Although there's no guarantees that the inclusion of Brown would have produced a better outcome. I'm fairly confident if the result/performance had been negative with Brown playing, there would be criticism due to playing our oldest squad member against a young Derby midfield.
Well Marko was saying bring him on in the 55th minute or so, he didn't actually say start him. I don't think many people would've criticised that with the midfield being controlled by derby
I think we could save a fortune in wages by not bringing in a professional football manager and just employing one of the know alls off of here to run the team.
If our team was good enough we wouldn't need to adapt a style of play to combat the opposition. The problem is we have very little quality, our style is too much hoof ball and too many players of equal quality, that quality being average. Brown, Norris, Green, Tonge do we care which one of those plays in the middle, is one really that much better than the other. Last season I was going mad about why oh why were we wasting wages on the likes of Forssell and Mika - This season we are doing it again with Gray, Varney and even Drury, why do we even have Gray on the bench?
Yeah fair point, although the start of the 2nd half we were actually on top even though you could argue that was to do with our attacking players rather than our central 2. By the time we did concede the 2nd though and the 1st sub was made, it was too probably too late for Brown given we were chasing the game.
It's fairly obvious to me - Gray is a cheap backup for Becchio, should he get injured/suspended. I think the original plan was to have Varney in that role, but once Snoddy left late on, Varney was quickly deemed to be a makeshift wide player to 'replace' Snoddy, and Gray brought in with haste to pick up Varney's original role. I've been very hard on Varney (and rightly so!), but to be fair to him, he might be a lot better as a Becchio replacement.
Which is why it should have been made in the 60th minute. We controlled the first 10 minutes of the second half, but we let go of that control and the same pattern as the first half resumed. There's no point sticking with it in hope of getting control back when you're losing control because of the system you're playing. The changes should have been made before Derby scored their second goal. Warnock's fault, nobody elses. Like I said, the players did everything asked of them, but were just outclassed by decent attacking midfielders.
Varney looks much better up front than he does out wide. Doesn't seem to know what he's doing out wide but up front he looks lively and dangerous. While Becchio is playing well though, Varney won't get a look in, but Warnock seems to insist on playing him. The square pegs in round holes thing might have some legs on it. Then again, had Thomas not been out with injury we may have faired slightly better. Then again, the game was won and lost in the centre, where Warnock refused to make changes.
Tend to agree with you Marko. Think come January we should offload either Gray or Varney. We don't need 2 backups for Becchio. & neither seem to offer anythnig other that playing the Becchio role.
So to paraphrase: people on a discussion forum shouldn't express an honest opinion, and pro football managers always, 100% of the time, know better than fans. Glad we're all signed up on here then.
I'm not sure we would have done much better with Thomas. I thought Hall was one of our bright sparks in the game and had Thomas been fit it would just have been a straight swap. I agree with both Marko and Ristac about where it was lost, Derby had midfielders that were better able to control the game and we didn't play anyone to counteract the threat either.
If we'd have had Thomas, it would have meant we could have put him on instead of Varney and our late attacking threat wouldn't have been a complete waste.
I think you'll find that your class players now play in yellow and green..... Johnson has been a revelation this year, Snodgrass has found his feet and is improving every game and Howson looks top class when he comes on. Please feel free to let us know next time you've got a good young player and I'm sure we can probably give you a million or so for them! Hope Drury is doing well for you as he is a class act and a very decent bloke and good luck for the rest of the season - I hope you manage to claw your way up as Leeds Utd should be in the prem.
"We need some class - where's the creativity?" Is it harsh to say "At Norwich City"? tbf lads you were giving it large when we were getting thumped earlier on in the season. Snodgrass was superb the other day, and Howson came in and did a great job alongside a transformed Johnson. Not having a go, just saying.
Just had a look at the highlights and tbh the scoreline tells a different story to the game itself. All in all it was pretty even. Norris stung the keepers hands with a belter of a shot, McCormack sliced an overhead kick and Lees hit the post. There's a lot to take from the performance, we looked very much just as threatening as we had been in the previous games, just weak down the centre. I was actually expecting the highlights to tell me we were ****ter than I thought we'd been. They actually showed that we were better than I thought we'd been, and we just lost at a ground that's difficult to go to. Again, we were strong enough going forward for Derby to shield the ball in the corner for the last 10 minutes.
Glad they're doing well for you, although tbh with you, I couldn't really care what they do, they're not here anymore Great to see Hughton doing so well though, always liked him
Derby controlled it in the middle of the park, but I thought we had as much direct pressure on their goal as they did on ours. Hall had a shot cleared off the line too.
