HarvSFC

Robinson was too attacking at the start of the season, so can't get in the squad now. Fellows had his best game against Middlesbrough and looked good in the first half in midweek. So he got hooked at half time and dropped out of the eleven today. Scienza's getting the same treatment now. No place for attacking talent here. How dare you take on the opposing defender.

Poor. Said before the game that what's needed is a good performance and three points against a Derby team battling to survive in the Championship. For the first seven minutes it looked like that was coming true and it showed how good we can be. However, the following 83 minutes was a boring mess full of crap. Alex McCarthy, Man of the Match against the 20th placed Championship side. That's very poor. At least he's cemented himself as the number one, although we may well get a new manager who has to go through the Bazunu process again. Don't know what Spors is thinking. We haven't played well all season. Our two wins against Wrexham and Sheffield United were fortunate, one needed a wonder goal to bail us out. So, he can't be happy with this start to the season. But, then he also thought Jack Stephens had a good pre-season when he was making mistake after mistake in those games, so not too sure his judgement is all there. End of the day we've played 9 games and we haven't played a good 90, maybe even a good 45 in any. Not looking good.

Remember when you used to get 8+ minutes added time. Never seems to happen anymore even with all the subs and now long throw stoppages. Another new rule phased out after the novelty.

Richard Kone scored again for QPR. He was far too obvious.

Sorry Scienza. Like Fellows and Robinson, you're just too attacking and progressive. Slow it down and pass sideways.

Mixed. We had a really good first seven minutes. Should have scored before the goal through Manning, we were running rings around them with our passing and movement, and then we scored and it's been poor ever since. Wish we would just put teams to the sword like Coventry are doing every week, rather than taking the foot off the gas and slowing the game down with a one goal lead. Sheffield United are in a false position, they have some good players there still who have just been mismanaged. Derby are not. 20th and as poor as they showed in the first 7 minutes. But, we've allowed them to be competitive. On a positive, Scienza's YouTube videos impressed me on his initial link here and he's looked decent today, has the ability to produce something from nothing, which not many of our current players have in their locker. Azaz on for Edwards is the obvious attacking move for me. See if he can feed Armstrong through as Armstrong and Stewart were looking good up there.

As I said last week with Luke Ayling. How much time and space does the Derby player have to put the ball in. Professionals can place the ball where they want with time ffs!

Okay, we've started excellently and now deservedly 1-0 up. Keep this up and hit them for a few goals.

Issue with Azaz is that he plays a position that many teams don't use, so you have to change the shape of your squad to cater towards him. Can't see him being any good as a central midfielder, or a winger. That said, I don't like this constant three centre-back formation. I think it's a big factor in why we've been largely crap this season for the most part and it was horrendous last season. It worked against Liverpool for the most part, but that's a game to deploy it because they'll look to attack us and there was more space for us to move into when we recovered the ball because Liverpool pushed numbers forward. As we've since, Championship teams will play defensively against us and we're easy to defend against in this setup as we don't have enough numbers in the attack. But, I just want to see a better performance than what we've seen in recent weeks and hopefully it does come against a poor Derby side.

I always thought JWP held us back a bit. We were very content with having him in the middle of the park and never looked to upgrade, or we couldn't afford to upgrade with him still in the squad. Similar to the goalkeeper position of recent years. Our best midfield of Schneiderlin, Wanyama and Davis, which should have and should be our ambitions to get back to that level, he wouldn't get in. Also seen with his two Premier League moves (West Ham and Notthingham Forest) that he hasn't shown to be anything more than a bog standard, possibly below average Premier League midfielder. And, apparently he doesn't even score free-kicks anymore.

Don't think any of our other forwards are capable of his goals tonight. Downs, Armstrong and Archer aren't able to generate the power and accuracy from distance for Stewart's second goal, while Armstrong and Archer hit his first goal at the defender or goalkeeper in a packed box and Downs wouldn't be able to anticipate the chance. I've had my doubts over Stewart, but he's now put his name firmly forward to be the starting striker for the club tonight. Just needs to stay injury free and keep transforming into Lambert.

Turned bad again after we took the lead, but a good three points. Need to go for the kill when leading, not sitting back. Attack best form of defence.

Well, that was lucky.

Wow. Ross Stewart's just Rickie Lambert'd that.

Fellows off, Fraser on. Will Still has to go for that. (Watch Fraser put in a 10/10 now, hopefully)

One word to sum up that first half - Shite. Sums up this season too, and pre-season was hardly encouraging. Not been good at all under Still.

I just want a manager who doesn't instruct the players to start every attack with multiple passes between the centre-backs. It doesn't achieve anything and more often than not we play ourselves into danger. Starting to wonder when I last enjoyed watching us over multiple games.

That's why you close down the goalkeeper, Onuachu. They got very lucky there.

Ramsdale left to sit on the Newcastle bench, Dibling left to sit on the Everton bench and Fernandes and KWP left to get another relegation in a far more toxic atmosphere.

The site is using Alan Nixon as their source. Can't all of a sudden make out that he's a reliable source when it fits some people's agenda.

Issue with the goal is how much time Ayling had out on the right to cross the ball in. No one putting pressure on him or closing him down. Professional footballers can place the ball where they want when they have time, need to be better there.

Why's he playing central and not hugging the touchline out wide on the left?

First of all, fair play to Still for making the decisions to drop those out of form. Two years ago Bazunu played no matter his form and only dropped out to injury, Smallbone played no matter his form, leaving superior players in Charles and Alcaraz with little opportunity, Stephens earned the nickname shoehorn as he was shoehorned in every game despite Bednarek and THB building up a partnership during his injury and Manning was playing every week despite Meghoma looking decent in the cups and Manning generally performing badly. It got tedious seeing the line-up every week and probably allowed for complacency to creep in with those in safe positions in the 11. This should hopefully see those who have dropped out now raising their performance level, only the wrong characters that you don't want throw their dummies out after being dropped. Look at Armstrong, he has played his way back into the side in the last three games and looks like he has a restored lease of life. Only change I'd have made to the 11 is Edwards out for Jelert, as Edwards didn't give us a lot going forward. Onto the match, Fellows has now found his feet here. Every time he had the ball he caused problems. Rinsed Targett every time and surprised it took 90 minutes for him to get booked for a foul on Jander. Fellows was my man of the match today, put in numerous dangerous balls and set up the Armstrong goal. We lacked forward quality when he came off. Wood and Quarshie good, athletic defenders. We didn't get bullied aerially, or for pace today. Jander class. Armstrong's back. Our most potent attacker again. Downside, I thought we were a bit slow with the ball for a lot of the match. We need to up the tempo and play faster and more direct. A lot of our attacks are being built up by passing it around the centre-backs slowly and then the opposition have a packed half, leaving little time or space, which means we aren't really testing the opposition goalkeeper still. We've shaken up a lot of the squad with changes, but we've cycled through all of our striker options, and still nobody's really making the position theirs yet. Stewart still disappointing, doesn't want to fight for the ball and just looks a bit gangly and lightweight. Did note that when we had a corner Middlesbrough left a man up the pitch, meaning we had to leave two back and there was one counter where they looked dangerous. When Middlesbrough had a corner, we had everyone back and Middlesbrough could pack the box with their players also. Something I know a lot have been calling to change for years now. Still a disappointing result and wins are a must now.

Thing is though, yeah we were bad, which I think we'd all have predicted. But, he made us record breakingly bad. Looking at the Premier League table now, Burnley on 4 points, Leeds on 7 and Sunderland on 8 after 5 games. It took Martin 10 games to get to 4 and he finished on 5 points after 16 games. A bit of fight was all we wanted last season, but his tactics didn't allow for it.

Some teams also stop putting performances in once they've cemented a play-off place, but the automatics are too far ahead. Sunderland went into the play-offs last season on the back of five straight defeats, scoring one goal and one win in seven, scoring two goals over those seven matches. Leeds the year before, one win in their last six. At least with the current set-up there's a bit of jeopardy if your form drops off too much with there only being 4 play-off spots, but another two spots could devalue the competition for teams who are lucky enough to catch those on the beach at the back end of the season.