Just back

Quoted from oldun

With Kelly and Hooper on the field it was like playing with 9 men .

Me and my mates were saying exactly the same thing. It's obvious that neither of them give a toss about the club! I don't know what the hell Slade was thinking when getting them!!!

Quoted from Mariner Ronnie

Apart from a moment of madness I thought we played some good football, bolawinwa and dembele outstanding. Was in the main stand and looked to me as if the derby manager had some influence in davies' second yellow.

Listened to the worst ever call in from a fan on the way home. Didn't even know Davies was sent off! Said he was on Facebook!

Yeah heard that. Totally cringeworthy

Really enjoyable game that. We looked much improved in sections of the game and caused Derby some problems, Dembele and Bolarinwa in particular.

It's clear to see though that we are pretty much playing without a centre forward. No disrespect to JJ Hooper but he looks a million miles short of the required standard. Some strikers can make up for that by being physical, quick or having a high work rate, Hooper doesn't seem to have any of these qualities and I can't for the life of me see why he warranted a 2 year contract.

The back 4 didn't have an awful lot of defensive work to do really, Davies looked good at full back and was probably a victim of circumstance for the red. Dixon, despite the odd misplaced pass looked better, and Collins dealt with Chris Martin very well. Clarke had a decent game until a moment of madness for the pen. He got far too tight and the player just rolled him easily, he should have given him half a yard as it was obvious what he was going to do.

The midfield 2 of Rose and Berrett were excellent in my opinion. Rose does all the ugly stuff, intelligent positioning, intercepting and tackling. Berrett tracks midfield runners very well. Craig Bryson is well known in the championship for his late runs into the box, but he didn't get a sniff today as Berrett went with him step by step.

I thought Sam Kelly was better than he has been but he still flatters to deceive. I think he's lacking in a bit of confidence. Bolarinwa is such a pain in the backside for full backs when he plays like that, and deserves to keep his place.

Dembele... what a player we've got ourselves here. He gets me off my seat every time he gets the ball and is almost worth the entry fee alone. I always think "he'll get tackled this time" but he still manages to wriggle free with the ball. He's only 20 and if he can add a goal or 2 to his game then we could have our most valuable asset since John Oster.

Quoted from headingly_mariner

He's played 2 games. He's clearly not a target man, but I think people are being a little unfair, there were some good touches and he did well backing in at times. Bit early to be judged on a half away from home and 60 minutes against a championship side as a lone striker. He's a 4th tier player, what are folk expecting?

I thought we were decent tonight. Slade set us up well and we were having the better of it until the pen. Thought Berret was excellent in the middle of the park. Dembele is great to watch, he has unbelievable quality and is one of those players that don't end up at Town very often. He is Oster and Bonnetti level of exciting.

The 'he's in this league for a reason' type of comments often make me cringe. It's such a urine poor excuse. if you got a terrible service in a shop, would you accept the excuse 'well that's why he works in Tesco and not at NASA, what did you expect?'

Dembele is mint though.

Quoted from pontoonlew

The 'he's in this league for a reason' type of comments often make me cringe. It's such a urine poor excuse. if you got a terrible service in a shop, would you accept the excuse 'well that's why he works in Tesco and not at NASA, what did you expect?'

Dembele is mint though.

That's fine, but he didn't really do anything wrong tonight. He's the victim of his reputation from his time at a woeful relegated side. Surely it is too soon to have made a judgment on him. He hasn't even had a chance to miss yet.

Quite pleased with the performance tonight in the main. The defence played pretty well, Clarke's errors leading to the goal aside. Berrett's best game for an age, but he won't get that amount of time on the ball in League Two and I think that's where he struggles. Rose did OK as well and, of course, the two wingers played very well and caused lots of problems to Derby. Bolarinwa had them worried with his pace, power and running with the ball and, of course, Dembele turned them inside out at times. My main worry as regards Dembele is that, for all the men he beats during a game, we don't see enough chances created or problems caused. He did very well in the second half with that chance their keeper saved, however. More of that, please!

Was it actually a 'reserve' Derby team? Five of the starting players had shirt numbers between 1 and 11 and seven of the starting 11 were international footballers, including three of the defenders. Considering this, expecting too much from any of our strikers tonight seems a lot to ask.

Also, for all the criticism of our lack of goal threat, we still managed more shots on target than our opponents who played against ten men for half an hour and who also committed a lot more cynical fouls than us in defensive areas! As for the red card, it looked incredibly harsh for me as I thought Davies had actually kicked the ball for the second yellow. Even if not, it was a very borderline decision for the booking. I assume the first yellow was for dissent so I suppose he has himself to blame to some degree. Wouldn't mind too much but their number 4 was booked earlier on then cynically took Bolarinwa out when he was on a run not too far from the end. The referee chickened out and just awarded a free-kick when it was a clear second booking. Yet another bad refereeing decision against us, yet another red card.

Quoted from Mariner Ronnie

Apart from a moment of madness I thought we played some good football, bolawinwa and dembele outstanding. Was in the main stand and looked to me as if the derby manager had some influence in davies' second yellow.

Listened to the worst ever call in from a fan on the way home. Didn't even know Davies was sent off! Said he was on Facebook!

Agree about Bolarinwa and Dembele, I also thought Berrett did ok first half but went missing in the second.

Hooper, Rose and Kelly weren't up to much in my opinion and very poor play by Clarke for their penalty.

Again one man up front even when 1-0 down in a cup game is barmy in my opinion, and to make matters worse McKeown looked more like scoring than Hooper or Cardwell.

Thought he was a decent ref tonight. Their 4 might have had a second booking, but that would've been a little harsh.
Dembele is a bit special. His first real spark set The tone. He controlled and turned by the Findus, leaving the defenders looking silly. Continued in that vein through the rest of the game. We need a 9 and a 10 who are able to play Sladeball. Vernon might be the former, but I don't yet see the latter. Jones? Osborne? Clements?

Unable to make the game but it sounds like the application and heart that appeared missing on Saturday came back and the performance was better than Tondours commentary suggested.

From what I have seen so far I think Russ's only option is to go into the U23 loan market and try and bring in a young striker from a big club who has lots of energy and enthusiasm at the very least

Looking forward to Saturday versus a bit of a bogey side for Town so a good challenge

To play a game with a lone striker means that striker has to be pretty good at several aspects of the game. "At the moment" we don't appear to have anyone capable of filling that role,so why do we persist with it. I feel Slade should bite the bullet and try to get a different formation going. A good manager has different plans to suit the situation. At the moment the future looks pretty bleak if Slade persists with the present system. I have supported Town for over 60years and want them to do well but cannot see it happening with the present ideas. We are obviously limited with the players we have but this cannot be put down to Slades predecessor.