Paul Warne

Well, I'll tell you who it was.

It was Paul Warne at Rotherham.

I do mention this every now and then.

I think he may have took over mid-season, but he realised at the end of the season that nobody really knew why everybody else was playing football.

I thought that they played a lot of over-hit passes, a lot of wasteful shooting, that kind of thing.

And, you know, you're thinking, how on earth are we losing 2-0 here? But, you know, fortunately, well, the team came out second half and reacted, whether that was in response to booze from the away end or whether Paul Warne gave the team an absolute blast in at half-time.

I think Pato made mention of that in his post-match interview.

But, Yeah, and then, as you say, sort of come out second half firing and we score all three goals within 10 minutes.

And as the game sort of wore on, I think both teams had chances, but if you look at it properly, I think there was only going to be one winner sort of as the game wore on, but...

Yeah, so you can look at it as it's a good point, especially from being 2-0 down, but to throw away another lead is not a great thing at all.

Yeah, I think the word I would use to describe our season is streaky and streaky within games because Oxford, I think for 60 minutes, was some of the best football I've seen us playing under Paul Warne in the 18 months or so that he's been here.

I thought we were absolutely sensational.

...I think they're gonna be looking to maintain it.

But I, I can't see a Paul Warne managed side in League One with that quality in the bottom half with Leicester.

Come on, that ain't gonna finish like that.

No, I agree.

They had the higher XG, higher possession, et cetera.

So it does seem like they were a bit unfortunate in that game.

Um, I mean, looking at Paul Warne's side, it's so hard to judge 'cause they've gone from a two-two draw, a one-one draw, nil-nil draw to a three-three draw, and then in, in the middle of that lost 3-1 to Wigan.

So very, very, like, weird side if you like.

When Amshaw came in, I was actually very happy with what had gone off because I saw Andy, I saw Amshaw.

I was like, ooh, is this leading back to Warnie days? No.

It's just a cheap

option, mate.

That's what we did.

It's literally just a BTEC option of Warnie.

So I've seen on social media, and I'm going to ask all you guys this as well.

So I've seen a bit of criticism coming in.

strongly disagree on that one.

As we keep telling ourselves, it is a common trait of a Paul Warne team to start slow and then just turn it up a notch.

And by the time you get to January, we're on a roll.

But we'll have to wait and see on that one.

Just for perspective as well, I think Emgeddon's one of the highest spenders transfer fee-wise this summer.

It's funny really, a bit of a full circle moment, but I'm pretty sure I remember Paul Warne calling us the Harlem Globetrotters at one point after we beat them early on in the season.

So it was funny to see him kind of rock up in time with his Harlem Globetrotters.

But yeah, I think they'd not lost so far this season.

And I, for me, I came into the game and saw it as a real opportunity to be a really good team.

And I think Paul Warne had, I said, as mentioned, had a game plan.

I think he tried it for half an hour, 45 minutes, whatever you call it, and then decided, you know what, it's not working.

We'll park the bus and just, you know, just wave the white flag a little bit and hope they don't murder us.

We aren't sort of the team to beat anymore.

There are teams that are going to be better than us and will play better football than us.

And, you know, we expected Russell Martin to come out and dominate possession, especially against, you know, Paul Warne, who isn't necessarily a heavy possession sort of manager, but...

There was just absolutely no offering for us on the ball.

We can't seem to get them back when they're due to come back.

And again, we had John Eustace at the weekend talking about the players he brought on should only have played 30 and 35 minutes and we're playing 45 and 50. now is that him having the same veiled not greatly veiled comment that paul warne made a couple of years back about the fact that he was being told that players could only play a certain amount of minutes and and having his hands tied by the sports science team or is that why we are getting injuries because the sports science team is saying these players can only play for half an hour they get put out there for 45 or 60 minutes and guess what they break down one way or another Things are not working across the club.

And I think I'll put this caveat out there now.

You might want to put it as a banner across the bottom because it will almost apply to every comment I make tonight.

Again, there was insinuation there, I think, if we read into it.

And let's face it, I've built my whole career so far on over-analysing things that managers say, so why stop now? But it's...

is i think i think there's definitely an element of that there um it just doesn't necessarily match up with say for example david claus statement in the program before the cardiff game it was a weekend for us where he said that what derby county stands for is coming back from adversity right so so that mentality needs to come through now we need this to be a low point that This needs to be a Stevenage away under Paul Warne in the promotion season, Stevenage and Shrewsbury, or it needs to be an Oxford away last season, right? What does that take, though? Where does that come from? Again, yes, Darby, you're unlucky with who's out, but there's got to be more that the players who are available right now can do, is there not, Chris?

Yeah, I'll caveat that.