Thoughts on a Time for Change

I have come to the conclusion that Philip Cocu has suffered from simply not knowing enough about Championship football and it has been a bigger problem than either he, or MM, or we fans thought at the time.
It explains why he appears to have made errors in selection and tactics and has displayed some baffling judgments about certain players. Josefzoon has taken up far too much playing space and what has gone wrong with Jack Marriott? He should have come into his own as a very talented striker after hie late season flourishing last time.
Both PC and MM must have realised the gigantic gap that the loss of Mount, Tomori and Wilson would cause and would to be dealt with by powerful recruiting. An almost impossible task. It has to be said that apart from Bielik no-one of sufficient talent was brought in and we have suffered only as expected.
Then the early loss of our best defender due to self-inflicted career ending injuries added drastically to the massive structural damage the team suffered before the season got really started. It really is no wonder we are struggling to get any consistency and teams are tactically outplaying us.
I think patience is called for as management get to grips with the issues. Encouragingly, a couple of good things have happened to give a bit of hope to keep the required patience. Chris Martin is back to much better form though he is still a work in progress. Also Duane Holmes is proving to be a real talent in mid-field. Add to this the development of some promising youngsters and it is not all doom and gloom. Bogle is a very promising player with outstanding ball skills and lots of energy. He needs to be coached in more composure at the end of his creative runs and he needs to shoot more. Max Lowe too is worthy of more games and he too needs coaching in composure. We are also benefiting from the return to fitness of Forsyth and I think the dead wood is beginning to show so that there are certain players who might be sold to make room for Rooney and maybe a couple of other to come in in the transfer window. It seems uncharitable to name the ones we need to shift and some of the - possibly still green - dead wood that still blossom. But why should I be charitable? TL will undoubtedly do well somewhere. I would like it to be at Derby but can we replace him? Josefzoon would be my first departure. He has skill but cannot apply it. Always makes the wrong decision. Mason Bennett after his recent fall from grace. Dowell can go back to Everton if that is contractually possible. Scott Malone could go as far as I think. Jamie Paterson has not exactly set anything on fire. Akechi Anya I just don’t get - one way or the other. George Thorne, a hugely likeable character if we could shift him. Tom Huddlestone and/or George Evans depending on what cover we get in January

And the return of Clarke, Shinnie plus whoever we can recruit with real talent and ability might add to Wayne Rooney’s presence to get us on a winning run. PLEASE. PLEASE. Keep the faith!