ColonelBlimp

Can I just say congratulations? You were the better team on the day, apart from the last 20 minutes or so. I kind of understand Frank's game plan, non of our strikers could manage the full 90 so start with the young 3rd choice to tire out your back 4 then blitz you in the last 1/3rd or 1/4 of the game. Might have worked if we hadn't gifted you 2 soft goals! Ah well. I met up with my boy before the game, (Villa obsessed) and it was really nice, didn't see any trouble, everyone was mingling (shout out to the Punjabi Rams/Villans) Nothing better than knowing your kid has experienced one of the best days of his life, so happy for him and all you guys. Same old 46 game slog for us next season but we're feeling positive for the future. For you? I think the last 3 seasons have been good, almost cathartic, and you'll do well next season I think somewhere between 12th and 8th. Good luck and keep having fun eh?

Even I wouldn't wish Allardyce on you. What are you after? Someone who can get you promoted this season so FFP is a non issue? Or someone to give you a style but might take 2 or 3 years to get there, maybe utilising more of the youth in your ranks to keep costs down? I don't think the manager who ticks both boxes is out there.

Has Henry got his badges? If he picks the right team to help him I reckon it could work, he's an intelligent guy. Steve Bould is well respected isn't he? Plus you'd have the 'Lampard effect' whereby he would be able to attract the players he wants and have the pick of the loanees from Arsenal amongst others.

You think Henry and Wenger's wages would keep you within FFP or don't they count towards it?

OK chaps and chapesses. Help me out here. What's the difference between you appointing Henry and us appointing Lampard? Both have no managerial experience and yet Lampard is welcomed with open arms and we're all (mostly) excited about what he could do with the squad and younger players. Seems to be split down the middle with Henry. Is it because we had Rowett and we're fed up with turgid football? Does Bruce get a free pass because you got to Wembley? What is it?

Nope, by the time we get there they'll have retired! Anyway, just a reminder, I don't come on here to troll or anything, i have skin in the Villa game as it were. My eldest son (25) is a Villa fan and I have accompanied him a few times in the Holte End of your crumbling but magnificent stadium.

Pretty sure i didn't get worked up about that, only the erm 'Formatting' issue. I'm pretty sure i expected us to tank in February/March as usual. oh and hello

getting £40 million for Grealish? Cloud cuckoo land. If you get £20m plus add-ons consider yourselves fortunate. Might be worth inserting a buy back clause though if you get back to the Premier League in the next 5 years.

Well, my son has successfully got his play-off ticket so i hope he enjoys the big day out. I wish you well, i'm sure it will be a cracking game of football. i think the bookies have you as slight favourites don't they? I don't think it means very much anyway. In 2007, West Brom were favourites and yet despite being outplayed the whole match, we beat them. In 2014 Derby were favourites and dominated the game, yet we lost. The point? Don't stress about it, enjoy the day. It's a Cup Final at Wembley after all

Evening all! Been a while since I accurately predicted Derby's fall down the table, quite a few pages back. Nice to see Tuesday v Cardiff has given you an outside chance of 2nd and bolstered our confidence as well, all good. Those stats giving you a 1/100 chance? Stats don't lie but this is when players get nervous and anything is possible, I'm sure if you go back a few years you'll see plenty of teams failing at the last when the pressure is on so you have to keep putting it on. Tomorrow is not the game to rest players, not while there's a glimmer. Last game maybe. I think you'll beat us tomorrow and I don't think Cardiff will beat Hull, work out what you need from there, last day of the season could be a belter! The boy will be in the Holte tomorrow with his mate so I hope it goes well. If we beat Barnsley we should just squeak in 6th, after that, playoffs are a lottery. I think Fulham will do it and I hope they do, them and Wolves are too classy. So, hopefully, Cardiff v Derby and Boro v Villa, which may bring the final nobody in our house wants, Rams v Villa. Even then, anything can happen, just look how one sided the 06/07 final was, and yet.... Good luck!

You do know that you cannot convert a football fan right? Good/Bad, Success/Failure, Joy and Sadness, these trials and tribulations are what it's all about. Doesn't mean you can't like other clubs though, and i quite like Villa. I despise Leicester though, more so than Forest who are more deserving of sympathy given the state of them. Oh, and Demitri, each to their own eh? I quite like browsing other teams forums, particularly after a game against them, to see how they view it. Can get a bit insular otherwise, unbalanced. LTLF, the Forest forum is always funny though, for me.

Well, last night was not entirely unexpected to be fair. We've not played well for a while now but have scraped draws and the odd win. It was starting to look like it was more important to not lose to keep the undefeated run going than to win games, so this loss might actually be a good thing for us. I don't expect a bottling job either, i think we'll improve a little bit from here on in. not enough to catch you lot but more than enough for top six. There is no meltdown on the https://dcfcfans.uk/forum/4-rams-talk/ forum either, i suggest you read threads like Expectation v Reality, Monkey off our Backs, Kick Up The... for majority views. There's always going to be the odd idiot who goes into clearing in the woods mode though, you have them on here as well I see We have Leeds at home next week, I shall make the long trip up from Sussex with the missus for that one. Oh, just for clarity, I don't come on here to troll or be provocative, i like to try and put my opinion over as a fan of another club, and my eldest son (25) is a massive Villa fan and we've been to Villa Park and Pride Park many times together. And yes, I do wear his spare Villa scarf in the Upper Holte and cheer them on as loud as the next man, unless you're playing us like last year when i had to hide my frustration and disappointment. It's a long old drive when you've lost Ideal scenario in our house is both teams go up.

Did I say Steve Bruce? I meant Paul Lambert, damn autocorrect.

Bugger. Noob error. Like a Keogh slip at Wembley.

utter tripe, particularly this season,as i tried to explain. You think Curtis Davies, Tom Huddlestone, Joe Ledley are bottlers? Which particular season did we bottle it? How does that team compare to the current one? Researched it or just made a pointless comment to garner some likes? Or just prodding me for a response? I can take it.

To clarify, all clubs in this division have to sell to buy, unless you're Wolves. What i'm really saying is that you have greater pulling power. As for manager of the season? Not Bruce, look lower down to Burton/Bolton/Brentford. Wasn't that long ago a good chunk of you wanted Bruce out and Dean Smith in.

Guys, I wouldn't worry about Derby too much. At the moment, we are slightly over achieving, we expected to make the play-offs but getting up to 2nd for a few weeks was nice. The quality of your squad is better than ours, partly because you can attract better players with your parachute payments. As it was mentioned, we do often have a poor February-March but mostly that was down to injuries/McClaren because of his love for 4-3-3. To be blunt, we were always flaky under him though it was joyful to watch at times. This time around, Rowett has solidified things so we very rarely lose, problem is we draw too many games because we're not positive enough, and we're short of a winger. Now you're in 2nd on the back of 7 wins, playing well and more importantly playing for Mr Potato Head, it's nailed on. Chill out. Relax 2nd place is yours. I just hope the play-off final is ours!

It's quite clear to me, as a fan of another club, that the footballing world has moved on from Steve Bruce. It's pace, breaking with speed, hustling the opposition. How much of that have you seen at Villa Park? Bruce's turgid 'do not lose' negativity might have worked 5 years ago but not now. Gary Rowett is a self confessed admirer of Borussia Dortmund swift attacking/breaking style and if he implements anything like that at Derby I'll be delighted. You could see elements of it on Friday against Hull. I'm all for mangers being given time, but what you need right now is a young, forward, vibrant man who will inject some enthusiasm into the club. I see absolutely nothing like that with Bruce. It used to be funny in our house, me and my son taking the Mickey out of each other, last year was comedy gold with Villa and Rams. This year is just sad. Dr Xia needs to get rid.

1-0 to you lot. We are also in a bad run of form and have some injuries to key players. Me and the boy are coming up for this one, in the home end. My turn to squirm as we did the opposite at PP back when you had RdM and we had Pearson. No surprise it was a dull 0-0.

Guys Guys Guys (and Gals) Calm down a bit eh, enough of the wrist slashing. You've got good players, you have a good manager. All you have at the moment is a bad run of form. Every club in this league has it, there's 46 games. Have a look through every club's results and, maybe apart from the top 3, all have had runs of 5 or 6 games where it appears the wheels have fallen off. I know this, I'm a Derby fan, happens every year. You'll scrape a win in the next week or two, then a draw, then a win and so on. 50 points is the accepted cut-off target for staying up in this league, you will get 14 more points easily. If you could just start collecting them from sunday onwards I'd appreciate it, ta.

Name Home Team Away Team Guess Wednesday 2 0 Birmingham Wednesday Villa 2 0 Ipswich Villa Brighton 3 1 Burton Brighton Derby 2 0 Bristol Derby Fulham 1 1 Wigan Draw Leeds 2 1 Cardiff Leeds Norwich 3 0 Forest Norwich Preston 0 1 Bentford Bentford QPR 0 2 Huddersfield Huddersfield Reading 2 1 Barnsley Reading Rotherham 0 1 Blackburn Blackburn Wolves 0 2 Newcastle Newcastle ColonelBlimp My first go at this, hope it's done correctly. Good luck to all. Come On You Rams!!

Have to disagree with the quite good bit. Pearson hasn't settled on his favourite formation yet and the players are struggling to adjust after 3 seasons with 4-3-3. We haven't bought anyone either yet, he's still assessing the squad. I would take a draw right now. Me and my son, who is a villa fan, are coming up from Sussex for this, his birthday present to me and yes, he will be in the enemy end, south stand upper, sshhh!

I'm here because my son is a Villa fan and we come up to VP for some games where I become a 'fan' for the day ( We live on the south coast). Besides, always quite liked Villa anyway and always thought SHA was a nothing club. Pearson is a great appointment, he knows the division and the players and I think he will tweak what we already have and the way we play rather than make massive changes. The poll on the forum http://dcfcfans.uk/topic/23024-pearson-signs-3-year-deal/?page=38 suggests 87% happy, 11% undecided and less than 2% not happy so maybe your colleagues are not representative. Oh, and no-one cares about Florest anymore, too small to worry about.

Both. I'm saying someone like Barton would be a good fit for Villa in the short term. I'm saying Pritchard would also be good but maybe not at 8m. I'm saying that depending on how RDM plays then you could do worse than look at taking back Wiemann or going for Russell etc. I'm saying, as a Derby fan, that we don't know if Pearson is going 4-4-2 or not, historically he has. Derby haven't played that way for a long time. We use 4-3-3 with Martin as the 'pivot' If we go 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1 then attacking players become available for purchase. Will you play a system that requires wingers? Overlapping fullbacks? Pack the midfield? One up front? a front 3? Variations of 4-2-3-1 as at Chelsea? or 4-5-1 as at WBA? Could Kozak be your pivot? Could Gestede?

Pritchard has been excellent for Brentford and would probably make the step up to Premier League. Worth a punt at 6m, though 8m is a push. Hughes owes us a full season and he's Prem quality all over so it'll be a final season at Derby and move to a Prem club if we don't go up. Trouble is, at the moment none of us have any idea of which formations RDM or Pearson are going to play do they? We have been 4-3-3 for ages but Pearson's history suggests 4-4-2 which would mean we would be looking to move on a couple of wide forwards like Blackman/Weimann/Camara/Russell etc. Haven't seen any mention of Alan Judge on here yet, another one maybe worth a punt. Getting an older DM like Barton is definitely the way to go, he made the difference for Burnley. Not sure how many like him are around though.