Leicester 2 - 1 Derby CAPITAL CUP

Without the money spent on transfers I would like to see the wage bill of all 3 East Midlands clubs per month. Forest and Leicester's would probably embarrass what we pay out. If Nigel Clough is happy with that then hes right up GSE's street. If GSE are not happy with Nigel not spending enough money then they should get rid. They are happy with each other...that's all it can be.

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It's been proven though that you don't have to spend the most money to earn enough points for promotion.

If it was just down to not having the players due to financial constraints then I think we'd all be looking at GSE for answers, but the problem I and an ever-increasing number have is with the players we have spent (wasted?) money on who don't even get a look in despite the obvious deficiences and frailties of the eleven.

We have width available, but Clough decides against using it. He'll bring in a right winger on loan (Albrighton played for Villa last night so that'd discount the 'had an op last week' theory that went around yesterday) but won't start Jacobs or Davies.

We have no cover at all in defence; nada, zip. Not only is there no pressure on the incumbents to perform, but if we pick up an injury, what happens then? Rush a loan signing and throw him straight in without having trained with the squad?

We have a small budget, we know and accept this as a fact. We had £2m of subs on the bench at the weekend, including the laughably-overpriced Conor Sammon and the enigmatic Jacobs, who would offer the width we just don't have at present.

We are then entirely one-dimensional in attack and susceptible to mistakes and bad play at the back, in other words easy to nullify and easier still to score against. We have more diddy men than Ken Dodd and therefore are useless from set plays, both attacking and defending them.

Clough built this squad. It may be that he could have had more money, and it may be that we'd be better off for it, but when the only senior football man at the club has such glaring faults of his own then how can we expect GSE or their investors to trust him with yet more money?

*Do you remember when your parents used to say they'd buy you no more toys if you didn't take care of the ones you'd already got..?


































*That might just have been mine; they were mean, mean people

Agree with a lot of that 666.
I remember years ago Barnsley played beautiful neat football, nicknamed the Brazil of South Yorkshire I think, but they got relegated nonetheless.
Because they were lightweight, young etc.
Are we lacking a leader on the field as much as anything?
A Roy Keane type?
Aggressive towards the opposition and to his own players?
Our desperation for a decent centre half goes without saying

666...agree with a lot you say. We played with width tho against Burnley with Ward and Coutts. Hendrick was injured so we reverted to 4-4-2. Ward and Coutts served us well wide last season so I don't really see width as an issue. Defensively we are a joke. You can probably look at every bench in the Championship barring a few and it will tot up to a tidy sum. I keep hearing we are over budget on wages and we have next to nothing as defensive cover????? They are in it together.

Backo

"They are in it together"?

I don't think Clough is conspiring, he's a manager with a budget. Of course it's easy to say he should man up, threaten to resign if not given more money, but is that likely to help?

666

"It's been proven though that you don't have to spend the most money to earn enough points for promotion."

But it's also been "proven" that it is far, far more difficult to do it. Blackpool got on a roll one year, got promoted but then couldn't repeat the feat even with a better squad and resources and the same manager who, realising how important money is, left for a club with a much bigger budget. Success on a smaller budget is pretty rare and even more rarely can it be sustained.

We're going absolutely nowhere until we can learn how to win games that we don't completely dominate.

At the moment, and for many years now, we only seem to win games that we thoroughly deserve to win. When do we ever grind out a result in an even contest, or even against the run of play.

I bet you can count on one hand the amount of matches we have won where the opposition fans come out saying "how did Derby win that?". It's tilting beyond belief and has to come back to not having a solid base to work from.

Whisper it quietly, but this is where 666 has a good point about this being Nigel's team now, regardless of the limited funds available HE has chosen to concentrate on attack over defence and it patently doesn't work. BUILD FROM THE BACK!!!

Clough In by the way

Marco I was a centre half and so I am biased. You don't build a house without making sure the foundations are secure first.
The defence, especially the centre half pairing, is the foundation.

I worry that his personal relationships with certain players gets in the way of making the right choices for DCFC.

Not only in the unbalanced midfield, not only with the way certain players get bombed out or publicly chastised whilst others escape censure for more obvious failings, but I can't help but think that his position on Barks' likely recovery and return to the side is clouded by his friendship with the player rather than doing the right thing for DCFC. With an injury like that, and recovery time like that, and chances of being the player he was before like that, we should have replaced him and treated any return, if it happens, as a bonus.

"We're going absolutely nowhere until we can learn how to win games that we don't completely dominate"



This is the key to success at any level of football. There is very little in most games we play, and they generally hinge on not which team has played better overall, but which team has done its jobs better in the penalty areas. Obviously playing better increases your chances but, as we have found, matters little if you concede a soft one or miss a decent chance. We rarely look solid defensively. For me this is only partly because of the actual central defenders, although I agree we definitely need another one at least. It also is in part because the full-backs and midfielders are young and lacking in nous, don't know how to prevent danger developing as well as older players, like dear old Gareth for example. This in turn is a consequence of the general philosophy of trying to get players in who are still improving, rather then the finished article. This is laudable from a business point of view but obviously can detract from the playing side. Often the young players look good but don't actually do the nitty gritty quite so well, like knowing when the right times are to give away fouls or when not to.

666. I agree about Barker.