Friendly MDT - Reds vs Rams

Cheers! If it is a dislocated shoulder, which Archey eluded to, then it will certainly be a sore one. 2 months out potentially? Variables of course, but hopefully he’s well.

Glad to hear he was playing well. As a striker or out wide?

Did anybody else look good? And did we look more direct/attacking?

 

Ofcourse we can. Man City won the league without a striker pre-Haaland, didn't you know?

On a serious note, I feel more confident now than I did previously. Yes there's vulnerabilities but I think there's a lot of potential as well. Hopefully this young lad from Blackburn joins, and we bring in a striker & perhaps another on loan. Fingers crossed mate.

 

For now it is

 

Darrel Clarke reckons we went to 4-2-3-1 in the second half so he was wide on the right cutting in. Must admit I didn’t see that shape specifically.
I thought most players showed up and were decent to good, but the squad is lacking pace at the back and that caused two of the goals we conceded.
If that’s as good as Derby get they’re going to have a tough season in the Championship.

 

Hopefully the pace at the back will be rectified when Pines is playing. Hopefully he stays fit and I have full confidence in Clarke in knowing when it's needed and when someone else would be better suited

 

I thought Styles hung Earl out to dry a bit first half.

 

I thought Lofthouse was forward left not LWB and Jalo Forwad right which meant Earl went to LB.
So the 4231 makes sense
It seemed to work better even considering a lot of our better players had gone off the pitch at that point.

 

N

If you'd been there you'd no need to ask. Yer wassack. Pint of Moretti about 6:30 satdy, ont table young man. I'll bi ont last push.

 

We looked more coherent second half so it's anyone's guess what line up we'll have v Mansfield. We were organised and rigid in the first half. It was almost Collinsesque but second half we looked like Barnsley I'd pay to watch.

 

I could definitely see it on the right, but the left was less defined, at least as I saw it online. I thought Cotter was as far forward as Lofthouse.

Pleased we've got a coach who will mix things up though. And it worked.

 

Would anyone leave Hourihane out of the starting line up when fit to play though. That would be madness as his quality it still clearly evident

To fit Craig and Hourihane in together some big names are missing out. Craig has to play by the way.

 

His subs tonight weren't pre-season scattergun. They were clearly tactical. A great sign.

 

I was going off what Hourihane said about number of games he was willing to play and being more concerned with his coaching.

 

You are right he changed the formation to best suit the players on the pitch at the time not shoe horning players in to a set formation.
Weve not seen a coach do that for a long time but fans have screamed for that approach.

 

Just with the quality he has and still got the legs and engine he has to play for me.

I read some comments from Derby fans who said he never did that much running as he did tonight for them.

 

He's a shrewd operator concerned with winning. Paul Warne clearly has bigger fish to fry and wanted to give minutes to his players. They weren't miles better before the changes it was pretty even. However, somewhere in the game the lines were blurred and Clarke clearly wanted to win the game. His changes exemplified this. Chuffed tonight.

 

Me too, great signs of how good Clarke could be.

 

Not sure he does have bigger fish to fry. They've lost every friendly and conceded 13 goals in the 4 games mate, including Shrewsbury and Chesterfield, the fans are very unhappy, have been since last season tbf. They certainly started with their almost full strength squad. Derby fans are fuming all over twitter. Quite nice to see actually...

Edit - makes a change from me seeing our fans being angry!

 

Derby will be a poor Championship side.