dabber

I'm a bit surprised he signed in the end. I can only put it down to the fact that for the first time in his career he has joined a club crazier than he is. Obviously has confused him.

Mel comes out of it, albeit not squeaky clean, at least with not enough dirt on him to pile in on him (and consequently us) going forward. At least not based on this documentary. At least not for any outsiders. 
However, as a Derby fan, we know Mel is a smart man. You can't tell me that he didn't know what he was getting into when he engaged with Samuelson. He had this fake Chinese takeover, although how much he knew of Mr.X's proposed criminality I'm not sure and then followed it up with the BZI take over - again involving Samuelson. I'm led to believe he didn't have anything to do with the Erik Alonso takeover, but there were many similarities to things mentioned in the documentary and that proposed charade. I wouldn't at all be surprised if he potentially had a hand in that one too.  
Mel Morris is doing almost everything I expected we would be protected from by having a local investor. I thought at the very least we would be in safe hands during his tenure and he would only sell to someone he trusted. I don't buy that anymore. I can't buy that anymore, because Samuelson was a known entity and yet he's given him two, potentially three, chances to sell our club to his clients. I mean, a middle-eastern news outlet knew he was dodgy as duck and decided to set this whole thing up. For me, Mel can't claim not to know what he was about and what getting into business with him meant. I think that's the thing that saddens me the most. 
I know most of us on here knew Samuelson was a bit of a deviant, but not to such levels. He still claims to be above the law despite openly discussing fake passports and hiding criminality from the EFL to get them in charge to clean money. It's absolutely outrageous. It's obvious that people in the game, however, did. Ultimately, the selling owner doesn't care as long as he gets his money and it's the fans that pay. I think that's where I am with Mel at the moment. The future of this club is in the hand's of a desperate man willing to accept the advances of anyone that will give him and escape route. We are simply voiceless in this transaction and as a fan base really can only hope that the EFL won't allow anyone too crooked into our club. 
On another note, I thought the comments about not wanting to see the club on a steady decline in the documentary was ironic considering the situation we find ourselves in. He bought the club in a good position. I know that comment was a couple of seasons ago now, but even if would have to admit he's selling the club in a far worst state than when he bought in. 

The whole documentary is on YouTube now: 
 

Curtis was captain when my two girls were mascots, he said to them in the tunnel; "I always head the ball as we run out... but if your too cool for that don't worry..."
Top guy! Maybe him staying is the watershed?

I've met a few "highly successful" businessmen (not mel i hasten to add) and the one common characteristic was hubris. All were utterly convinced of their own greatness.
I think business, like life in general, throws up a fair few black swans - people who just happen to get lucky, but cannot see it as that, it has to be their own brilliance.
Mel made his money through Candy Crush. Now there are thousands of game apps written, 99.9% of which disappear into obscurity and make nobody anything, but if you happen to have picked the right one........bingo!
But if Mel misunderstood huge good fortune for his own business acumen and then applies the same techniques to dcfc, he would probably end up hugely bewildered by the results (these were HIS decisions and he's brilliant) and full of regret.
Which is exactly how he sounded by the bits reported on the fans forum.

He was promoted from CFO (a job he held since 2013) prior to that though - in that role, he would have had to sign off both (as well as Mel)

We’re at a brilliant place in the Custard Factory in Digbeth called Chase and Counters. It’s a board game bar so we’re playing Scrabble and their beers on tap are top notch. I’m having two halves, both Deyas - a Steady Rolling Man and Magazine Cover. I’ve only got into Deya recently but all the beers I’ve tried have been excellent. First couple were strong DIPAs and TIPAs but these are much more sessionable but still v tasty.
 

Someone had to post it...
 

You can't have a Covid outbreak if you have no squad to spread it.
 

Mel’s comments re the academy are contradictory to what has gone on during his tenure.
We sold Hughes for a pittance to fund a Dad’s Army brigade under Rowett.
Max Lowe was breaking through under Mac 2 then fell completely out of favour under Rowett and Lampard.
If Mel wasn’t happy, why did he back those two to bring in a bunch of ageing players on high wages?
And when he finally looked to go back to square one with Phillip Cocu, he immediately saddled him with Wayne Rooney and pulled the rug from underneath him.
I struggle to understand how somebody acting in the best interests of Derby could do such an appalling job given where we were in 2013-14, 2014-15 and the funds that were at his disposal. There is no malice on Mel’s part, just sheer incompetence and lack of planning/organization throughout his tenure.

Excellent post. We'll never know how youth players introduced to the team between 2017-19 would have fared & therefore those who point at Rawson, Guy etc as League 2 players now miss the point. Players can develop & improve in different environments & are more likely to stay at a higher level if they have been exposed to that quality of football at an early age. Unfortunately too few of our youth prospects were & when compared with the bang average journeymen we brought in on high wages, you wonder exactly where the quality drop off was.
Therefore I agree to some extent with Mel's criticism of the lack of youth exposure to the first team - what I can't understand then is why he waited until August 2019 to appoint a manager with a proven track record of developing youth. Whilst I accept the Academy model needed some years to perfect, hiring managers like Rowett & Lampard who were solely fixated on achieving success made absolutely no sense whatsoever. Their recruitment not unsurprisingly was overt short-termism - transfers on which Mel himself signed off on directly or indirectly. It was a total mismatch of strategic plan & personnel and frankly ridiculous.
Going forward, the Academy model is probably the best chance of success given a) the closing of the cheap EU footballer loophole exploited so well by Brentford, Leeds & Norwich following Brexit, b) the financial buying power of relegated Prem clubs with parachute payments & c) the large amount of kids leaving bloated Premiership academies for game time. What I'm not comfortable with though is the en masse introduction of youth players simply because the club is in such a mess that it has no choice - that smacks of 2002-03 rather than a deliberate plan like Cocu's or Clough's integration of Hughes/Hendrick/O'Brien ten years ago.

Hindsight is beautiful to say that's what we should have done those years, to stop the current situation.
But at the time of playoff pushes if we had a squad of 13 or 14 'experienced' players and the rest made up of Jamie Hanson's, Farrend Rawson's and Callum Guy's, the Manager and Mel would have been on the end of similar abuse to now. 
Again, you can't just chuck them in because they are young and cheap wages. The good ones all got minutes.
Will Hughes played 165 games for us by the time he was 22 cause he was good enough. 
Jeff Hendrick played 196 games for us by 23/24 because he was good enough.
 
 
 
 

Digestive biscuits and a mug of 'builders' tea.

The Academy comment is very odd. Morris bought in an untried ‘name’ (Lampard) and allowed him to spunk millions on average (at best) players, and also loaned 3 youngsters from other clubs obstructing a pathway for our own, and then he sacked Cocu who had much success in Holland bringing youngsters through, and who was giving our youngsters lots of game time. Supposedly he still owes Cocu and Co. massive compensation for terminating their contracts. You couldn’t make it up really.

The DLF poached some of them in anticipation of a footy season!

One Day Cup sounds about how long our campaign will last.

That could be a lot worse though - you could be the mate who got talked into it...

Was this new training kit ordered by Philip Cocu before he left?

Well either way, he has gone

I read it as:

Thanks all, managed to put a few of these to him!
Can confirm Igor is as legendary and terrifying as ever. But he still loves this club as much as he did when he wore the shirt. He also loves a cigarette, the genius.

Serb, Bosnian or Kosavan.
Snog, marry, avoid.

Sadly Derby need to have wisdom to consider keeping Wisdom, and going by last season's debacle I don't see any hope that Wayne's last couple of neurons will be firing anytime soon

can anyone remember when supporting Derby was just about watching football