IIRC, out of contract. Bird wanted Champ football, was in the last year of his contract and wasn't guaranteed to get back up with Derby. He chose to leave. Cashin got yet another offer to go to BHA. This time we were in a financial position to hold out for maybe 10M which we could reinvest in the squad. 750K for Clarke. A rumoured 3.5M to 4M for Langas. Whatever fee we paid for Lars was probably already in the bank as we were adamant Cashin was going nowhere. In the end it looks like selling Cash makes good business sense. Sorry rA but I find the "got rid of" quote way off the mark.

The reasons I have put in this post are exactly what the detractors on "socials" are choosing to ignore. The amazing thing being that, back in August, most fans were targeting survival as the aim for the season. Recent changes in playing staff plus the return of the walking wounded could well be what we need to achieve survival. Nothing's guaranteed but, I think we've had a decent, promising window thus far and a new wide man and striker would be the icing on the cake.

My glass is still half full and there's good reason. I think Lars will get goals. I think Yates playing alongside him rather than him being the #9 will see him do better. A new wide man for the ammunition for the 2 of them would help as I don't think we'll see CBT again this season, if at all and NM and Barks haven't exactly set the world on fire this season, probably because they are (no longer?) Champ quality.

We could still go down, however, for reasons listed above, I think we'll survive. Unload more L1 players ij the summer and get Champ level ones in, thereby improving what looks like an already improved squad for the 2nd half of the season. No new wide man and/or no new striker in would not be helpful but also not disastrous.

A well reasoned post which covers the pts those fans who are (understandably) getting carried way in their frustration at the way recent results have gone.

[swaledale]

Alright chap, calm down.

Of course you?re right, others other than PW have a big say in who comes and who leaves and I?m obviously not privy to everything that is said between players and the manager.

What I?m trying to do is look objectively at PW?s achievements and dealings since his tenure began. I?m more than happy to give him the credit for acquiring the likes of Adams, Nelson and Nyambe etc, but equally if he is going to be given the credit for the good things then he has to take some responsibility for the less good things and the fact is that four of the youngsters - Bird, Knight, Cashin and Sibley - who came close to keeping us in the Championship under Rooney and Rosenior have all left.

Did he want them to go? Probably not and I appreciate that their departures have been largely financially driven but, as I say, it is a fact that they are players who have departed under Warne?s tenure. Nothing more, nothing less.

As regards man management. Maybe the four aforementioned departures have something to do with that and maybe they don?t. Of course I don?t know, and neither do you. The case of Rooney however is an obvious example of poor man management imo.

Rooney is a talented right sided defender who has had a dreadful time with injuries. He?s been back on the bench for the last five matches or so and with the injuries to Nyambe, Wilson and Nelson might have been expected to step up and play a part.
Of course no one wants to rush him back but if that?s the case don?t put him on the bench. We?ve seen midfield disrupted by moving Adams to CD and it seems to have become a case of anyone except Rooney. I, for one, don?t understand it and even you have queried it. If he?s not fit then say so and don?t name him amongst the subs, but imo, this attitude of - ?we?ve got an injury crisis on the right side of the defence but I?ll try anything except Rooney?- does no one any favours, least of all the player himself, and needs explanation.

I'm calm enough, just a little bemused by the way you have phrased Warne "getting rid" of players when you know the financial and other circumstances that Derby were operating under at the time.

I'd agree the Rooney situation is a little odd, if derby hadn't been battling to get a result in those games I would ahve thought Warne would ahve eased him back in the side. In the last game his decision not to put him on looked very odd, but I find it hard to believe that a manager would "cut his nose off to spite his face" so to speak by not playing a player who could do a job for the team. Bu then we don't know how fit Rooney is and maybe he is only named as a sub to be used in an emergency? Though the last game one could correctly say that situation had occurred.

[ramAnag]

I'm calm enough, just a little bemused by the way you have phrased Warne "getting rid" of players when you know the financial and other circumstances that Derby were operating under at the time.

I'd agree the Rooney situation is a little odd, if derby hadn't been battling to get a result in those games I would ahve thought Warne would ahve eased him back in the side. In the last game his decision not to put him on looked very odd, but I find it hard to believe that a manager would "cut his nose off to spite his face" so to speak by not playing a player who could do a job for the team. Bu then we don't know how fit Rooney is and maybe he is only named as a sub to be used in an emergency? Though the last game one could correctly say that situation had occurred.

Yep, that’s fair. I should have been clearer. What I meant was that those four youngsters have all been shipped out during PW’s tenure. They were probably circumstances beyond his control but I feel that, if we’re going to give him the credit for certain signings then he also has to take some responsibility for certain departures.
Overall I think he did very well to get us automatic promotion and I think he’s been unlucky with injuries, particularly over recent months.
On the other hand, to go back decades and quote Janice from JBJ, ‘oi’ll give him five’ as regards transfers with more misses than hits and I don’t think he’s covered himself in glory recently.

[macstheman]

Janice Nicholls, blimey you're going back!
Actually, I think it was Thank Your Lucky Stars not JBJ!
Well remembered though.

[ramAnag]

Janice Nicholls, blimey you're going back!
Actually, I think it was Thank Your Lucky Stars not JBJ!
Well remembered though.

Lol…obviously not, you’re right.

[swaledale]

Yep, that’s fair. I should have been clearer. What I meant was that those four youngsters have all been shipped out during PW’s tenure. They were probably circumstances beyond his control but I feel that, if we’re going to give him the credit for certain signings then he also has to take some responsibility for certain departures.
Overall I think he did very well to get us automatic promotion and I think he’s been unlucky with injuries, particularly over recent months.
On the other hand, to go back decades and quote Janice from JBJ, ‘oi’ll give him five’ as regards transfers with more misses than hits and I don’t think he’s covered himself in glory recently.

Well I still think your being harsh, if one makes allowances for the financial restrictions imposed by the EFL until summer 2024 and the fact he got automatic promotion from L1 with them then he rates at least a 7.5 or 8. Every transfer is a gamble an injury or loss of form can happen and lets face it compared to other derby managers, have Warne's acquisitions really been that bad?