RealisticRam

It's a good point made by Visting Ram: Tomori and Keogh have been miles ahead of anyone else in the team for consistency. Keogh won players' player of the season, Tomori won fans player of the season. Bogle, Mount, Waghorn and Holmes in particular have been all excellent since February/March time. Johnson has done well too, in all fairness. Wilson is a highlight reel player, but he's actually been off the pace in the latter part of the season. He's just got an end product which works out great for us, but he is definitely a cause for frustration more often than not. I don't really mind for the PO final though as he's exactly the type of player to score a goal out of nowhere.

I posted in the welcome area, so thought I'd air my thoughts for you guys to chew on... It feels good going into the game almost expecting nothing and hoping for the best. It's a lot less painful than the QPR game last time out.

Evening guys, It would be great to be able to discuss the upcoming match. Incidentally, I noticed that a lot of the discussion is based on Mount not being in the team on the past two occasions, although the same could be said about two of our other key performers during the latter part of the season - Johnson & Waghorn - the latter is looking good to return. The performance at Villa was the worst of the season, comfortably, with hindsight a midfield duo of Evans and Bird seemed naive in the extreme. Not to mention that we were missing Bogle, Mount and Lawrence. Wilson had a slight knock and couldn't start the game. A quick look at the team that started last time out: Carson, Wisdom, Tomori, Keogh, Cole, Bird, Evans, Holmes, Jozefzoon, Marriott, Bennett. In comparison to the team that I expect to start: Roos, Bogle, Tomori, Keogh, Cole, Johnson, Holmes, Mount, Wilson, Lawrence, Waghorn/Marriott It's a difference of six or seven players depending on Waghorn's fitness. Incidentally, after the game against you, we made six changes to the team. Wisdom, Bird & Jozefzoon haven't really been seen since. Marriott, Evans & Cole in a similar boat too, with very limited showings after that defeat. It was certainly a wake up call that was much needed and culminated in us only losing one further game in the regular season. I fancy Villa to win the game, but this Derby team has stepped up in high pressure games this season - Bristol City away, West Brom at home, Leeds away. Not to mention we've taken something daft like 22/23 penalties this season and I don't believe we've missed a single one. We're the definition of a team with a puncher's chance.