ilkleyram

2 hours ago, Brailsford Ram said:

There's a lot on here being said by posters who never make a contribution or show an interest in the Academy Forum on here. The regular posters on there show an interest, watch the games and what they have to say about the academy is far more informed than what is being said on this thread. Unless you know a bit about what is happening in the academy stick to the first team or alternatively start watching the academy sides a bit more before giving the rest of us your 'informed' opinions. The academy is regarded as an asset and the recent appointments in terms of recruitment and management indicate it will continue to be regarded as such by the ownership.

It was due to the input of a lot of academy players who were thrown in at the deep end that our club was not relegated on the pitch but because of the administrative failures of the Morris regime. The academy has never let us down.

I agree with much of this and especially with your last sentence. I think you could argue even more strongly - that the reason we still have a club to support is because the sale of academy players gave us cash at vital moments to keep us going during the administration process never mind the players that allowed us to field a competitive first team. Last season’s under 23 results were a direct consequence and just sad to see. The players must have been disheartened by season’s end.

But it does make it strange that we have moved on - I presume forced rather than voluntary - one of the architects of the academy in Darren Wassall. Nothing wrong with that if we’ve brought in someone we think is better, or wanting to go in a different direction, but I’m still not clear what that different direction actually is.

7 minutes ago, Magicman said:

Wildsmith & Cashin are the only two must keeps for me. 

What’s happened to NML and Rooney since June 10th?

8 hours ago, i-Ram said:

Sorry, possibly my fault but that old duffer Brailsford started it 😉

Lets get back on track. I suggested last night, after a good few beers, that I was an anti-Warne’r - that’s not entirely correct. I was against his appointment, I am not keen on his tactics, and I would rather listen to 5 hours of the Spice Girls, than 5 minutes of his pre/post game analyses.
However, he should be given this season (by me, and others who have similar doubts) to prove himself to be a better coach/manager than we have him down for. So come on Paul Warne!  Prove me wrong, buy some decent players, forge a decent attractive team, and get us promoted in style such that our next season in the Championship will be a very successful and competitive one too.
Time to start being a Cox.

I can’t wait to see your description of a manager you’re really anti, good few beers or not 😉

Mendez-Laing/Guatamala might be the latest addition 

5 minutes ago, Will Hughes Hair said:

It’s in the definition of good people. Which is apparently people that can work with the management team.

How is that being defined?  In depth psychological analysis and profiling? How is that possible over such a large data set?

Or is it based on a ten minute conversation with Warne?

Every organisation, including yours I would suspect, will seek to recruit people with the appropriate skills and who will fit into the culture of the organisation, including working with the management team. That doesn’t mean they have to like the management team (or their colleagues) nor does it mean that they won’t challenge the status quo. It does mean that they will do so in the ‘right’ way ie without causing problems. In football parlance without upsetting the dynamics of the dressing room. Christiano Ronaldo might be an example. Great footballer, crap employee that ten Hag moved on as quickly as possible. Can’t blame Warne for seeking to avoid recruiting people who might have that impact.

As to how he does it I have no idea. My bet would be that he starts with the positions he wants to fill, identifies with his recruitment team the possible candidates, checks whether they’re interested in coming to Derby and if they are, hands their agents over to Stephen Pearce to do the deal, or not.  Somewhere in that process he will do two things which we all do when we’re recruiting which is talk to the person concerned informally or formally, and talk to other people in the trade about what the potential employee is like as a character and try to work out whether they’ll fit in, or give up when the going is tough or cause trouble. If you’re in recruitment you must do that every day of the week. I would imagine that Warne is doing a lot of it now.

47 minutes ago, Will Hughes Hair said:

A final thought.

I also worry about Warne’s comments about recruiting good people. I currently head up recruitment in a nationally recognisable organisation. One of the hardest challenges that I face is Team Leaders telling me they know what their teams need. And in short that means people who sound and look like themselves. That promotes a monoculture of thought that is not healthy.

Strong leaders should be able to involve and include a diverse range of thoughts and opinions to drive performance.

I would worry more if Warne (and your company) said that he was looking to recruit bad people.

 I’m glad Warne is looking to recruit good people. He’s defined in a number of different interviews the type of footballers that he wants to recruit and said that he wants footballers who fit into the dressing room culture and the type of people who would make us proud as fans to have them represent our club apart from, or as well as, having the footballing attributes that he’s seeking to develop the team and its style. He’s said on a number of occasions that he wants and likes leaders in the dressing room - people like Curtis who could never be described as a yes man.

 I can’t for the life of me see how any Derby fan could disagree with what he’s said. Or be worried about it. Whether he’s successful in being able to recruit to those standards we wait to see.

2 hours ago, RoyMac5 said:

Errrr...?

Mrs Hourihane looks a bit thin

1 hour ago, Chellaston Ram said:

Is he in Blackpool?

Paris - the Eiffel Tower paddling pool

Gary Mills

1) take the wine out of the freezer. Frozen wine is not pleasant. 2) tell your wife eating kebabs in bed with face mask and ear plugs is not a good look 3) check spare bed is made up

3 hours ago, Foreveram said:

Met @angieram and her husband Brian through here and we usually have a chat at away games, same with @B4ev6is and his dad.

It would be nice to meet other forum members at away games, maybe we could all wear a red rose.😂

Not red.  B4 will never talk to you again.

13 hours ago, RoyMac5 said:

It’ll probably worry some that he’s doing this in front of a sign advertising D and D recruit. Is his agent sending a message? 

Neil Armstrong died in 2012.  Time to move on I think.

9 hours ago, CBRammette said:

Was looking forward to this. Love Fozzy but Stoke? Would love to hear how that discussion went? Even if it has to be a pre-season friendly cannot think of a fixture less likely to make me travel from Cambridgeshire. Throw in a seat between Johnny Russell and Gorgeous George and I may consider it. But Stoke????? How do we think any fans they have there will add to the atmosphere and celebration of Fozzy? 

You could just buy a ticket and support fozzy even if you don’t go though

And Stoke were good enough opposition for Colin Boulton

1 hour ago, Zag zig said:

Biggest gate I suspect was Ted McMinn testimonial, when there was no segregation and Rangers fans pretty much took over. Wonder what the receipts were for that? Different player and situation but shows with the right fixture, you can draw the crowds.

Good shout that.

38 minutes ago, David said:

It does, and that the committee chooses an opponent weighing up the costs. 

You only have Johnny Russell playing outside the UK, few grand to fly him over first class and a hotel should not be a major issue.

Surely the club could cover those costs, assuming they are not included in FFP submissions.

Also the follow up tweet suggests it needs to be a competitive game, why? Testimonials are not meant to be competitive in any way.

That suggests it will be our first team squad, that's just not what testimonials are.

Sounds like a standard pre season friendly where we give him the ticket profits. I'm not sure that would fill Pride Park.

Perhaps the rules and regulations (including tax rules) forbid the club getting involved in anything other than lending the stadium out for the event. Perhaps Fozzy and his committee decided this is what they wanted to do as his testimonial (not yours or mine). Perhaps they didn’t want to take a financial risk.

Anyway I’m going. And we won’t fill PP anyway - we didn’t fill it for Shaun Barker and we didn’t fill the BBG for Alan Hinton (the biggest testimonial gate in my lifetime) - even though it will be a reasonably competitive game as preseason goes. I would much prefer to watch that than a constructed fun eleven match with joke penalties and 30 substitutions.

12 minutes ago, David said:

I like Leigh, but he's way off with his follow up tweet on how it's meant to be competitive for both clubs.

That is not true at all, it's a game where his team mates come back, have a kick about and raise money.

Feels like Forsyth has been shafted with this.

Dundee v 13/14 team would have made a lot of sense, this just stinks.

Stinks of what, though? The first tweet makes it clear that all the club does is provide the facilities and that the decision about opponents is with Fozzy and his committee. Perhaps Fozzy wanted it played this way - get it out of the way at the start of the season/no great organising to do/warm weather/Saturday afternoon kick off/local opponents etc.  If you get players coming from all over the country/world (Johnny Russell) then presumably there’s expenses to meet and greater financial risk never mind the problems of finding a midweek/night date.

14 minutes ago, Needlesh said:

Good luck to them.

My step-daughter will qualify as a junior doctor this year. She currently earns more per shift as a hospital cleaner than she will as a doctor in her first year.

The world is on it's arse.

Good luck to them and your step daughter too. Well done her. Luckily I guess that her earning potential over her career in either the Nhs or privately or both, vastly outweighs that of most hospital cleaners. 

12 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

I'm struggling to see the point you are trying to make?

I apologise 

The authorities - police and football - both regularly bang on about hooliganism and racism. Fans are regularly banned for both. And two examples in the last few days when Knollsy (whether for good reason or not is immaterial) is seen fighting at a football ground and is, so far, not arrested but largely lauded for doing so; and Vinicius jr reacts to what appears to be the final straw of many incidents of racial abuse this season and ends up being sent off, the reaction of the Spanish authorities is to blame him for not turning up to two meetings.

I feel there are elements of hypocrisy at work in both. 

Not criticising the guy(s) at all for fighting back given that they didn't appear to have started anything, but am I the only one to be surprised by the hypocritical nature of the authorities - football and police - in all this? 

Here's a guy who has been widely named and identified in the press, and lauded, for fighting in a football ground, never mind the circumstances - an element usually ignored by those in charge.  But he has not (yet) had his collar fingered, nor threatened with a lifetime ban from all football grounds or whatever the going rate is nowadays.

All this shortly before Vinicius Jr was sent off for retaliating to a choke hold from a (white) Valencia player having been subject to continuous racial abuse by the crowd, the Valencia player receiving no punishment even though the choke hold was clear on replays and sustained rather than momentary

5 minutes ago, kevinhectoring said:

don't follow your logic. Nor do I understand why anyone would say it will take time when we might well have gone up this year if a red card or so had fallen differently 

Sooner the better   don't know how that can be debatable 

I’m not sure I follow your logic either. Every season for every club since I first watched footy could have been different were it not for a ref decision here or there or a save or a missed open goal. Twas ever thus and ever will be.

The plain fact is that we weren’t good enough to go up this year. We challenged but fell short. The proof lies in the table. Lots of reasons for that chief amongst them in my view - you may not agree - the effects of the financial and disciplinary issues we’ve faced. Our club has been decimated from the academy upwards and Clowes, rightly i think, decided after his internal review that the issues on and off the pitch needed time to fix, thus the 4 year contract for his chosen manager and the 5 years to get established in the championship goal.  They go hand in hand.

I suspect that he runs his, very successful, business in the same way. Building (excuse the pun) it over time. He’s not the type, it seems to me (and I’ve never met him) to chuck a load of money at something for instant success, rather he wants to build a club on firmer foundations over time, thus 4 years and 5 years. Logical. And, in my view, sensible, especially given what went before him. But demanding patience from those of us that watch. If we go up next year then great; if it’s the year after then not as good but so be it.

9 hours ago, kevinhectoring said:

I’m impatient, sorry. I’ve now been to Fleetwood - it wasn’t on my bucket list - and the novelty has worn off. And I have no desire to go to Stevenage because tho I have no idea what style of football they play I think I’ll find it even more tiresome than driving on the A1. 
 

I can’t remember exactly what words were used, but I wonder whether Clowes’ squidgy statement was off the cuff or premeditated. I’d say it’s purely an exercise in managing the expectations of the fan base, and it enables us to fail to get promotion soon and not regard it as what it is: failure. We should not be in this division and going to quaint grounds to sit in crickety stands to watch indifferent footie on a bad pitch in a cold wind loses its appeal quite quickly. MORE TO THE POINT, if we fail to get promotion soon, we risk being seen as a div 1 club by all and sundry, and we ourselves risk falling into that state of mind, and it is a state of mind that will keep us there. We lose our best players (bye bye Jason, Eiran) and we find it harder and harder to recruit anything but clodhoppers.

(It’s particularly irritating at the same time to see our noisy neighbours cling on in the PL - there is a prospect they may be there as long as we could be in div 1)

So putting aside whether Warne was the right choice - I think he’s just about OK, no more - imo the length of his contract was bat$hit crazy. 
 

So yes, Mr Clowes’ statement can be interpreted in different ways - that was his intention. But I wish he’d settled on a manager who would take a 3 year appointment and had said, in words of one syllable: our goal is to be back up in three (3) years

 

I don’t think any of us want to stay in this division particularly so no need to apologise for thinking that way. Having said that I enjoyed last season and I’ll more than likely enjoy the one coming too. There haven’t been too many over the last 60 years that I haven’t enjoyed.

But we are, whether we like it or not, a league 1 club and we will be for a least a season yet.  Other clubs with equal history, with good support have been in this division for several seasons - ipswich, Sunderland, leeds, the neighbours, Bolton, Wednesday if they lose at wembley, to name but a few.  All those are making their way back and so therefore can we. And prospective players will see that as well as the facilities and the crowd. We’ll be an attractive employer.  But current players will go just as they’ve always done. It’s the nature of the beast.
 It’s the reason I think a 4 year contract for Warne and team was right - it was a Clowes message saying this will take time. It might also have been all Warne would accept and Clowes wanted him enough, but none of us know that. It was also the message you wanted, effectively. He was appointed part the way through the season with the aim of getting us established in the championship. If we’d gone up this year we would have been slightly ahead of schedule. Go up in the next two seasons and we’re on schedule.

2 hours ago, kevinhectoring said:

Well Clowes has told us it’s a 5 year plan to be promoted. 4 years left. I’d guess Warne will repeat his statement that anything but top 6 is failure - the only question is whether Owen will be permitted to ask him. Top 2 is a challenging target. That’s why missing top 6 this year was such a disappointment 

I don’t think Clowes has said exactly that. He said that he wanted us to be established in the Championship in 5 years, which is subtly different. To be established imo means that we have to be in at least our second championship season in (now) 4 years time.  Clowes opinion may not be the same as mine.

That does mean (if you take my definition) that we don’t have to be promoted this season but would have to be promoted by the end of 24/25 to meet that goal.

We fans may still have to be patient. Given the number of new players we’ll probably need it could take more than one window. It’ll almost certainly mean that we might not get a fast start to the season. I’m old enough to remember that there were more than a few mutterings about Brian after his first full season; I can certainly remember muttering about Jim until the team clicked 15 games in - and neither of them had to deal with transfer windows or a club coming out of considerable financial restraint. Performance isn’t always linear season on season. 

6 hours ago, Alty_Ram said:

Phew ! It's OK, I think I've managed to rescue it. The holiday police will never know 😉

I thought Paris was abroad 

45 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

It doesn't matter if White was fouled or not. He's automatically given a yellow card. In the loss to Peterborough, White was tripped in the opposition box. The result? Goal kick to Bolton and a yellow card for White due to arguing.

Blimey. That match v Bolton at Peterborough passed me by 🤣🤣😉