Derby County v Aston Villa Post-Match Thread

[Phil from the upper holte]

5 points off the top already. Badly need an away victory and two wins in a row to gain some momentum

I'm not hitting the panic button just yet. Very long way to go. Newcastle lost the first two. Now they've won two. Positive is we didn't lose a tricky away game. Onto the next

[Ads]

Chris is right it's a bit daft to be looking at the table this early. 5 points off Huddersfield but then we saw how limited they are.

We're still gelling and it will take a bit if time, but not conceding or even looking like we will is a bonus which means although the past two performances weren't quite there, we didn't get beat. On other nights we find ourselves four points better off as we could have been 4 and 3 up respectively at half time against Huddersfield and Derby.

It's clear we need a centre forward (with pace!) And somebody out wide and attacking in the middle.

Jedinak will be a massive plus and Tshibola will give us the legs in midfield. Ado those additional attacking options around what is easily the best forward line in the league already and we will look more like it.

Chester and Elphick are big positives too. Both look excellent at this level.

I agree that we could do with taking 7 from the next three, but with so many games and more players coming in, it's as somebody said above, no need to panic.

Our quality will tell in the end and if we don't go up automatically I'll eat my hat.

[Clampy]

Thought we lacked pace up front yesterday which I think is what the new striker will need to have. We played ok though, Westwood who I'm not a fan of had a decent game again. I think he's found he's level in this league. 5 points off the top is not too bad at the moment, there's a hell of a long way to go.

[supertom]

I'm happy with our start so far. Not least because with a bit more luck we'd have more points. But also we're slowly but surely getting more resolute in order to halt the appalling slide we suffered for the whole of last season. To address that damage doesn't happen instantly. A solid, if unspectacular start is better than getting absolutely roasted in five games. Teams would have been licking their lips playing us but aside from gifting 3 points through two errors, we've outclassed (in patches) the sides we've played.

We just need to keep this up for 90 minutes and having someone influential and experienced like Jedinak in midfield should help us keep our grip on games more effectively. Westwood has done okay for us this season. He's better at this level but when the momentum starts swinging to the opposition, he goes missing. He won't grab the game by the neck and slap the fuck out of it when he needs to.

[Jimbo]

Fair enough, but I disagree completely. Westwood controlled the first half. Gardner was largely a complete liability and I've got no idea what he did at Forest to get such rave reviews.

On the evidence of last 4-5 games I agree ref Gardner, the shot today is the only noteworthy thing!  Really wanted him to grab his chance but he hasn't shown.

What I would say with Westwood is that in a central three with Jedinak & Tshibola I think he might have a role to play as the link player to the forward players as he is a neat & tidy passer. 

Westwood's passing is another myth. He's a neat and tidy passer when it's an easy pass backwards or sideways, the kind of pass a scarecrow could master.

He does and did today, your memory is just being selective. He could be more daring and he doesn't play first-time enough for me which slows us down, but a progressive forward pass doesn't have to be a through ball or a brilliant diagonal out wide, and he does enough of that simple stuff where he's simply moving it to Ayew or Grealish further up the pitch. Then again, I remember Michael Carrick played the most forward passes in Europe one season (no, I'm not saying Westwood is anywhere near his level) and people were still accusing him of only making the safe side/back passes, so I guess that's just the nature of things.

I'm not sure about that. I really don't get this 'he moves the ball' stuff. He's a footballer. That's what he's a millionaire for. Yet he doesn't even do that very well.

Everything else that's required of him, he frequently fails to do - set pieces (floaty garbage), tackling (powderpuff), protecting the defence (points at something), shooting (ha ha ha ha), kicking a football properly (still waiting), etc. etc.

Passing the ball sideways to a very deep Ayew is not an incisive forward pass. And as I've said before, I think there was a reason why Ayew played so deep. It's because he can actually kick and keep possession of a football, which, as RDM would have known, is what Westwood and Gardner both struggle with. 

We're in the Championship now. Westwood looks ordinary here at best, virtually anonymous at other times. We're mid table. If we want to get out of this division, the likes of Westwood and Gardner just aren't good enough.

Westwood especially is one of the reasons we set up camp at the bottom of the Premier League for five seasons. And he's one of the reasons we're not getting the results now. I know, I know, early days and all that. But we need better, RDM knows it, and he's bought it.

No more settling for mediocre nothingness.

[SoccerHQ]

Well as is commonly said. The table doesn't lie and mid table is the perfect position for us at the mo. We're totally average. A shame Gestede got injured as he's been making progress but at the moment God we're ordinary as a team.

But thats an improvement and it will turn round but I'm not sure it's going to be this season.

After only 4 games of course the table lies. It is like trying to predict the winner of a marathon after the first mile.

It will take a few more weeks for this league to settle down. There is still business to be done in the window for a lot of teams and then time for those players to become integrated, I recon it will be October/November before we get an idea of where we stand. As it is we have been competitive in all of the games we have played and our defence in particular is looking strong which gives me cause to think that the manager knows what he is doing.

Yeah I'm not too worried at the table.

Hopefully get a move on during the next month to lay down a marker. Get 7 points from Bristol and home games v Forest and Brentford which should be very possible and we'll be comfortably in the top 6.

12 points from 7 games would be about 78/79 points over a full season so comfortably play offs and not that far off top 2.

We don't need a massive improvement to be in contention in this league, the first four games should show you this.

[ez]

Only just seen the highlights. Looks like Gollini had nothing to do.

[saunders_heroes]

We're not going to be promoted with this powderpuff midfield. It's letting us down.

[QuintonVilla]

We're not going to be promoted with this powderpuff midfield. It's letting us down.

Tshibola and Jedinak won't be powderpuff.

Gardner isn't good enough I'm afraid, he doesn't have any real impact on the game (apart from one pot shot yesterday). He's like his brother, if he isn't having a rare decent shot from 25 yards then you don't notice he's playing.

Westwood is just meh. He's like a crisp packet floating about the pitch, it's there but barely noticeable. Again when does he ever take a game by the scruff of the neck and drive the team forward? He's an absolute nothing player.

[saunders_heroes]

We're not going to be promoted with this powderpuff midfield. It's letting us down.

Tshibola and Jedinak won't be powderpuff.

Gardner isn't good enough I'm afraid, he doesn't have any real impact on the game (apart from one pot shot yesterday). He's like his brother, if he isn't having a rare decent shot from 25 yards then you don't notice he's playing.

Westwood is just meh. He's like a crisp packet floating about the pitch, it's there but barely noticeable. Again when does he ever take a game by the scruff of the neck and drive the team forward? He's an absolute nothing player.

Agreed about Tshibola and Jedinak. I get a bit fed up with the "Westwood will be fine in the Championship" routine favoured by a lot of our fans though. He clearly isn't fine in this league, unless we want to finish midtable that is. Hopefully we'll soon see a midfield worthy of this club 

[avfcpg]

We're not far off...it's not like there has been anything to scare us so far. Bit more luck and we'd have 7 or 8 points.
Add Jedinak and an up and running Tishbola and it's a top 6. Get Mcormack and Ayew firing and it's top 4, Another striker and creative midfielder plus the team slowly gelling and it's top 2.   

[Clampy]

I think Westwood is fine for this level personally but hopefully Jedinak and Tshibola will make a huge difference and Westwood can sit on the bench.

[Clampy]

Only just seen the highlights. Looks like Gollini had nothing to do.

He didn't. It's the easiest game he'll have probably.

[eddiemunster]

Was Tshibola out injured yesterday?

[Risso]

Chris is right it's a bit daft to be looking at the table this early. 5 points off Huddersfield but then we saw how limited they are.

We're still gelling and it will take a bit if time, but not conceding or even looking like we will is a bonus which means although the past two performances weren't quite there, we didn't get beat. On other nights we find ourselves four points better off as we could have been 4 and 3 up respectively at half time against Huddersfield and Derby.

It's clear we need a centre forward (with pace!) And somebody out wide and attacking in the middle.

Jedinak will be a massive plus and Tshibola will give us the legs in midfield. Ado those additional attacking options around what is easily the best forward line in the league already and we will look more like it.

Chester and Elphick are big positives too. Both look excellent at this level.

I agree that we could do with taking 7 from the next three, but with so many games and more players coming in, it's as somebody said above, no need to panic.

Our quality will tell in the end and if we don't go up automatically I'll eat my hat.

I agree with the table at this stage bit, but we need to start getting into our stride pretty quickly.  The next two games look trickyish, but are the sorts of games where a hard-earned point isn't really going to be enough.  We don't to be in the position where having played 10 games, we're only on 10-12 points.