Therein lies the question - where/who is the catalyst?

Rooney is good enough to play in any system. As one of the three in a 4-2-3-1, behind the main striker in a 4-1-3-2 or a the apex of a diamond. I don’t get the feeling that Lawrence is going to be sold so maybe the first of those systems. Bielik plus one of Huddz, Shinnie, Knight or Sibley then Lawrence, Rooney and a new player (Van Ginkel?) behind one of our strikers.

Hamer

Bogle. New CB Clarke Lowe

Bielik. Huddz

New. Rooney. Lawrence

Martin/Marriott

Falkirk?

I think both Bogle and Holmes look worse this season, whether its because Mount and Wilson are missing (and maybe Tomori) I don't know?

Tomori got skinned yesterday for one of Brightons goals I noticed.

Mount and Wilson are fearless players. Yesterday we had nobody prepared to take a chance, not even to make a forward run in the first half. When players are scared they stick to their shape and don’t try to be adventurous. A bit of positivity can spread through the team.

Confidence.

They take the extra touch or fail to take on the last player.
The decision is safety which is fine but while Fozzie is giving it to the opposition every 5 minutes even safety isn’t working.
So we have a team going onto the field frozen in fear.

I look at this division and the only difference is confidence. Who currently has it and who hasn’t. Leeds have it and WBA have it but neither are unbeatable. It’s just that most are bang average.

Confidence is all it is. When we aren’t winning we dissect everything to find out why when all that’s needed is something to go our way.
We stopped the awful run yesterday. No points and no goals are now resigned to the history books.
Don’t under-estimate how much breaking that hoodoo can affect things.

We’ve got a home game without Lawrence and then Rooney and the window opens.

Things can only get better.

There was one point in the second half yesterday when the ball was bobbling about in Wigan's penalty area and no Derby player would take a shot. Holmes seemed to take a lifetime to try and tee-up the "perfect" shot.

I wanted to scream (and probably did).

Vidal, if Lawrence doesn't get sold it is because no one is daft enough to buy him. His 10 bookings have come from snide little taps when the player isn't looking, he never tackles anyone properly. I'm glad he is suspended, we will do better without him.

A good manager can give confidence in a team, can you imagine how much better we would be with someone like Klopp? I think several of our players don't know what they are supposed to be doing, this is the manager's job to sort things out. Steve Nicholson said Wigan looked the better team and they are bottom of the league. If things don't change we will be playing Sunderland and Burton next season.

What a mess we've got ourselves into, I blame Rowett for bringing all those old age pensioners in. I hope our manager buys players with a sell on value.

If only we had a fit and confident George Thorne this season! Alas we don't.

It's a major error on the behalf of recruitment - we signed Dowell as our creative spark without getting a back up creative central midfield player.

Good post Vidal, made me smile as I've been tinkering with formations when I should be working. This season really has got me down in the dumps both with how Derby are doing and as I have a weekly Championship predictor on all games and goalscorers with a work colleague (Leeds fan) and he's got a healthy lead this season. Must add I beat him overall last season, just annoying he keeps getting the Derby result and goalscorer correct (when we do score!)

I hope we i) get a result verse Charlton to calm those calling for blood ( although it's understandable why with how PC projects himself and how we're playing) but regardless of replacement manager we might have a small improvement and then go back to dross. ii) The players lined up are signed ASAP, first week or so of Jan so that they can get used to the players around them.

I am absolutely desperate for Lawrence to not be played as a winger but as back up to Rooney in the no.10 role or up front alongside Marriott (ideally a fit version) with Rooney behind.

.........................Bielik................................

.....Holmes.........................Van Ginkel......

.......................Rooney............................

......Marriott........................Lawrence

Lawrence up front??? Well that worked out well at Wembley.

Iniesta on loan from Vissel Kobe.

I think movement is key too in order to open up the space. We're so predictable with our passing and standing still waiting for the ball to come to us. So easy to press and deny space. No combination plays, clever runs, dropping deep, creating overloads, or running to be the third man etc. etc.

Bogle, Sibley, Holmes, TL, Waggy (maybe), Morgan Whittaker, Lowe/Malone, Knight and Bielik can take a player on if they get space.

Holmes, Huddz, Evans, Martin, Knight and Dowell can pick a pass when in space.

New players would be great but if we work on off the ball movement I think we'll allow the current lot more room to show us something more than running into an opposition player, losing the ball, falling over, running back, kicking the player that easily got the ball off them, picking up a yellow and conceding a free kick that makes all of us fans pap themselves as the ball enters our penalty area.

Cocu's comments I thought were interesting yesterday he said we need to get better at reading the game, failed to see where the space was in the opposition and bring people into it.

It suggests to me Cocu knows what we should be doing but struggling to get the players to do it. Feel like they want to be carried into the Premier instead of climbing there themselves.

#teamcocutoo

If Rooney doesn’t make an impact in this league I’ll be amazed.
I’ve watched a lot of championship football and this season, it seems to me, there is a chronic lack of quality everywhere.
We’ve seen a lot of rubbish at Pride Park, not just from us but from every team.
A 34 year old Rooney will be head and shoulders the best player in this league.
Watch the oppo change their game plan to try and cancel out Rooney.
Rooney is well versed in the opposition trying to nullify him and has the tools to still be effective.

He’ll be a massive plus for us.

Rooney did also have the benefit of playing alongside other players who needed special attention too.

At the moment nobody else in our team requires any real attention. You just need to keep your shape and wait for us to give the ball away.

Well I've still not been to a home match since the manager decided to it was acceptable to pick somebody who bought shame on the entire club, so I'm not surprised to see the slide down the table.

Get rid of the toxic ones, which now unfortunately includes the manager as nobody can respect him after that decision, and things might improve.

Rooney won't help. England only started to improve after they finally (and it was long overdue) decided to drop Rooney and replace him with new upcoming talent (which includes the likes of Mount) He was past it then even when the opposition was useless, I can't see the time in the states having improved him as a player either. Opposite end of the scale and opposite end of his career to the loans from last season.

Also as already said, we have no real threats anyway, so marking him out the game won't change anything. Just like last season with Lawrence, it got to the point where none of the opposition managers even bothered counting that he was there; man-mark Wilson, man-mark Mount, leave Lawrence to do as he pleases because he performs so rarely he isn't a threat in 9 games out of 10 and just undoes the hard work of the others most of the time.

if this team doesn't go down I'll be amazed.

...and a happy new year to everyone from 9earchange.



It's not that bad is it????

comment by 2 Wellies (U6713)
posted 9 minutes ago
...and a happy new year to everyone from 9earchange.



It's not that bad is it????
----------------------------------------------------------------------

I think it is and found myself agreeing with 9ear with every sentence. I can't see Wassa making any difference, he has been past it for years. Bring on the young ones.

And why FFS haven't we got a game tomorrow? What are we supposed to do on a Saturday in mid winter?

>>>if this team doesn't go down I'll be amazed.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

I'll be equally amazed if he makes no difference. He's still head and shoulders above any other players in this league.

He's got more football in his little toe than most of our squad combined.

comment by VC10Ram (U18980)
posted 7 minutes ago
comment by 2 Wellies (U6713)
posted 9 minutes ago
...and a happy new year to everyone from 9earchange.



It's not that bad is it????
----------------------------------------------------------------------

I think it is and found myself agreeing with 9ear with every sentence. I can't see Wassa making any difference, he has been past it for years. Bring on the young ones.

And why FFS haven't we got a game tomorrow? What are we supposed to do on a Saturday in mid winter?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
It's so you can take mrs VC to the sales.

We won’t go down it’s just wishful thinking from the Cocu out brigade so they can be proved right.

We’ll stay up no trouble. I can’t see the play offs but it’s be done before by others. Look at the Mitrovic effect at Fulham.
There is no way we’ll accrue less points in the second half of the season with Rooney than we did in the first half without him and that’s what it would take for us to be anywhere near the bottom 3.

I think we can all agree that Rooney is a better player than Sheringham and Merson aged 34. (They both had a great season in the Championship).

He'll definitely have an improved impact on the squad but he's not going to be the Messiah some of us are hoping for.

We desperately need pace with trickery/creativity from wingers to support both our strikers and Rooney as pace is the one thing he doesn't have any more.

I do remember there was a cracking track back to retrieve the ball and create an assist by Rooney whilst playing for DC United doing the rounds on social media.....

and just like that....I've found it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoOktcC-IVQ


We won't go down, IF we recruit at least three decent players - one for defence (Croatian dude from Leicester possible?), Van Ginkel (Chelsea) and a commanding GK.

Wigan, Barnsley and Luton are weaker sides, I'm hoping Stoke will do a Sunderland this season with their Premiership esque side. They've recruited an international manager just like Sunderland did (Chris Coleman) so it'd be brilliant to see them go down. Middlesbrough are welcome to join them. Horrible club, horrible fans.


Good point about Rowett's recruitment, I wasn't excited by Huddlestone and Davies' signing but it should be acknowledged Davies is a real captain both on and off the field with how he conducts himself.

This is one of the worst 'not won in x matches' runs experienced in the Championship, what's the worst encountered that you can recall? (Premiership doesn't count)

I agree with Wellies that movement is key but like Rameses says that needs confidence. Preston at home first half seems a long time ago.

The idea that Rooney is past it is nonsense. Dave Mackay was much more past it when he came to Derby. England haven’t improved because Rooney retired from the international scene any more than they improved because Lampard or Gerrard retired. I watched the Sky programme where Gary Neville chats to Rooney for an hour about his career and the two things that shine through are his incredible talent and his desire to play football. If he is fit he will be a huge asset to the team.

When a team is in a bad run like this it is impossible to imagine it ever changing, but it does. Then players suddenly want the ball and move into space instead of hiding and simply holding their position. I agree with a lot of the criticism of Lawrence but he is one of the few players who still at least tries to do something when he has the ball, which is the sort of “bravery” in possession that is needed. I know he lacks bravery in other areas and his bookings have largely been pathetic.

I do love 9ear’s take on it though. Makes me chuckle to see such undiluted negativity about every single aspect.

Vidal, Lawrence wanted his ar5e kicking when he got booked yesterday. He gave up half way to the ball, then put a spurt on when it was too late.

He is a very frustrating player.

Absolutely. Had he gone full on to win the ball then their centre half, who was coming in like a train, might well have got a red card. Lawrence chickened out as he often does with challenges. By being scared and vaguely putting in his leg he got the yellow.

I actually wanted to kill him after witnessing that and I'm not predisposed to violence (normally).