RAM1966

Steve Gibson's dog....

Would this be the same Simon Jordan that took Palace into administration in 2010?

I think they issued this to suppress the tabloid assertion f the points penalty

Don't let Derby City Council find out, they will be charging him Council tax on PP as a Second home

When I was buying a house in Derby, I went to see a lovely one. You couldn’t get in the front door because there was a sofa blocking it, I had to come in round the back. I couldn’t go down to check out the cellar, because there was a chest of draws blocking the entrance.  The bathroom was borderline falling apart, but she had a bidet in there. And my *God*, was the current owner proud of that bidet. I think she thought it would sell the house purely on its own ceramic merits.  Needless to say, I passed on that. Feel free to draw your own parallels or conclusions from that little story…

No it's not, he's the caretaker. Just like anybody who buys an house, eventually you sell it on or pass it on.  Selling it on is easier if it has a roof and windows left.

Well Wayne was sleeping at the training ground the other week so you never know 
 

Wouldn't sign the NDA after the sausage breakfast?

I wonder if Rooney asked Morris to sign his sponsor form for SoccerAid last week?

Good posts @duncanjwitham.  The problems we have now stem from the signings made when Clement was appointed and Mel took sole control.  We gambled on going up and it didn’t pay off.  It was a here and now approach rather than a strategic plan.  And moving between managers and style of play at a rate of knots.
From what we know of the meeting a few weeks back is that one of the things Mel said is that he couldn’t understand why managers wanted to sign players rather than give chances to our own talent.  When Johnson signed I seem to remember in the January time (?) Mel saying it was too good an opportunity to miss.  Three signings summed up the change in attitude - Shackell, Butterfield and Johnson.  Previously we’d never have signed a player for >£3M let alone a 32 year old centre half who’ll you’ll never get your money back on.  And when Hughes and Bryson were injured, previously we’d have dipped in the loan market (e.g. replacing Thorne with Mascarell).
The only manager who really aligned with Mel’s view of bringing your own through was Cocu.  He even said he’d rather loan a player for a year to let a player develop rather than buy someone, give them, a 3 or 4 year contract and end up losing the academy player because they don’t get a chance.
We can blame the EFL, Gibson or whoever for our current plight but ultimately that’s pointing the finger at the symptom.  The cause started a few years ago because we gambled and lost.

I repeat, he hasn't saved anything, he may have reduced his tax burden by donating to charity but the net position is that he's given money away, not received money.
Unless you think the charity then distributes money back into Mel's pocket of course?
You're point is either disingenuous or completely lacking in understanding.
End of conversation.

I don't think they necessarily need to be "decided by the manager". Obviously, the manager should have the final call on whether to sign them or not, but I don't think they always have to be involved from the start.  If Morris was dead-set on making this Derby-Way stuff work, it shouldn't really matter if the manager is involved anyway - everyone should be pulling in the same direction.  We should have a style of play in mind and be appointing managers that play that way, signing players that play that way, and developing academy players to fit too.
I genuinely have no idea who was in charge of transfers in those early Morris days, and I'm not sure it was one single person.  We seem to know Blackman was a Clement request.  We know Weimann and a few others were lined up (but not confirmed, obviously) before Clement was given the job.  There's various suggestions/allegations about Sam Rush's approach to transfers.  A few of the signings honestly feel like Morris either wanting to get the boys back together(Ince, Shackell, Wisdom), or basically have a new train set to play with (Johnson).  There was definitely a too-many-cooks problem somewhere there.
I have no idea what McClaren's job actually entails, but I think someone like him in charge of making sure the Derby-Way happens is absolutely what we need.  Someone that actually understands football, understands youth-development and is willing to make hard decisions ("we are *not* signing Malone when we have Buchanan and Lowe in line, you can have a loan for a year if we need it" etc).

Hard to believe this is the first ever thread on Mel Morris on this forum. 
He's got off lightly, hasn't he? 

I share the sadness too.
And apologies to @Sean. He's a great poster and I didn't mean to treat him harshly.
There's a lot on here demanding action from Mel without saying what he can do. I should have picked up on those rather than venting my spleen on Sean who was merely lamenting the situation.
God, we all want it to change so much.

Bit harsh here pal. I think the OP is just expressing his sentiment and sadness at our current state. I don’t think he has demanded action - but merely expressed his dismay and the need for something to change.
From the outside looking in - most of us surely share this sentiment. Equally, as we are on the outside most of us don’t have sufficient information available to us to begin to know what that right course of action is.
Maybe Mel Is playing the long game and maybe he’ll be proven right and we’ll be ok in the end but right now it’s hurting to see our great club in this horrible horrible place.

His popularity rating isn't rising is it.

I try and keep things as fair and balanced as I can, as I always do when it comes to Derby County, but tonight was completely symptomatic of where we are at as a club.
Mel, you've been a decent custodian for a number of the years that you have been our owner. It can't have been easy trying to compete with parachute payments and the like and trying to chase the dream with thousands of baying Derby fans full of ambition on your back. I get that. But tonight is a major indicator of the total mess we have now been left with as a club with the unorthodox methods you have employed to try and gain these advantages. Derby fans deserve some finality to the current issues and need to move on to save the club from the inevitable major decline approaching.
You simply can't expect a squad of mostly kids bolstered by some ageing free agents to compete in the toughest league in the world. By trying to plot and work around the financial fair play rules (as flimsy and pathetic as they may be) you have led this great club into an untenable position at the moment. Squad depth is non-existent and in the odd case that we can stay competitive in games our lack of options shines through when the going gets tough in the 75th minute. It is completely unfair on Wayne Rooney and his staff to be left in this position, and completely unfair on the players who have stuck by and are currently fighting for Derby County Football Club.
I understand I will personally never be in the position to walk away from a multi-million pound business so can't imagine the problems this would pose, and I have no doubts that you are doing what you can to keep things afloat, but with the club being a proud institution of Derbyshire, it's so heart-breaking to see that things are going the way they are because of what I feel are personal battles and arguments with members of the EFL board.
To the people of this forum, how much longer can things go on the way they are going without being challenged? We are dying by a thousands cuts in the hope that we may avoid a points deduction and stay up again by the skin of our teeth. In reality, every game that goes by is forcing a points deduction on us whether we like it or not. We can't keep trying to tread water like we are.

That is bang on the nail, I think this may demonstrate who has been picking the signings?  I'm asking this because what you pointed out, has happened under several managers not just one or 2.  This leads me into thinking that the players incoming may not have been decided by the manager. 
I suspect that's why Stevie Mac is back to perhaps advise Mel in this department, as Rooney 'claims' he has nothing to do with training, tactics or picking the team.

It probably comes as no surprise that I am no fan of Mel, I was initially, but, when I saw the players arriving for the fees they were and the salaries they were being paid, it immediately set alarms bells ringing with me.  That day was when we signed both Butterfield and Johnson in the final hours of the TW for a combined fee of around £10M.
Where has Mel failed:
Firstly he has wasted far too much money recruiting managers to then sack them, meaning he got the appointments wrong.  Each manager, wants to build there own team and as such it cost £10Ms each time we do this, as a complete rebuild from players to formations and style of play is required.  I was particularly unimpressed with the majority of his appointments, he should of gone for someone like Warnock which knows his way out of this division and proved it on numerous occasions.   
Clement was a poor choice a talented No2 but no experience in managing, let alone in the Championship and his football was negative and dire.  Pearson was an enigma and I think there was a bust up behind the scenes, well what else can you assume from the Derby Way comments?  McLaren was a great appointment but sadly it did not work out the second time, but, we played the best football under him since Jim Smiths era.  Rowett was a complete farce, dire boring negative football and thankfully we did manage to offload him to Stoke at a profit (Only for him to be sacked as I predicted to a Stoke fan I know).  Then there was the one season gamble with Lampard, who sold the talent to fund a 1 season loan strategy to get us up.  Firstly it was always going to be risky employing a rookie, secondly what if it failed we were going to be left with a depleted squad, which is exactly what happened when Frank selected the wrong team at Wembley.  Cocu another gamble, although the guys CV looked good, he could not gasp the pace of the English game and particularly in the Championship.  History is repeating itself with Rooney on the rookie front, to be fair though Wayne has become a quick wheeler and dealer under these tough embargo conditions we are under and I wish him well.    
Then there is the financial side of things, either he has appointed a poor CFO who has badly advised him on the finances, or Mel has ignored the sensible approach to keeping the books within the EFLs P&S limits, we have had to take the nuclear option to sell the ground to stay within the rules, it also appears we have been creative with our accounting policies.  I understand the last point is perfectly legal, yet the other 23 clubs in the league were using a differing method, now the EFL have revisited our methods and we are in this endless embargo and disciplinary process. 
There is also meddling Mel, the man who allegedly enters the dressing room at HT to administer to rift the players, cancelling training camps in the sun, flies drones around Moor Farm to allegedly spy on Nigel Pearson's training methods as was reported in a national newspaper.  This is not inspirational leadership, its overpowering and the fundamental reason why the teams performance dipped as the players did not take kindly to the interference.
The communications from the club has been nothing short of a disgrace, inviting a small selection of fans into a forum and making them sign NDAs was a grave error of judgement, the only thing to come out of it was a few sentences from Rams Trust and the more detailed version from Punjabi Rams that actually told us anything (Thanks Guys).  Rams trust assured us that all was well, yet a short time later we have another open letter to the board.  That's aged well then, it fills me with even less confidence than I had before!  
Which leads me to the ticket office debacle, its still closed, many older fans with no internet can't get tickets and are missing games.  Why on earth do we still have an unmanned ticket office that could be generating income for the club.  Maybe its because we are rolling in money and don't need it?
My view is that Mel has been far too hands on, not kept an eye on the balance sheet and gambled by spending far beyond the clubs means.  How the debts are parked; with Mel personally or against the club is immaterial, everything is going to have to go through the accounts and this is going to take years to put our house back in good order.   
However you dress it up, he's the man that appoints the people in the key positions to make the key decisions, he's made poor appointments, he's sanctioned the overspending at the club to the extent we no longer own the ground.  How anyone can defend his actions is beyond me, I suspect when the accounts are all filed and up to date, there are many more that are going to desert him.  I'm sorry but the buck stops at Mel's door and the whole club from top to bottom is nothing short of a shambles which smacks of sheer incompetence.  Can anyone think of a more embarrassing situation for a football club than we are in right now?

It probably comes as no surprise that I am no fan of Mel, I was initially, but, when I saw the players arriving for the fees they were and the salaries they were being paid, it immediately set alarms bells ringing with me.  That day was when we signed both Butterfield and Johnson in the final hours of the TW for a combined fee of around £10M.
Where has Mel failed:
Firstly he has wasted far too much money recruiting managers to then sack them, meaning he got the appointments wrong.  Each manager, wants to build there own team and as such it cost £10Ms each time we do this, as a complete rebuild from players to formations and style of play is required.  I was particularly unimpressed with the majority of his appointments, he should of gone for someone like Warnock which knows his way out of this division and proved it on numerous occasions.   
Clement was a poor choice a talented No2 but no experience in managing, let alone in the Championship and his football was negative and dire.  Pearson was an enigma and I think there was a bust up behind the scenes, well what else can you assume from the Derby Way comments?  McLaren was a great appointment but sadly it did not work out the second time, but, we played the best football under him since Jim Smiths era.  Rowett was a complete farce, dire boring negative football and thankfully we did manage to offload him to Stoke at a profit (Only for him to be sacked as I predicted to a Stoke fan I know).  Then there was the one season gamble with Lampard, who sold the talent to fund a 1 season loan strategy to get us up.  Firstly it was always going to be risky employing a rookie, secondly what if it failed we were going to be left with a depleted squad, which is exactly what happened when Frank selected the wrong team at Wembley.  Cocu another gamble, although the guys CV looked good, he could not gasp the pace of the English game and particularly in the Championship.  History is repeating itself with Rooney on the rookie front, to be fair though Wayne has become a quick wheeler and dealer under these tough embargo conditions we are under and I wish him well.    
Then there is the financial side of things, either he has appointed a poor CFO who has badly advised him on the finances, or Mel has ignored the sensible approach to keeping the books within the EFLs P&S limits, we have had to take the nuclear option to sell the ground to stay within the rules, it also appears we have been creative with our accounting policies.  I understand the last point is perfectly legal, yet the other 23 clubs in the league were using a differing method, now the EFL have revisited our methods and we are in this endless embargo and disciplinary process. 
There is also meddling Mel, the man who allegedly enters the dressing room at HT to administer to rift the players, cancelling training camps in the sun, flies drones around Moor Farm to allegedly spy on Nigel Pearson's training methods as was reported in a national newspaper.  This is not inspirational leadership, its overpowering and the fundamental reason why the teams performance dipped as the players did not take kindly to the interference.
The communications from the club has been nothing short of a disgrace, inviting a small selection of fans into a forum and making them sign NDAs was a grave error of judgement, the only thing to come out of it was a few sentences from Rams Trust and the more detailed version from Punjabi Rams that actually told us anything (Thanks Guys).  Rams trust assured us that all was well, yet a short time later we have another open letter to the board.  That's aged well then, it fills me with even less confidence than I had before!  
Which leads me to the ticket office debacle, its still closed, many older fans with no internet can't get tickets and are missing games.  Why on earth do we still have an unmanned ticket office that could be generating income for the club.  Maybe its because we are rolling in money and don't need it?
My view is that Mel has been far too hands on, not kept an eye on the balance sheet and gambled by spending far beyond the clubs means.  How the debts are parked; with Mel personally or against the club is immaterial, everything is going to have to go through the accounts and this is going to take years to put our house back in good order.   
However you dress it up, he's the man that appoints the people in the key positions to make the key decisions, he's made poor appointments, he's sanctioned the overspending at the club to the extent we no longer own the ground.  How anyone can defend his actions is beyond me, I suspect when the accounts are all filed and up to date, there are many more that are going to desert him.  I'm sorry but the buck stops at Mel's door and the whole club from top to bottom is nothing short of a shambles which smacks of sheer incompetence.  Can anyone think of a more embarrassing situation for a football club than we are in right now?

I actually have no problem with the managers he brought in sort from the fact none of them continued a style of play. For example, no one minded Rowett when we were 2nd in the league at Christmas. If we had then signed Warnock or Dyche etc we would have been able to move on from a style of play without ripping the team out. 
 
If we had gone from Mac to Cocu or Thomas Frank. We wouldn’t have been signing Butterfield Johnson Anya Blackman etc. We would have just signed players that complimented what we had. 
 
Unfortunately, every manager we have brought in wanted to rip the squad out and we ended up with Deadwood players that in all honesty we probably ruined their careers as well. 
 
I do think he should have constantly had scouts looking for the next manager who could have worked with the players we had rather than just reacting to the scenarios. 

Even that is a grey area.
If you see well run as giving it everything you can to try and get us to the next level then some people will think he did all he could.
If you see well run as following everything to the letter of the law and not living beyond our means then he has been an utter disaster.
 

It probably comes as no surprise that I am no fan of Mel, I was initially, but, when I saw the players arriving for the fees they were and the salaries they were being paid, it immediately set alarms bells ringing with me.  That day was when we signed both Butterfield and Johnson in the final hours of the TW for a combined fee of around £10M.
Where has Mel failed:
Firstly he has wasted far too much money recruiting managers to then sack them, meaning he got the appointments wrong.  Each manager, wants to build there own team and as such it cost £10Ms each time we do this, as a complete rebuild from players to formations and style of play is required.  I was particularly unimpressed with the majority of his appointments, he should of gone for someone like Warnock which knows his way out of this division and proved it on numerous occasions.   
Clement was a poor choice a talented No2 but no experience in managing, let alone in the Championship and his football was negative and dire.  Pearson was an enigma and I think there was a bust up behind the scenes, well what else can you assume from the Derby Way comments?  McLaren was a great appointment but sadly it did not work out the second time, but, we played the best football under him since Jim Smiths era.  Rowett was a complete farce, dire boring negative football and thankfully we did manage to offload him to Stoke at a profit (Only for him to be sacked as I predicted to a Stoke fan I know).  Then there was the one season gamble with Lampard, who sold the talent to fund a 1 season loan strategy to get us up.  Firstly it was always going to be risky employing a rookie, secondly what if it failed we were going to be left with a depleted squad, which is exactly what happened when Frank selected the wrong team at Wembley.  Cocu another gamble, although the guys CV looked good, he could not gasp the pace of the English game and particularly in the Championship.  History is repeating itself with Rooney on the rookie front, to be fair though Wayne has become a quick wheeler and dealer under these tough embargo conditions we are under and I wish him well.    
Then there is the financial side of things, either he has appointed a poor CFO who has badly advised him on the finances, or Mel has ignored the sensible approach to keeping the books within the EFLs P&S limits, we have had to take the nuclear option to sell the ground to stay within the rules, it also appears we have been creative with our accounting policies.  I understand the last point is perfectly legal, yet the other 23 clubs in the league were using a differing method, now the EFL have revisited our methods and we are in this endless embargo and disciplinary process. 
There is also meddling Mel, the man who allegedly enters the dressing room at HT to administer to rift the players, cancelling training camps in the sun, flies drones around Moor Farm to allegedly spy on Nigel Pearson's training methods as was reported in a national newspaper.  This is not inspirational leadership, its overpowering and the fundamental reason why the teams performance dipped as the players did not take kindly to the interference.
The communications from the club has been nothing short of a disgrace, inviting a small selection of fans into a forum and making them sign NDAs was a grave error of judgement, the only thing to come out of it was a few sentences from Rams Trust and the more detailed version from Punjabi Rams that actually told us anything (Thanks Guys).  Rams trust assured us that all was well, yet a short time later we have another open letter to the board.  That's aged well then, it fills me with even less confidence than I had before!  
Which leads me to the ticket office debacle, its still closed, many older fans with no internet can't get tickets and are missing games.  Why on earth do we still have an unmanned ticket office that could be generating income for the club.  Maybe its because we are rolling in money and don't need it?
My view is that Mel has been far too hands on, not kept an eye on the balance sheet and gambled by spending far beyond the clubs means.  How the debts are parked; with Mel personally or against the club is immaterial, everything is going to have to go through the accounts and this is going to take years to put our house back in good order.   
However you dress it up, he's the man that appoints the people in the key positions to make the key decisions, he's made poor appointments, he's sanctioned the overspending at the club to the extent we no longer own the ground.  How anyone can defend his actions is beyond me, I suspect when the accounts are all filed and up to date, there are many more that are going to desert him.  I'm sorry but the buck stops at Mel's door and the whole club from top to bottom is nothing short of a shambles which smacks of sheer incompetence.  Can anyone think of a more embarrassing situation for a football club than we are in right now?

It probably comes as no surprise that I am no fan of Mel, I was initially, but, when I saw the players arriving for the fees they were and the salaries they were being paid, it immediately set alarms bells ringing with me.  That day was when we signed both Butterfield and Johnson in the final hours of the TW for a combined fee of around £10M.
Where has Mel failed:
Firstly he has wasted far too much money recruiting managers to then sack them, meaning he got the appointments wrong.  Each manager, wants to build there own team and as such it cost £10Ms each time we do this, as a complete rebuild from players to formations and style of play is required.  I was particularly unimpressed with the majority of his appointments, he should of gone for someone like Warnock which knows his way out of this division and proved it on numerous occasions.   
Clement was a poor choice a talented No2 but no experience in managing, let alone in the Championship and his football was negative and dire.  Pearson was an enigma and I think there was a bust up behind the scenes, well what else can you assume from the Derby Way comments?  McLaren was a great appointment but sadly it did not work out the second time, but, we played the best football under him since Jim Smiths era.  Rowett was a complete farce, dire boring negative football and thankfully we did manage to offload him to Stoke at a profit (Only for him to be sacked as I predicted to a Stoke fan I know).  Then there was the one season gamble with Lampard, who sold the talent to fund a 1 season loan strategy to get us up.  Firstly it was always going to be risky employing a rookie, secondly what if it failed we were going to be left with a depleted squad, which is exactly what happened when Frank selected the wrong team at Wembley.  Cocu another gamble, although the guys CV looked good, he could not gasp the pace of the English game and particularly in the Championship.  History is repeating itself with Rooney on the rookie front, to be fair though Wayne has become a quick wheeler and dealer under these tough embargo conditions we are under and I wish him well.    
Then there is the financial side of things, either he has appointed a poor CFO who has badly advised him on the finances, or Mel has ignored the sensible approach to keeping the books within the EFLs P&S limits, we have had to take the nuclear option to sell the ground to stay within the rules, it also appears we have been creative with our accounting policies.  I understand the last point is perfectly legal, yet the other 23 clubs in the league were using a differing method, now the EFL have revisited our methods and we are in this endless embargo and disciplinary process. 
There is also meddling Mel, the man who allegedly enters the dressing room at HT to administer to rift the players, cancelling training camps in the sun, flies drones around Moor Farm to allegedly spy on Nigel Pearson's training methods as was reported in a national newspaper.  This is not inspirational leadership, its overpowering and the fundamental reason why the teams performance dipped as the players did not take kindly to the interference.
The communications from the club has been nothing short of a disgrace, inviting a small selection of fans into a forum and making them sign NDAs was a grave error of judgement, the only thing to come out of it was a few sentences from Rams Trust and the more detailed version from Punjabi Rams that actually told us anything (Thanks Guys).  Rams trust assured us that all was well, yet a short time later we have another open letter to the board.  That's aged well then, it fills me with even less confidence than I had before!  
Which leads me to the ticket office debacle, its still closed, many older fans with no internet can't get tickets and are missing games.  Why on earth do we still have an unmanned ticket office that could be generating income for the club.  Maybe its because we are rolling in money and don't need it?
My view is that Mel has been far too hands on, not kept an eye on the balance sheet and gambled by spending far beyond the clubs means.  How the debts are parked; with Mel personally or against the club is immaterial, everything is going to have to go through the accounts and this is going to take years to put our house back in good order.   
However you dress it up, he's the man that appoints the people in the key positions to make the key decisions, he's made poor appointments, he's sanctioned the overspending at the club to the extent we no longer own the ground.  How anyone can defend his actions is beyond me, I suspect when the accounts are all filed and up to date, there are many more that are going to desert him.  I'm sorry but the buck stops at Mel's door and the whole club from top to bottom is nothing short of a shambles which smacks of sheer incompetence.  Can anyone think of a more embarrassing situation for a football club than we are in right now?

Doesn’t matter which accounts the embargo charges relate to. We can wipe the charges by filing the relevant accounts in our preferred  form. Problem we’ve got I think is EFl are saying: ‘well we’ve looked at your resubmitted accounts and we don’t accept them as compliant with the accounting standards. So accept a penalty OR submit them as final and we’ll raise formal charges against you.
 
 I think that’s how all this works and what is probably going on.
 
I think it’s likely we’ve filed accounts based on a new amortisation profile that is not straight line but which is favourable to our P&S position. And that Mel is saying: ‘ I’ve got accountants lining up saying these accounts reflect FRS 102, so bog off with your points deduction. 
 
problem Mel has of course is, even if he’s right, he doesn’t want further proceedings because they make a sale difficult and they could go on for a long time 
The EFl are going to have to change the rules to require straight line depreciation I think. The LAP decision didn’t say you need to use straight line. It said our old version did not reflect the standard