Derby County (A) - Sunday 8th March [3pm KO]

[Miker]

I switched off the game after Bennett brought their man down for the 3rd.

Absolutely shocking performance on so many levels.

The centreback partnership of Nyambe and Tosin looked in complete disarray. Bennett was awful and full of mistakes, summed up by the penalty he gave away.

Brereton put in a disgusting performance - his “attempts” at winning headers in the second half followed by a cheap dive has made me lose all faith in him. Not to mention his shocking misses in the first half. I’ve never seen a lazier performance in my life.

Armstrong was largely anonymous all game. Downing and Rothwell were the only 2 who made any real effort to make something happen, but struggled with poor passing.

Bell and Walton the only 2 players who came away with any credit last night.

Mowbray entirely to blame for the result. He gambled on an attacking lineup and essentially gave free roles to Rothwell, Downing, Brereton, Gallagher and Armstrong. The shape of the team was in complete disarray as a result. It seemed to work early on with us disorienting Derby and getting into spaces to have good chances, but after those chances weren’t put away we got seriously punished and never recovered.

I don’t know if I can fault him for taking the gamble because we didn’t have that much to lose, but it didn’t pay off and he has to take the blame.

Can’t wait for Lenihan to be back next week.

[Sparks Rover]

2 minutes ago, Miker said:

I switched off the game after Bennett brought their man down for the 3rd.

Absolutely shocking performance on so many levels.

The centreback partnership of Nyambe and Tosin looked in complete disarray. Bennett was awful and full of mistakes, summed up by the penalty he gave away.

Which any dumb fecker could predict.

For me, Mowbray is in breach of contract and needs sacking. To completely unbalance a team on purpose in the biggest game of the season is unforgivable. Shoehorning Bennett in wherever he can, making him captain for fucks sake.......I've had enough of Mowbray. A good manager would have us 3rd by a long chalk

 

[@roverseas]

Painful match. Never looked likely to get anything from this after Big Bens mega miss.  4 games without a win now.  Hopes are fading fast, and we are constantly relying on other teams results to keep us in the mix.  Nothing but a win against Bristol City now, and I am doubtful we can string that together at the minute. Only blessing is Darragh's return.  Thoughts from the gaffa the fans and more.

 

 

[nathan_rovers1]

I just am in a little bit of shock at how bad that was. 

Why on earth was one of our best Technical plays- Stewart Downing- who can whip a good ball into the box, playing left back with Amari Bell, who can't cross, playing left wing... 

[Sparks Rover]

5 minutes ago, nathan_rovers1 said:

I just am in a little bit of shock at how bad that was. 

Why on earth was one of our best Technical plays- Stewart Downing- who can whip a good ball into the box, playing left back with Amari Bell, who can't cross, playing left wing... 

Not to mention the right side of the defence being all at sea.positionally at crucial times.....very poor 

[rossyrover]

What rubbish at Derby from the rovers its time for a change of manager someone with better connections and more ambition or next season will be just as mediocre.

[Fraserkirky]

I would have no problems if Mowbrays time is up at the end of the season. Might be time for fresh eyes and style about the place. However, players back from huge injuries and expecting youngsters to kick on, the squad does look good for next season.

That today, against a shite Derby team, missing their two best players, was absolutely diabolical. Too many players had shockers today. Tosin, Travis and Armstrong all looked like totally different people, and they weren’t the worst either. 

Bennett, I’m starting to move more towards embarrassment than anger towards him, just not his level of football as much as it is mine. There is no way on this earth JRC would have been as bad in the last two games at Right-back. There was a decent spell for us just after the break, Bennett pushed on nicely up the wing and found himself in acres of space just outside the box. He had 30 secs to line up a cross, and it was absolutely abysmal, hits the first defender. It’s completely unacceptable for a professional footballer.

Brereton should have scored and was good for the first 15/20 then he slinked back into cutting a hugely gangly creature that cant jump, can’t run, can’t trap. Why?? Oh and Gallagher was worse.

Buckley looked sharp when he came on, challenge was a booking all day long. Poor lad was trying harder than anyone else to get the ball back.

Downing totally anonymous. Couldn’t tell if his crossing was good today or not, because we didn’t win one header in their half all game. Davies could have had his slippers on today.

I am a self confessed Rothwell groupie, thought he did okay today, not great but  we need him to be much better. This time last season he was our best player for me. It is in there, maybe just injury??

Rovers are just frustrating at the minute, I think we all know deep down we aren’t good enough to finish top 6 but we are still in the mix somehow, someway. The pain is dragging on to another week.
 

Is it time for another Mowbray hotstreak? Hopefully Lenihan coming back, or more importantly Nyambe back to RB and Bennett in the changing rooms might be just the encouragement we need.

Edited March 9, 2020 by Fraserkirky

[yankfan]

It was all so poor today.  Both of the first 2 goals we were defending with only travis behind the ball.  Do much space and time for both players 20 yards out.  One a screamer, the other good enough to cause a rebound which we were 2nd best like the rest of the pitch.  

 

I understand the manager trying to go for it, but playing 3 center strikers, 2 free players with a makeshift back 4 is fucking mental.  That white should be reserved for the last 20 min when you need to nick one in.  Fucking pathetic 

[jw_]

12 hours ago, perthblue02 said:

"I'm not sure the balance was right" says Mowbray, who felt #Rovers had one too many attack-minded players on the pitch as Derby exploited spaces in the middle of the pitch

https://t.co/34hr3dPKEI?amp=1  (Lancashire Telegraph)

Well he may not be sure but I am, he has'nt had the balance right since he took over apart from one short spell that produced a good run. He couldn't have that though and reverted to form by unbalancing it again. He's chopped and changed so many times I don't believe the players even know what they are supposed to be doing.

A settled formation and style of play gives the players confidence and understanding in and of each other.

What we are seeing here is a manager desperately casting around overthinking the game and ultimately producing a disorganised bunch of individual players instead of a team.

 

[tomphil]

8 hours ago, 47er said:

Once again we have nothing to play for and our season will fade out. We are no nearer promotion than we were under Bowyer several years ago.

We are producing some good youth players, they will be snapped up by bigger clubs.

We are on a downward spiral to nothingness. its the 1980's again with no Jack in sight.

Our only hope of getting out of this is to turn up a manager like Dyche. 

We are also growing players and shop windowing them for other clubs in our key positions which means it is start again next season. 

Yes we know that is part and parcel of the life of a middling championship club but it's arse about tit here. The money has all been shoved into to non scoring 'forwards of some description' up top and with the exception of Armstrong, wasted. That's going to leave us scraping around again all summer to put a worthwhile keeper and defence together then another half season for it to gel not helped by any injuries or the tombola on the sidelines.

This isn't poking the manager for the sake of it these are facts and it isn't a slow build it is plugging gaps. Maybe he'll pull a rabbit or two out the hat again but as Mark Hughes said sooner or later the hat is empty. He's had ample opportunity and money whilst here to build a proper defence that mostly belongs to the club but he'd rather carry players in his squad, or his mates players.

Rebuild in the summer yet again and mid table stability will be the target yet again next season, round and around we go.

But of course some will try and pass it off as out billionaire owners bankrolling promotion bids !

[Mattyblue]

To be fair it obviously isn’t true we ‘have nothing to play for’. 

3 points away in mid March with a home game against a rival on Saturday. Alas, what probably is true is that we don’t have the bottle or quality to prevent our ‘season from fading out’ over the next few weeks.
 

[OldEwoodBlue]

1 minute ago, Mattyblue said:

To be fair it obviously isn’t true we ‘have nothing to play for’. 

3 points away in mid March with a home game against a rival on Saturday. Alas, what probably is true is that we don’t have the bottle or quality to prevent our ‘season from fading out’ over the next few weeks.
 

Last game with a crowd probably. No idea what Waggott is going to do with the pies and Fosters contracts.

[Herbie6590]

10 hours ago, Ossydave said:

Smallwood must either have the shittest agent in world football or simply have no desire to play at levels he believes are below him. If I was in his situation I'd 100% be demanding a move even if it did mean an inevitable pay cut.

Rich Sharpe confirmed on podcast Ep126 that Smallwood turned down a loan move in January. 

[Mattyblue]

1 minute ago, OldEwoodBlue said:

Last game with a crowd probably. No idea what Waggott is going to do with the pies and Fosters contracts.

Not at Cat A, it won’t. 

[Guest]

8 hours ago, Sparks Rover said:

A good manager would have us 3rd by a long chalk

Come off it.

[Sparks Rover]

21 minutes ago, JoeH said:

Come off it.

I'm convinced we've been held back in over 10 games this season with Ell and Del starting.  My view is the squad isnt a million miles off, a decent manager would have a better defense and therefore we would be 3rd

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, Sparks Rover said:

I'm convinced we've been held back in over 10 games this season with Ell and Del starting.  My view is the squad isnt a million miles off, a decent manager would have a better defense and therefore we would be 3rd

3rd by a long chalk is taking the mick something rotten. This is a squad that would have to fight & struggle to finish 6th WITH a decent manager. We'll finish 9-12th under Mowbray because he isn't that manager, but to say this team should be looking to finish 3rd, easily, with a decent manager is baffling to me. 

[Sparks Rover]

23 minutes ago, JoeH said:

3rd by a long chalk is taking the mick something rotten. This is a squad that would have to fight & struggle to finish 6th WITH a decent manager. We'll finish 9-12th under Mowbray because he isn't that manager, but to say this team should be looking to finish 3rd, easily, with a decent manager is baffling to me. 

There is so much inconsistency in the top 6, if we would have won another 4 games we would be up there....my view is mowbrays team selections have caused us draws and defeats where a good manager would have won. Wigan at home, etc.....

[jim mk2]

11 minutes ago, Sparks Rover said:

There is so much inconsistency in the top 6, if we would have won another 4 games we would be up there....my view is mowbrays team selections have caused us draws and defeats where a good manager would have won. Wigan at home, etc.....

Yep, it's a poor division this year. West Brom and Leeds the best teams (though not that wonderful) and the rest pretty average. The fact we're up there challenging shows how mediocre it is. However I'm sure the likes of Warnock would have made us a better outfit, even with the current disjointed squad. Consistency of selection would have helped - Mowbray's  selections yesterday being just another another example of his muddled thinking.

Edited March 9, 2020 by jim mk2

[Bigdoggsteel]

15 minutes ago, Sparks Rover said:

There is so much inconsistency in the top 6, if we would have won another 4 games we would be up there....my view is mowbrays team selections have caused us draws and defeats where a good manager would have won. Wigan at home, etc.....

Does he get any credit for the games we won? 

[Sparks Rover]

2 minutes ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

Does he get any credit for the games we won? 

Yes, when he picks the right team.  Let's be fair, our best run coincides with no Del and Ell in the team.  He puts Ell back in and we lose or draw. The guy is playing us all

[rog of the rovers]

Injuries and suspensions so key at this stage of the season, particularly with the busy Easter period still to come.

Lenihan, Williams, Dack, Holtby, Evans all out? Let's not underestimate that's pretty much half of our strongest XI out at one time!

3 wins from Bristol City, Wigan (a) and Barnsley (a) is now the bare minimum.

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, renrag said:

The fact is that if we had taken just half of the points dropped from winning positions, we would now be in third place. Not by a long chalk but at least by a point. 

But it's the same for every other team around us. What makes us so special? We've not got anything like the squad for third! Laughable.

[Don Said]

On reflection, despite the opportunity we had, yesterday was the worst i've seen us in a while.

Poor at both ends of the pitch with gaping holes in the middle.

Lenihan is invaluable. Without his leadership, and with Bennett in Nyambe's spot, we're fragile as expected.

The biggest frustration for me was the decision making particularly in the final third, the attackers played like puppies with zero footballing know-how. We got the ball up the pitch in to some decent positions relatively regurlarly but never threatened. They knew Armstrong was the only danger man, they stuck two men on him at all times, and that was that.

We're still in with a shout, but not if we continue to play anything like we did yesterday.

[TBTF]

11 hours ago, JHRover said:

Richard Sharpe will stick up for his mates at the club who feed him stories and make him cups of tea every Thursday pre match conference.

To be turning up two games running supposedly chasing promotion with no defenders on the bench whilst our promotion winning vastly experienced former captain sits at home collecting his wage is simply inexplicable.

You must be born yesterday if you think there isnt more to that particular story, sadly it seems the majority were born yesterday judging by the number who happily lap up the nonsense.

Spot on. Even if he doesn't start Mulgrew yesterday then he has to be on the bench. The decision to start with all his front players (at least in name only) may have got us in front in the match but even if it had done then surely at some stage you would bring Mulgrew on and sit him in front of the back 4 to stop Derby walking 60 yards up the pitch unchallenged. Without Mulgrew, he didn't even give himself the option of getting Nyambe back to full back and slotting Mulgrew into the back four.

Its bizarre and god alone knows what has gone on there. It's all very well Mowbray saying we want to play a different way at a faster pace. Yes- if everybody is fit and available but we were down to the bones and he doesn't include a guy in the squad who captained us this season and has played international football this season. I'm not suggesting he is an answer long term at all . If he isn't , as Mowbray keeps telling us, then the wisdom of giving him a contract till June 2021 as one of highest earners is even more ridiculous.

Just go Mowbray , you're an idiot .  One look at our remaining  fixture list and I seriously expect us to finish in the bottom 10 this season and after plenty of Mowbray transfer windows absolutely nowhere near having a squad . A collection of bodies maybe, but that is about all you could say. Fortunes spent and fortunes wasted.   

As somebody mentioned earlier in this thread, the Summer clear out needs to include Mowbray, Waggott, Cheston, Suhail .as a starter.