TuffLuff

Yes I thought the MM bit was most interesting, I do hope we do end up hearing a bit more from his side. Although the idea he was sceptical yet still willingness to work with Kirchner to agree a sale of his club seems a bit of a stretch to me. I’ve got to be honest I just don’t think it’s a great article though. There’s a pretty obvious ‘joining of dots’ here that isn’t addressed in that whether its the supporters groups, MM, Garry Cook, The EFL, the Administrators or Stretford , none of them take responsibility for what they nearly did to Derby County. No one goes ‘we got this wrong and we added to the months of limbo for Derby County fans who didn’t know whether they would have a club by the of the season’, and I think it borders on disgraceful from those who fell for Kirchner hook, line and sinker and they all seemingly pop up in this article without much criticism. It’s also poor that the article has no reference to the fans and what we were going through because of Kirchner’s actions I also find it poor that supposedly Preston’s board are unsure about Kirchner but seemingly do not raise any alarm bells to the EFL. If you want to see a part of what’s wrong with football then I think that’s a good example. Like most football journalism today, it about scratches the surface on a subject but there is zero depth.

Good post, and if I may say it’s the type of content I’m here for and we don’t see enough on here! What id say is that I think over the course of a season you are somewhat expected to drop points away from home where teams fancy their chances of an upset. Also you can expect a bit of leggyness/mental exhaustion after a big win like the Bolton one, it’s a really difficult league to find consistency in and I’d say all teams have suffered from that and hence it’s so close at the top. What’s becoming more of an issue I think is the points dropped at home. There’s been atleast 6-9 points, and that’s being kind, that we dropped. A better home record and you can excuse a trip like Saturday as one of those days and move on.

Finally in the company he deserves

https://theathletic.com/5361931/2024/03/25/golf-football-chris-kirchner-derby-fraud/?source=user_shared_article Does anybody still have an account and want to give the general gist of this article? Is there anything new in it?

The one thing I’ll say re:Hourihane is that it did surprise me to see him get so much flack for a performance where I thought he was one of our more ok players, compared to Adams and NML who I thought kept losing the ball in key positions. Or say someone like Wilson who put in a lot of crosses but a lot fell to the heads of their defenders. It may have been an issue with how they were set up. Waghorn kept coming deep, NML was too central at times and in Thompsons space etc, which probably comes with having to play an unsettled side due to injuries. I get the Hourihane criticisms and given out enough of them over the last two seasons, but I didn’t think after Saturday he quite deserves the criticism he got over a few others. To think, I clicked on this to see if there was a video of Bradley’s incident!

They have no idea who they are signing these days…

Hourihane has made a career out of scoring important goals out of nothing, or at least providing assists. We are at a time of the season we need someone who can score important goals out of nothing and we are a side with depleted attacking options. Warne has managed Hourihane well this season and there’s enough time for him to provide more than he already has.

Bit of fun, but they put up a quote attributed to ‘fan of socialism’ Brian Clough yesterday as a tribute on his birthday. I mean I’m not saying there is a capitalist agenda behind doing this but you can see for yourself here: Anyway, they have had a special guest at the City Ground today…

As someone who isn’t much of a traveller then I’d recommend the overnight trains from Paris to the south of France. It’s relatively straight forward and gets you to Carcassonne for a good time in the morning. As an interesting city/town around there I really loved Narbonne, which wasn’t overly touristy but had a really good food places and an indoor market. It borders a national park too but we didn’t venture out as we were car-less. But it is doable and maybe a bit different if you want a ‘steady’ break

The East Midlands, bad boys of football

Had a chat with a mate last night who’d looked through the report and thought I’d share a few good points that were made. - the -4 doesn’t seem enough of a punishment, -6 seems about right because that would have a serious impact on a clubs aims in a season no matter where they were situated in the league. -The previously relegated clubs would find it hard to look for compensation/legal action because the accounting period runs through to end of June. So essentially into the next summer transfer window. I hadn’t really thought about that but it’s a good way of maybe stopping what Wycombe and Boro did to us. - It’s quite important for a panel to reward compliance. Mainly because you have from July-May to convict and punish. Again you’d think -8 down to -6 would be about right and personally that’s what I think the PL tried to go for. -Finally, what the PL, and possibly the EFL, want to show is that how Forest got promoted and have stayed in the prem is largely unsustainable for clubs. It worked for them in getting there, but it’s not seemingly going to work over a long term period If other clubs try and copy the approach then we will see big clubs go under. It’s not an agenda against a club not in the top 6, it’s trying to keep all clubs above board. There is a way for clubs to get promoted, be sustainable and compete and grow and that’s needs to be encouraged. Hence why reports that Forest may need to sell big again in the summer to balance the books may being put out to the press.

My one last thought on this, which I was meant to bring up yesterday, but is it quite likely that Forest are going for appeal because essentially does a point deduction mean they accept guilt and the punishment would then allow last years relegated clubs to go ahead with legal action against Forest for loss of income?

Daniel Taylor’s is another who I think isn’t overly favoured by their hierarchy who I think has written a more straight and informative piece. Unfortunately from what I’ve seen there’s more than a couple of journos who are quite willing to drink the kool-aid from Forest’s statement yesterday because of the whataboutery about city/chelsea, not appreciating that maybe they are all in the wrong?

Going to be intersting to see where different people fall on this, who defends Forest, who stays quiet etc. Either way I think this is poor from Percy

Wrong thread! But for clarity I sometimes go watch Sheffield Hallam at Sandygate. £7 in, always have good beer on and the people who run it are very friendly. Usually some decent games but you can be thrown by a borefest sometimes. The other down side is that I’ve seen home fans berate refs who are doing a decent job Would like to do Matlock occasionally but it’s like £12 entry.

Just for comparison, we got -9 point for a £15m overspend over three years. Forests breach essentially paid the vast majority for Gibbs-White who was a big reason to them surviving last year. Unfortunately I think the judgement leads to more questions than answers, can’t see any of the relegated sides from last year being overly happy.

I think with all three key decisions, they are about us putting the pressure on and making a struggling side make a panic. With that you force the officials to make decisions. An attacking ball between the defence and keeper against a high line (and looo how high that defensive line is!) Our press which causes Yiadom to stick a leg out in hope because he’s not positioned correctly. The keeper coming to that area in his box and Gayle having a turn of pace over the last 5 yards to beat him to the ball. Refs won’t get every decision right but Reading didn’t help themselves because they got themselves in a daft position each time. Some of that is about what Derby did but some of it is down to being daft

Check out his movement for Barkhuizen’s goal, thought it was excellent

To be honest the big two takeaways for me, from admittedly a very quick read through and a complete lack of understanding of accounting is 1) much like under Mel, for the club to really balance it the books, the. We need an academy that is developing assets that have a maximum sale value and be willing to move players on when the time is right. Our current loss could easily be offset by 2-3 academy products being sold who really reach their potential. 2) I do wonder that this £36 million interest fee debt the club owe Clowes is a bit of a signal to say ‘if someone wants to buy the club, this is what I want’ or atleast an investor would need to be looking to clear a decent chunk of that debt. Just a thought because I do think you have to try and clear those debts, because you either do a Mel and add more and more debt as an easy option or it ends up coming out of promotion packages when those recourses could be used elsewhere.

https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/derby-county-eiran-cashin-interview-9146432 I know there’s more important parts to this story, but I can’t work out why he thought being at that Starbucks on the A38 was the best place to be? Surely you might as well stayed at the training ground or in Derby itself? Or could’ve atleast got to McArthur Glen and had a few shops to look in whilst being closer to the M1!

From what I’ve seen, I think Tierney spots Konate is down whilst the ball is in flight and he’s not aware that Hudson-Odoi is in a tight spot with the ball on the wing for maybe two seconds? I think it was human error and it happens unfortunately, you are just sometimes on the wrong end. Also what do Forest want once the game stops? You aren’t getting an uncontested drop ball in an attacking position. Its not the first time Yates being sloppy in challenges has had a knock on effect on the outcome of a game this season either.

Don’t they threaten this every few years? Realistically is there anywhere they could move thats within the city with the transport links etc? File it all under ‘a bit of postering’ to me, much like the Ref Analyst stuff. The club don’t need to announce this stuff, but they do it over and over again.

I’m fully behind Warne as I think we need slow growth and stability and I don’t see this season as boom or bust. Fully appreciate not everyone feels the same and I’m not currently there at every home game so I don’t quite feel the full impact of the frustration. But saying that, I’m concerned by how much this is currently reminding me of Rowett’s season. Crap yet somewhat effective football in terms of results, but it’s not enough to maintain momentum throughout your season because teams work you out and you’ve not really set yourself up with a workable Plan B. I think he’s also, like Rowett, kinda having favourites in his players that simply right now aren’t working. Wilson is one, where there simply isn’t enough coming from him except running. NML is arguably another right now because teams mark him out of the game. There’s possibly an argument for Bird as another. It’s not that these players aren’t your best players, but they aren’t being effective right now yet are picked out of hope they’ll create something. Sometimes you have to be smart and have a bit of faith in a Sibley or a Barkhuizen (as examples) rather than maybe making the easy decision of benching them after 1 game or subbing them on/off. Sibleys performance on Saturday was harshly judged in my opinion and I think he could’ve kept him in just to link up with Bird and give Charlton something else to think about. Barkhuizen had a decent half at Exeter which he needed to build on but isn’t really given a chance to. This is similar to what Rowett would do with Martin and I think looking back it really cost him. Thie biggest concern probably is that Warne might have a preferred 11, but that isn’t his best 11 because that best 11 is very difficult to make into a workable team. As fans we struggle to put it together, partly because of injury, partly because the recruitment, partly the fringe players aren’t match ready and partly because we don’t have a pattern to our play. Id rather grow something around Warne, but he is being out thought whilst his players are being out fought.

Fwiiw, because I see a bit of nitpicking over the last few pages, but Radio Derby’s coverage has been really good since the administration days. I have long thought that how the dealt with that season was very under appreciated by our fan base, but between Ed and Chris Coles they provided excellent interviews, discussion and updates pretty much every single day in a clear manner. I always remember Ed talking to the Wigan administrators early on who basically called what would happen ie, you’d get someone who claims themselves to be your saviour, they’ll fail and it’ll cause a serious contender to put their hat in the ring and get it sorted. Also the now infamous Knighton interview (KNIGHTON!) But since then, I think Dom has been a welcome addition and really grown into his role but I do think the coverage has really stepped up with Colin Gibson returning. Tonight’s sportscene with Eric Steele was an excellent listen and was all from how Colin Gibson steered the conversation and they both made great points about Saturday and a couple of underlying problems. I know this post isnt really about Ed, I get he’s marmite but I do think he takes the brunt of a lot stuff that isn’t really his fault. I kinda see it that he’s a bit of an anorak and think he needs someone with a bit of ‘colour’ rather than maybe having two guys who are trying to elbow in their opinions, stats etc. But I still don’t think as an overall package you’ll get a better resource to following your club than what I hear most days through the Rams Daily podcast (sprinkled with a few looks on DCFCFans ofcourse and a bit of RamsTV when available), I’d really recommend people take advantage of what we get through Radio Derby so we don’t end up bemoaning the fact it’s gone when it’s too late.