Visiting Ram

Well he got our player of the season and we don’t give it out lightly and yes you can forget wilson and his 18 goals or Mount - Keogh was 2nd - Tomori isn’t great at corners but he is the fastest defender I have seen in a very long time and he plays football - we have our own intentions to get him back if we can - just a word on Keogh, we have had him 8 years and he plays every game because he has been excellent Nonsense - he is PL quality and he is a CB and you are going to need very quick ones - in the premiership £12 million is cheap

Your words are very kind and much appreciated - the Derby and villa fans got on great all day and I do hope you find the person/ people dishonourably wearing your shirt of your club also following on from a post about the transport links in and around Wembley - they are utterly dreadful for anyone north of Watford and I have Been to 4 play off finals now (1 win) and the biggest regret has always been the journey! I actually caught the train this year and at ST Pancras and on the train it was like a war zone due to total and utter official disorganisation

It would be nice - but the best bit about the championship is that there are lots of games against teams nearby and frequently It’s worth mentioning that neither keeper had much to do and ours didn’t do the basics which cost the game - chances weren’t created by either team but were mainly handed over - all irrelevant now good luck next season

It would be nice but the reality is that a lot of our stupid contracts are coming to an end and we have some seriously good youngsters coming through so it’s quite exciting but the down side is that they have to learn which costs points and we have to sell when a decent offer comes in and it’s incredibly difficult to compete with clubs with huge parachute payments which are used (wrongly in my opinion) to purchase everybody they want ( I have no problem with clubs spending what they have but why do they actually get parachute payments- what are they for) and just out of interest if Villa didn’t have parachute payments how do you feel you would have got on in the championship? again good luck next season and I hope you don’t get all those Sunday lunchtime games and you do manage 1 or 2 floodlit midweek games

Firstly congratulations to yourself for ultimately the winning the game it’s such a shame that ultimately the winning goal was such a poor mistake. i didn’t think there was much in the game at all and with another ten minutes we probably Would have taken it and I did say we wouldn’t give up which we didn’t which was nice from my point of view obviously if we were able to field a full first team we may have had a different game, waghorn and Marriott weren’t for fit enough to start And holmes couldn’t recover at all to replace Bryson spot in central midfield so we’ve had to start with Huddlestone which slows us down and obviously missing a 3-4 left backs congratulations again

Looking forward to the game chaps and I hope it’s a great one and whoever wins or doesn’t then good luck to everyone next season. the media have been their usual for us leeds chairman on talk sport saying we should be banned Boro Chairman saying he wants sue us all media talking about lampard going to Chelsea ( this is now a very real possibility which would be a real shame) and all 3 days before Wembley- nice are they not one nice bit today - on one of the trains going to London a couple of our injured players Bryson and Nugent bought all the beer on the train and station and gave it out to all the Rams fans going down today - nice touch from 2 good professionals

I can’t argue with that statistic but this game maybe different based on the season I have witnessed ————- we generally let a goal in against anyone but I must say we have come back to win impressively at lots of places like Man United Southampton Norwich Leeds as well as several others, my main point being that I wouldn’t expect our lot to give up or stop believing at any point. - there could be several goals in this one

Yep and Cole won’t get any help from Lawrence either and he will be down the other end of the pitch a lot as well I was there - we were a shower and the six changes to the side didn’t help at all and we were really crap - different come Monday but we can’t defend well in all reality so I do expect us to concede but if we get the ball in midfield we will play at speed and I expect it to be a very good game.

Actually Cole is 5th choice and helping out his mate 1st - Forsyth- knee ligaments 2nd - Olson - knee ligaments 3rd - Malone - suspended 4th - Lowe - out on loan at Aberdeen- won player of the year there can’t play as classed as on loan 5th - Cole - won everything in the game and knows what he is doing but yes 38 yrs old

I am fairly confident that we won’t have anybody who is overly geared to nullify anyone in the villa team, maybe Johnson might kick one or two if he is near enough but thats about it - but 4 or 5 of ours will turn round and run directly at Villa twitch the ball so we will see how everybody fairs

It doesn’t mean it can’t be sold back at some point.

Following on from a post I read earlier about average ages of the teams - the team that started at Leeds recently has an average age of 24.5 yrs old but at Wembley we will use Ashley Cole who is 38 so that would change to 25.4 years old Roos 26 bogle 18 Keogh 32 Tomori 21 Cole 38 Johnson 32 Wilson 22 Mount 20 Holmes 24 Bennett 22 Lawrence 25 thats based on the formation we used at Leeds by the way for information purposes

I am not trying to, just giving you some balance because we all ignore things that don’t wear our colours

If it helps, I believe our owner owns 4 separate businesses with Derby county as the focus of attention firstly there is the ground which which has been sold off to himself (with planning permission for hotels etc) another business is the training and academy centre at moor farm another business is the internal concessions of the stadium ( conferences, food drink etc) and the other business is the range of bars coffee shops and restaurants around the ground. Ultimately he is an actual Derby fan and we are very lucky to have fund us.

Always harsh when we hit the woodwork twice and it bounces out to the opponents - I know it doesn’t count but it’s rather close to a shot on target or a goal You will start whelan mainly to screen your back 4 because our midfielders will be coming and shooting from there At home we played Nugent on his own up front he is certainly a nice chap but no starter and goalscorer in the 2nd leg (2nd half of the tie) we started two up front in a totally different formation which Leeds couldn’t cope with ultimately and if it helps all our outfield players have goals to their name this season and not scruffy ones either ( would be nice to have got some scruffy ones) if it helps we are actually a very young team and yes just like villa park our ground is the same size as Wembley - energy won’t be a problem