Backo

Midfield off the pace, what with £4M Jacob Butterfield, surely not. Think we can say now that Hendrick is better than Butter, I can tell the difference.

Were we any better with Forsyth rather than Warnock?

Is Georgie being cautious in the challenges as he is one booking away from a suspension. No doubt clubs know this and will start to put pressure on him.

If we can get 3 points on Saturday we will be back on track. If we lose then we might not be as good on the field as on paper. One good performance this season to a club who were then comprehensively beaten by Brentford.

Spart it seems Butterfield is taking a long time to settle in. I'm not the expert, but Forsyth is better than Warnock. Let's hope he plays Forsyth on Saturday,because Warnock got away with a few last night. I'll not go on about our fitness levels.

Butterfield is defo taking time to settle. You can tell he has talent but Hendrick all day long for me. Warnock worries me every time he plays...and yes Forsyth over him all day long too. Well if George is being cautious id sooner him get booked on Saturday and miss Rotherham rather tham QPR or Notts Forest...(it is a 1 game ban isn't it?).

Wassa - "I'll not go on about our fitness levels."

Our ability to score but not conceed late goals, already evident this season, suggests our fitness is fine. Have I missed something?

Warnock started his career at Derby by getting sent off and it has gone down hill ever since. When he made his debut we were favourites to get to the FA cup quarter finals and for promotion. We didn't make the quarters or even get to the play offs. If nothing else the guy is jinx. The problem is that his first touch is awful, how the hell he became an international I will never understand. Conor Sammon (who can't even make Sheff Us first team now) had a better first touch.

Butterfield is not as good as Hendrick or Johnson and will also be behind Bryson and Hughes when they are fit. Not a great buy but we were desperate for a misfield after we lost Hughes in the first twenty minutes of the season.

His 2nd touch is a lunging tackle Spart!!! Hes a walking yellow card and a possible Red!!! He does not distribute the ball better than Forsyth and he does not get forward better than Forsyth. Also last night...the way Blackburn play...there were a lot of crosses coming in. Again Warnock is not better than Forsyth in the air.

Im not writing Butterfield off yet at all...he will be given a lot more time from me. Who knows...Huddersfield away Saturday? Made for Butterfield? But having said that I think if Hendrick is fit he will play.

For my (limited) listing of tactical experts above, I would like to apologise to those I omitted. It was done out of pure laziness on my part as I couldn't be arased to go through them all.
It was my point that I think Martin and Bent should combine well in goal scoring enterprises.

How many did we lose by last night?

Sounded to me on RD that we battled to a 0-0 draw, that's another clean sheet, defence, including Warnock, did their job.

Regarding Bent and Martin playing together, we just scored 4 last Sunday with Martin as MOTM. Even though we didn't score last night it would be silly to change the system yet again.

Get Jeff and Fozzy back for Saturday, thank them for the battle at Blackburn and remind them of the victory over Wolves.

Sheepthrills , it was just last night's situation I was thinking about. I agree we should not change things on a whim. But last night we needed a spark and Bent must be raring to go. To me one of his skills is ghosting in to spaces and his acceleration. With Martin receiving and distributing, it would seem to me to offer something different. I admit to not being tactically expert.

You would think that people who have made fools of themselves by passing judgment after a player has had a couple of games would learn from it, but apparently not. It isn't long ago that owd Spart was telling us what a useless player Shackell is and how none of the new signings were any good. Last season he thought Eustace was hopeless and that Mascarelle was the bee's knees, when he could tell him apart from Ince that is. Even established players have poor games - Thorne wasn't great on Sunday but because we all love George we let him off. Had Butterfield played the same game no doubt he would have been rubbished by some. Until he has had a decent run of consecutive games, if he gets them, you can't draw final conclusions, not unless you're a bit of a berk. The same goes for Weimann who has done very little so far but who also has not had much opportunity to do so.

You think I'm rubbish at golf Vidal; you've only see me play a couple of times.

Vidal, Shackell in the first few games was not match fit and incredibly lumbering. His fitness levels and performance have improved. He still can't pass a ball more than 5 yards though.

I say it as I see it and I have yet to see anything but an average Championship midfielder in Butterfield. He had his opportunity last night but Clement had seen enough part way through the game. We don't have the luxury of a 10 point lead to allow players to bed in. They ought to be up and running from day 1. They are supposed to be professionals after all.

I thought Thorne played well on Sunday as well.

I didn't say Eustace was hopeless. I didn't like the way he stood feet apart in front of the penalty area inviting the opposition to win a free kick. Definitely lost us the game against Wigan even though he scored. Mascerell was lovely player to watch but his idea of what was required of a DM was more in the Fabregas mould.

Weimann, I have yet to anything to convince me that he is worthy of a place in a third tier team.

I don't expect our players to be like Messi or Ronaldo but we are one of the big boys in this division now and every player should be at least competent.

In defence of Spart regarding Butterfield, he did say that in the Udders side he was the star player and could probably express himself and pull the strings.

Arriving to us on deadline day with a large price tag comes expectation and he sees the quality in our squad and suddenly he's not not the main man and no doubt the first few starts it was obvious that he was trying too hard and it wasn't coming off for him.

I'm more than happy to have him with us though as he will contribute this season and we don't need to be ten points clear to bed him in, we're not even out of October, lots of time for him to find his feet and we know that he has two fine ones.

The thing about Butterfield is that he didn't make it at Boro or Norwich. That was a worry from the start. He looked lively enough the first game he played but is yet to show anything more than average. At £4M in the championship we should expect a bit more than he has shown so far. Johnson looked class from the first game.

We just think you are rubbish Strett, your standard of golf is merely a contributing factor 😉

I'd say Johnson was in the championship team of the season last year, he was always going to be a great signing, in my view he should be made captain.

"The thing about Butterfield is that he didn't make it at Boro or Norwich."

The thing about Martin is that he didn't make it at Norwich. The thing about Thorne is that he didn't make it at West Brom. Some players "look class" in their first game and don't live up to that subsequently, Marco Reich springing to mind in particular. It's unrealistic at any level to expect every player to hit the ground at full speed at a new club, and saying "they are supposed to be professionals" is just a bit daft. There are plenty of players who cost a lot more than Butterfield who took longer to settle down at a new club and some never hit the heights despite being fabulous players. Look at Gareth Bale at Real Madrid for example. Thankfully most fans (and the head coach) don't fold their arms with pursed lips at the first opportunity and decide a player "isn't good enough" based on a couple of outings.

Gareth Bale at Spurs is a better example Vidal, under Harry he made 8 starts and lost every game and nearly sold as arry thought he was a jinx, the rest is history.

He went to Forest didn't he?

Shackell stats season to date:
86% pass accuracy, average 20 yards, 65% tackles won
10 crucial interceptions
Keogh,
86% accuracy, 22 yards, 51% tackles, 7 interceptions
Thorne
89% accuracy, 20 yards, 55% tackles, 3 interventions
Johnson
77% accuracy, 20 yds, 47% tackles, 3 interceptions
Butters
83% accuracy, 17 yds, 28% tackles, 1 interception

Read what you like into those stats - I think it shows that both Keogh and Shackell are excellent centre halves (those stats are well up in the top 10 btw) that GT is a good CDM. BJ has the happy knack of scoring goals to offset his slightly wayward passing but Butters needs to improve!

Martin did make it at Norwich and had an impressive loan spell at Crystal Palace. He also looked good for us on loan even though not match fit.

Thorne had a serious injury at WBA and was only a teenager.



You will have to do better than that Vidal.

"Martin made it at Norwich"

Excluding goals in League One, Martin scored 8 goals in 60 games for Norwich, was loaned out to 4 different clubs and eventually released on a free transfer.

You do the math.

I don't think so Spart, those were just examples of how one club can discard a player and it doesn't necessarily mean they can't be any good. As it happens you are talking nonsense once again. Martin hardly featured at all for Norwich once they got out of League 1, behind the likes of Simeon Jackson, Grant Holt, etc in the pecking order. I don't see how you equate this with "Martin did make it" at Norwich.

There's all these statistical comparison data being aired, and very interesting too. But if my memory from last season serves, Norwich were a bit like Derby at this stage. Nicely placed but not setting the league on fire. And then, after Christmas they just rolled onwards and upwards to win promotion.

I think Derby are doing just the same and will gat automatic promotion.