England Ram

Hi
Bournemouth supporter here and congratulations on the win yesterday. Should have been a draw but that's not what I came on here for.
In 2008-09 we were on zero points after 19 games - having started on -17. We were also under a transfer embargo, were struggling to pay players and had a  team with several on-league and out-of-contract recruits. For us the rest is History as Eddie Howe stepped up from youth team coach on 1st  January, lost his first 2 games but we stayed up on 46 points. 
OK! OK! I know it was League 2, and you don't want a Bournemouth history lesson. My point simply is - it can be done. Your home support may just help -it was pretty impressive yesterday.
Hope you manage it.
Good luck.

I’ll believe we can until it’s mathematically impossible. 
only 5 wins to go to catch up. 

I’ll believe we can until it’s mathematically impossible. 
only 5 wins to go to catch up. 

I’ll believe we can until it’s mathematically impossible. 
only 5 wins to go to catch up. 

I’ll believe we can until it’s mathematically impossible. 
only 5 wins to go to catch up. 

Done mate. Set up monthly as well. Seen a I spend a good part of my day here lurking and or making useless points it’s the least I can do. 
 
Thanks as always for your great work and absolute patience with the shower going on at the moment. 

Done mate. Set up monthly as well. Seen a I spend a good part of my day here lurking and or making useless points it’s the least I can do. 
 
Thanks as always for your great work and absolute patience with the shower going on at the moment. 

Done mate. Set up monthly as well. Seen a I spend a good part of my day here lurking and or making useless points it’s the least I can do. 
 
Thanks as always for your great work and absolute patience with the shower going on at the moment. 

Done mate. Set up monthly as well. Seen a I spend a good part of my day here lurking and or making useless points it’s the least I can do. 
 
Thanks as always for your great work and absolute patience with the shower going on at the moment. 

Done mate. Set up monthly as well. Seen a I spend a good part of my day here lurking and or making useless points it’s the least I can do. 
 
Thanks as always for your great work and absolute patience with the shower going on at the moment. 

Done mate. Set up monthly as well. Seen a I spend a good part of my day here lurking and or making useless points it’s the least I can do. 
 
Thanks as always for your great work and absolute patience with the shower going on at the moment. 

Morrison did him no favours at all yesterday..he often makes decent forward runs and is totally ignored..

Defensively Oppositions routinely overload us at his side both in open play and from set pieces and he is routinely beaten in the air or from a player coming in. 
He does an OK job, but is clearly the weak link, especially when the ball is played in over the top or from wide. 

Going forward he can be a bonus, but we use him so rarely sometimes it’s laughable. 
Yesterday was a prime example of him taking up progressive positions in space and being found 1 time out of 15 by our team.
This is not his fault in the attacking department because we rarely play the cross field pass and our centre backs are laboured in their passing. Some of our midfielders are also negative so he’s left doing nothing. 

Rinse and repeat. I’d go with these.
Bird by far the best and CKR needed from the start.
with Joswiak, I’m sure there’s a good player in there and I really want him to succeed at Derby but, he offers very little. 

Derby - Hey, here's our accounts. By the way, we used an alternate method involving amortisation.
EFL - Hmmmmmm. It's unusual, but fine, we'll sign off on them.
*Years Later*
EFL - Lol, changed our mind, now they aren't ok.
 
Derby - We've sold our stadium and will add the profit to our accounts.
EFL - We don't like that, but it's not against the rules. We disagree with the valuation of the stadium however.
Derby - OK. Here's a valuation from an independent company who provide a similar figure.
EFL - Nope, we don't agree with the professionals, we'll begin disciplinary action. 
 
Independent panel - Derby didn't do anything wrong.
EFL - Meh, what do you guys know. We will appeal with a new independent panel.
New independent panel - We believe a 100k fine is appropriate for Derby's wrongdoing.
EFL - Nah, we don't like that, let's appeal. Oh and let's also try and relegate them after the season is finished.
 
Derby - Hey, we've renewed Jack Marriott's contract.
EFL - OK.
*6 months later*
EFL - Changed our mind. Marriott is free to leave. And no, you can't sign anyone to replace him, Waghorn, or any of the other players who left.
*Months later*
Derby - Please, we don't have enough senior players to even field a team, just let us sign some.
EFL - *Sigh* Fine, but only 4 or 5. And no more than 4.5k a week! And if you re-sign players like Davies or Wisdom they will take up 1 of those spots. 
 
Derby - Hey we're having some injury problems and would like to use a couple of young lads, but they'll then count as senior players. Can you be a little lenient with this?
EFL - Lol no. 
 
 
I'm really relieved the EFL are trying to help us and make us work. It's really nice to know they have our back.

OK. Trying to be cool.
Not going to get carried away yet.
Breathe, be calm, it's only Nicko, and it's probably nothing.
 
 
 
 
EEEeeeeeIEIEIO.....

Allsop - 3  Awful for both goals, obviously for the second, but positioning and movement for the first also at fault  
Byrne - 6 Average. Would have had more of an impact if others had seen the space he was getting into. Defensively getting focused on at the back post again. 
Buchanan - 7
Jagielka - 8 Immense. Neither goals down to our centre backs who were great. 
Davies - 8 See Jags
Shinnie - 7 Broke up play well and closed down all game. 
Bird - 7.5 Did his job well and played some lovely forward passes. 
Morrison - 6 So frustrating to watch. Has obvious skill and influence on the team but infuriatingly slows the game down WAY more than he needs to. I get recycling the ball when nothing is on, but not looking for it and turning back without lifting your head up just winds me up!!! 
Knight - 9 I thought it was his best performance for us all season. Playing like that he’s premier league class. 
Jozwiak - 7 Worked really hard, retained the ball well, made so many runs and only once picked out it must be maddening for him. 
Lawrence - 7 Good goal and a threat, but drifted out the game when they got on top and another petulant display near the end. 

I was all up for a lord of the rings discussion thread....

Hi all,
Newcastle fan here. Been going to Uni of Derby for 2 years now (in my final year) and after hearing and reading what's went on at the club in the last few years I've grown a bit of a soft spot for DCFC. Saw that you were linked with Ashley taking over, now, I am aware that as a club you're probably in the worst state you've ever been in. Ever. In administration, a potential risk of going into liquidation, absolutely criminal that could happen to your club, as to me its still a good sized club with standing in English football. Ashley seems like a ticket out, financial stability. But, and I have to say after reading some of the posts on here which are terribly incorrect, the man is/was an utter parasite.
Where we were as a club before Ashley was probably where Spurs, West Ham are now. Promoted to the Premier League in 1993, finished 3rd, 6th, 2nd, 2nd, 4th, 3rd, 5th and 7th in the period before Ashley took over, regulars in Europe, played 3 seasons of Champions League football. Won nothing obviously, but we had genuine hope. Ashley takes over in 2007, within 2 years we're relegated. We bounce back due to the quality of the squad we had at the time, stay in the Premier League for another 6 seasons (3 of which were relegation battles) and get relegated again. The second relegation, we had a wage bill the size of a midtable PL club in the Championship and had Rafa Benitez in charge so we bounce straight back again. Since then we've been fighting relegation again, Rafa leaves due to no ambition at the club beyond staying up; his replacement summing up that ambition which even he is making an arse of.
Now I know it's rich to come on here and complain about doing nowt more than staying in the PL given your situation, but this is all relative. Our two promotions Ashley lucked out at the squad and managers present there at the time and we only had to get promoted because of beyond tragic management from Ashley in the first place.
The whole 'he's a good business man' and 'got Newcastle financially sound' is a myth. Part of £300m fee paid for the club from the consortium on Thursday will have partly been made up my interest free loans Ashley took out from the club; taking money out so to speak. Our commerical revenue was greater than Spurs, Everton and West Ham before Ashley took over, now clubs like Brighton & Hove Albion are millions ahead. Across his 14 years his net spend is +£10m which in the PL scheme of things is peanuts.
I see why you may want him, you'd probably take almost anyone and I don't blame yous for that. But he is not a good football club owner and the perception that he was good for us is so far wide of the mark is untrue. He has set us back years and this golden ticket we've been given will see that, as it'll be years until we're on a level footing with Spurs, Everton, West Ham and Villa.

Mike Ashley - 
We actually know who he is and can vouch for his net worth- check
Experience of running a football club - check 
Experience of getting a football club promoted multiple times - check 
Experience of running a football clubs finances and operations on a sound footing, proven over a prolonged period of time - check 
Has the proven finances to run the club with no danger of running out of cash - check 
Is not Mel Morris - check 
 
it’s a yes from me 

I completely disagree. Their response only strengthens my view that EFL is completely incompetent.
Firstly  - multiple occasions they've dodged questions and fall back on an argument that the current and potential future punishments seek to maintain the 'integrity' of the league. bullpoo. How is the integrity of the league being maintained when we're being forced to play a makeshift team full of academy rookies and retired pros? Its a minor miracle Rooney is doing the job he's doing. 
They completely disregard that the club has already been penalized to the point of extinction, and are still pushing for further sanctions which will only to serve to damage the supporters, the local community, and if we're lucky, new owners. The club is on its knees and all they can talk about is maintaining league integrity because 'its what the rules say' - they don't seem to grasp the issue that the rules are not fit for purpose in the first place. They also completely miss the point that our suspended 3 point penalty (for paying players 22 days late) was completely out of whack with what they agreed for Sheff Weds (and other clubs have got off scott free for the same offense in the past).
Also, this whole 'its the benefactor model which is wrong' cr@p needs to end. the EFL and its member clubs are in this financial predicament because the EFL are incompetent commercially, cannot negotiate a proper broadcasting deal, and have bent over and presented themselves to the EPL to take full advantage of. More regulations, such as the cost controls they're talking about, will only serve to broaden the gap between the EPL and EFL. Football either needs to stop being run as a business, or you let those who understand business run the football. You can't go either way.

I find it a very interesting position to be in. We as a fan base have wanted all sorts of people to run us from the local businessman to foreign oligarchs.
Regardless, we find ourselves in administration, in millions worth of debt, looking at the barrel of league 3 (lets not pretend by virtue of names that it is anything else).
Any person, organisation, consortium or whatever who has the accumin, money and desire to save this club, and get us out of the mess we are in and help us compete again has my backing. The responsibility for weeding out the chaff lays at the administrators door.
Hopefully whenever this does happen our fan base will be more realistic with where we are and what we can spend etc moving forward so we never end up like this again.

Absolutely none.
But we're adept on this forum at stitching a coat to a button...

I find it a very interesting position to be in. We as a fan base have wanted all sorts of people to run us from the local businessman to foreign oligarchs.
Regardless, we find ourselves in administration, in millions worth of debt, looking at the barrel of league 3 (lets not pretend by virtue of names that it is anything else).
Any person, organisation, consortium or whatever who has the accumin, money and desire to save this club, and get us out of the mess we are in and help us compete again has my backing. The responsibility for weeding out the chaff lays at the administrators door.
Hopefully whenever this does happen our fan base will be more realistic with where we are and what we can spend etc moving forward so we never end up like this again.