Staying in the league and cutting the budget to the absolute minimum required are the only ambitions this club has. To those in charge, a year where we stay in the league with reduced costs is a great success. With this mentality, it's a question of when we get relegated again, not if. By the time they've realised the cost cutting has gone too far it'll be too late, and nobody at the club will have had the foresight to prepare. I thought this season might be the tipping point, but Eustace far exceeded expectations. This no doubt frustrated the higher ups as he now had a legitimate reason to call for backing and a pay increase. JDT all over again. Neither were given because that doesn't fit into the model of staying in the league with increasingly less expenses, so much like JDT, off Eustace went. They're banking on Ismael being the guy who will keep us floating around mid-table on a minimal budget. His track record suggests for the short term he's perfect for this - although his budget at WBA and Watford was surely larger than it will be here. Barnsley was one season and may have been a fluke. They're playing a dangerous game and will eventually get burned.

I'm guessing he just has a list of things to say in the majority of interviews and doesn't significantly deviate. Honestly I rarely listened to any of his pressers or post match interviews whilst he was here because it was always the same. I got the feeling he wasn't interested in the media side of things and so did the bare minimum to fulfil those obligations.

All I hear is hissss, hissss 🐍

I'd give Toth a go at this point. We aren't getting top six so give the boy a chance and let's see what he can do with a run of games. Not giving players a chance when first teamers are consistently underperforming sends out a terrible message and doesn't give the second string players any motivation.

I felt like we were going to end up mid table even when Eustace was here. I'm even more sure of it now - maybe even lower mid-table. If the summer is going to be as brutal as Eustace evidently believed, then yeah, we might be in for a very rough time. I think us hurtling into oblivion at the foot of the division is the only way you'll get any serious form of protest from the remaining fanbase, though.

Think we got our "new manager bounce" with Lowe, unfortunately. Albeit for just two games before reverting to the usual. Not entirely sure, but I get the feeling we have an underwhelming history under Venky's when it comes to the new manager bounce phenomenon.

This is what happens when you bring in a new manager with new ideas in February. It's going to be disjointed. We had plenty of performances under JDT and Eustace where we looked equally shit. The shameful match against Rotherham during JDT's reign immediately springs to mind. There's no evidence from Ismael's past jobs to suggest he'll wreck us Coyle-style and take us down. Maybe he will, but it seems more likely we'll just become very average. The main difference will be that, unlike in his previous jobs, Ismael won't be able to escape early because Venky's won't let him leave and they won't sack him either.

Here's what will happen. We'll continue getting shit results, some level of frustration will build up. Then all of a sudden we'll get a few results when we're barely still in it, which make it technically still possible for us to get top six. Sentiment will change to "get behind the lads ffs". We will fail. Then it'll change to "let's see what Ismael can do with a pre season behind him and new players".

Far too early to make a judgement on Ismael yet. However, it can be said the players have not had any reaction to him at all. They have instead almost immediately regressed (to what is the norm, tbf, but still). Dark signs.

Two people who 100% deserve this result are Suhail and Waggott. Unfortunately the same two people couldn't care less. The gravy train keeps rolling on either way.

It is strange, seeing as we're actually 8th and now 3 points off 6th. Looks like we're going to allow Mowbray to take another team to the playoffs as our expense.

We already know most of them can't be trusted. There are many players in this squad who have repeatedly been involved in our embarrassing collapses. The only reason most of them are still here is because the club has no budget or ambition. But this is what happens when the club is run the way its run. The players with talent and ambition move on fast. The players with talent but no ambition stay. You also get a lot of very average players starting week in and week out, safe in the knowledge they won't be replaced.

Not going to sit here and pretend an individual - Ismael, Pears, the ref - is responsible for this. This is what happens every single season when we're near the playoffs. Second half of the season collapse and embarrassing results against terrible teams. Goes all the way back to Bowyer. A decade plus of the same bullshit. It's something far more rotten than the manager or the players. You have to start looking at the constants. We know who they are.

Even if we scrape a draw now it's still a shit result. Losing is just catastrophically embarrassing against this Derby team.

And we're losing to them. It isn't good enough.

Massive improvement needed in the second half. First 45 absolutely unacceptable against the worst team in the league, with the only positive being that we pulled one back. Time for Ismael to earn his money.

Didn't take long for this to get answered. Groundhog day despite the rotating door of managers.

There will surely be some negative sentiment aimed towards Derby and Eustace, that's natural considering what happened, irrespective of whether you see Eustace as a 🐍 or as a victim of Venky's. Ultimately the result is all that matters and if we fail to pick up three points from the worst team in the division, then we can't really expect to be in the top six at the end of the season. Our team hasn't exactly thrived under pressure in the second half of any seasons when we've been involved in a playoff push. Let's see if anything has changed.

You do now! We get a staff canteen voucher which covers a either a hot breakfast or lunch - can also be used if you want to buy snacks like crisps, drinks, etc. Is admittedly a solid incentive to come into the office.

There's no way Derby are offering him a fortune - they aren't the Championship Man City. If he's left and got a significant pay raise then it just means we were paying him a pittance (and refusing to give him a better deal in spite of excellent work), so why in the world would anyone expect him to stay? As for the article, not enough references about him being the most dastardly snake to have ever slithered into club management. Poor do. I did think it was clearly spun to be very positive towards him - boasting achievements when, as of yet, there have been none on the pitch. The behind the scenes work counts for nothing until it delivers results on the pitch. Until then it's just hard work, which you'd expect anyway.

Even if it is, nothing will come of it. Waggott will be sitting pretty until he retires. His only loyalty is to Venky's - and he must be doing as they desire, as otherwise he wouldn't still be here.

They gave Ten Hag a one year extension in the summer, based on winning a one off cup game, then sacked him a few months later - £15m down the drain. Then spend £10m+ hiring Amorim who has been just as much a dismal failure. Ratcliffe is responsible as the leader of football operations. Any responsibility taken from him for this collosal waste of money? Lol no, just make the poors suffer some more.

Of the teams above us, current home form reads: Coventry: 12 points from 15 WBA: 10 points from 15 Bristol City: 12 points from 15 Rovers: 10 points from 15 Away form reads: Coventry: 12 points from 15 WBA: 3 points from 15 Bristol City: 4 points from 15 Rovers: 3 points from 15 Not difficult to see how Coventry have surged up the table. They're a force both home and away at the moment. WBA, BC and Rovers are all struggling away from home recently, so it seems like this will be where the difference lies. Obviously if home form also drops off for any of the three teams then it's probably game over insofar as playoff aspirations are concerned. Of the teams directly below us, Watford's home form is poor at the moment, Boro's is average and Norwich is the same as us and WBA. Away from home Watford are also average, Boro are poor and Norwich are also poor. So, there's no immediate indication of a surge from any of the teams below us, although that could of course change quickly.

Oh, and for comparison, Rovers are 5th in the league table for home form (1.86 PPG, just behind Bumley on 2.06), whilst Derby are 23rd with 1.24 PPG. Away from home Rovers are 11th with 1.12 PPG and Derby are 22nd with 0.44 PPG. Our recent away form is pretty poor having picked up just 3 points from 15 available. We've lost 4 of our last 5 away matches. However, Derby's home form in the last 5 matches is even worse, having picked up just a single point from their last 5 home matches. So, the stats are in our favour... but...

Pretty much all of their home games at the very least are in must-win territory now. Their remaining home games are: Rovers (8th) Coventry (5th) PNE (15th) Burnley (3rd) Luton (22nd) Stoke (20th) Some tough games in there - Stoke and Luton games in particular likely to be crucial. If they very optimistically win 4 of those 6 games (keeping in mind they've only won 7 in the entire season) that would get them to 41 points. Realistically nowhere near enough to survive. So then they're going to need to take a fair few points from their away matches, which are: Plymouth (23rd) Swansea (16th) Portsmouth (17th) WBA (6th) Hull (19th) Overall you'd have to say they theoretically have more chance of picking up points against these teams, but the games being away is problematic, especially when you factor in Derby have only won one away game all season. The other six were all at home. So yeah, they look like they are cooked. It would require a hell of a turnaround in form for them to escape the drop at this juncture.