Derby County v Portsmouth: "All depends on..." - Fan pundit assesses Paul Warne selection dilemma | OneFootball

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Football League World

·16 September 2023

Derby County v Portsmouth: "All depends on..." - Fan pundit assesses Paul Warne selection dilemma

Article image:Derby County v Portsmouth: "All depends on..." - Fan pundit assesses Paul Warne selection dilemma

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more...

Tyreece John-Jules joined Derby County on a six-month loan deal from Arsenal with a week of the transfer window remaining.


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John-Jules was Paul Warne's tenth new recruit of the summer, and joined the likes of Callum Elder, Sonny Bradley and Elliot Embleton, who also penned deals with the Rams.

The club's shrewd recruitment rendered them as one of the favourites to win promotion back to the Championship at the start of the season, however, so far, the side have left fans wanting a little bit more.

Defeat in their curtain-raiser at home to Wigan Athletic was quickly followed up with a resounding victory in Burton. Derby's home struggles then continued as defeat to Oxford United loomed. Their only win at Pride Park so far came in the following week, as they scraped past Fleetwood Town.

After that, contests with some of the league's heavy hitters loomed. County managed to steal all three points against Peterborough United but failed to repeat that feat when travelling to Bolton.

Since arriving in Derby, John-Jules has been limited to cameos from the bench, however, that may change over the coming weeks.

Tyreece John-Jules' career so far

John-Jules has struggled for minutes throughout his career and has been on the move frequently.

The 22-year-old Englishman has been at Arsenal since childhood and played at various levels of the academy setup. He has never featured for the first team due to his abundance of different loan moves.

An unsuccessful spell at Lincoln City gave John-Jules his first taste of senior football before he started to improve at Doncaster Rovers. Moves to Blackpool and Sheffield Wednesday came and went before he most recently joined Ipswich Town last summer.

He played 21 times in Kieran McKenna's relentless promotion-winning machine, netting thrice.

What are Derby fans saying about Tyreece John-Jules?

A number of Derby fans are calling for John-Jules to be given a chance from the start, so FLW's Derby County Fan Pundit, Shaun Woodward, gave us his opinion on whether the young forward should be in the starting XI.

"I think it all depends on how Conor Washington has come back from the international break," he said. He obviously played a half in one game, and then nearly 90 minutes in the second game. So it depends on how fresh he is and how he looks in training.

"I would probably stick with what has been tried and tested so far. I think they work quite well together, Washington and Waghorn, but this might be a good opportunity to give Tyreece [John-Jules] a start considering Washington has effectively played two games during the last week."

He added: "Unless he’s injured, or not quite up to 100%, I think he’ll [Paul Warne] stick with Washington, but I wouldn’t be against Tyreece starting. It would be nice to freshen it up a little bit and interesting to see."

Will Tyreece John-Jules start?

It is quite hard to predict whether John-Jules will start or not when his side face Portsmouth tomorrow afternoon.

Warne may deem it necessary to take the risk after Washington's busy international break, however, he may also find value in starting the Northern Irishman and letting the Arsenal loanee try and impact proceedings from the bench whilst he adapts to his new surroundings.

Who he goes for will offer some insight into the importance he places on the duo.

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