TuffLuff

3 hours ago, RoyMac5 said:

I'm trying hard to imagine how you can believe any of that. 

Pivotal? We were already screwed to the hilt with FFP. He continued to spend. Cocu the right man? He'd be a lucky Dutch man then in English football. ?

Mel has been chasing his debts since the crazy season he bought midfield replacements when loans would have done. Before that he just sacked the man that would take us to the Promised Land because his ego didn't like that others wanted the same talent! ?

I believe that because I listened to what Mel said on an interview by Radio Derby at 1pm, I thought it was probably a good idea to do that before posting in a thread called ‘Mel Morris interview on Radio Derby 1pm’. 

i have a lot of opinions really, some things I agreed with him on (covid and the context of Derby at that moment in time against other clubs) and other things I didn’t.

The Lampard situation is interesting and is maybe the pivotal time to what we see now, also a little bit with Cocu. I’ll elaborate more in another post I think but , but I think with Lampard he gets his eyes fluttered and we end up with £60mill worth of talent on loan that’s irreplaceable. And £20 mill spent players who are worth nowhere near that.  Cocu is Mels dream appointment in terms of what but has to spend any profit he made of Lampard and then some just to make sure we are somewhere near replacing that £60 mill worth a talent. It becomes clear that Cocu is the right man, but at the wrong time. Then the EFL charges hit, then covid hits, he gambled away any sort of money we had as a back up and then it’s largely been kicking the can down the road until now. 

He talks about the good PR with Rooney and Lampard and that we haven’t lost money through those investments which I get but, how much did these two generate in revenue based on their names. How much in sponsorship? T shirt sales, merch etc etc. I’m not saying it would have saved the club at this point, but are having Lampard and Rooney associated with the club worth it unless their names are making you a decent revenue stream in return? (That’s not a slight on Rooney or Lampard as a manager btw).
 

I know we’ve all at one time or another had our grievances with Kieran Maguire but now might be the time to let it go and give him a follow.

Another one is the Andy @DERBY5HIRE account, another that was dealt with some suspicion but there may have been some truth in what he was saying despite the more cryptic messages.

Would it be possible that we get 12 this season for administration and they backdate 12 until next season? I have no reason to believe they would do this, but maybe would make atleast some competitive sense?

Although what with the 2 year embargo it’s probably delaying an inevitable relegation…

9 minutes ago, Barney1991 said:

John Perry’s article just says we owe 26 million to him revenue ?8 million in transfer fees and 5 million to cocu and staff. This isn’t including what we owe dell 

Yeah I just read the article, maybe I’m not understanding how this all works on such a large scale but have we essentially not paid a tax bill since Morris has taken charge?

19 minutes ago, Stive Pesley said:

Does the news mean that David can publish the report now? All bets are off when it comes to NDA etc surely?

Mel is no longer in charge

From what I gathered on radio Derby last night, a lot of what was under NDA has come out in the press or through last nights statement. It was basically in place so Mel could speak freely about the EFL from what I can work out 

I have no problem with this process taking as long as it needs, but if there is no deadlines then we should have had a slightly more extensive embargo where we could have signed a couple more free agents on similar deals and maybe a couple of loans.
 

Not anything substantial, just the change of bit more depth and a fighting chance throughout the season. 

2 minutes ago, David said:

Not foreign enough

Andi Reidoz

1 minute ago, David said:

Watch them bring Lamouchi back, that's where my money is

I’ll put my hat in the ring, Andy Reid.

3 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

No, I'm not having that. We were lucky a couple of times - that will happen in any match. We played really well, particularly in defence, but we also managed the game well. 

I think we earnt our luck tonight and I don’t think WBA did enough to break us down.
 

Wasnt that many years ago when we were a side like WBA tonight where you create a lot of half decent chances without really breaking a team down or making any clear cut chances. Derby deserve credit in stopping WBA really hitting shy sort of stride or period where they dominated the game.

10 minutes ago, ram59 said:

How many teams in this league are relying on the tactic of lumping in long throws to giants in the centre of the box? That's 3 teams now, Boro, Blues and WBA, out of only 7 matches played. Amazingly, that tactic hasn't resulted in a goal in any of those games, thanks to our old guys in the centre of defence.

Bet the balls only been in play on average 60-70 mins with each stoppage!

I know not everyone would have heard them, and wouldn’t be able to repeat it word for word, but thought Ed Dawes’ comments before the game about Roos were out of order and glad Roos shut him up tonight. 

We know Roos isn’t perfect, but he grew into the game and obviously kept us in it. Also I’m not anti Ed, although sometimes I do think he needs to give his head a shake, but that wasn’t professional.

Is there anything to be said for another Woolly Bully?

Started Turning Point on Netflix last night, about 9/11 and terrorism. Got to say I wasn’t quite prepared for how tense and raw some of the footage and stories are.

Its been a good documentary so far and I am someone who’s read up on the topic, but some of the footage both in Afghanistan and New York is tough.

I’ve tried to put this into words a couple of times over the weekend but haven’t quite got it right but I’ll try it again.

If I wanted to criticise Rooney at this moment, and I think a game like Friday nights kinda exposed it more than the previous run of games did, is something that you can lay at a lot of managers who were once top players. But I think he’s set up the side like it’s a team of Wayne Rooney’s and how he’d want to play in that position and I don’t think it’s suits every player and you might need to be a smarter in how you set up. Ofcourse you need that tenacity, work ethic etc, but I think it’s little things like Morrison coming deep that feels a bit unnecessary how much he does it. Or that players get dragged to the ball and try and win it leaving opposition players open or whatever Sibley did for the goal. You need a balance of a bit of everything that we don’t have at the minute. 

BUT the other side to that is we can only play like this because of the quality of player at his disposal, so I’m not sure you can really criticise him because no one could do any better? It’s a short term fix that has looked ok for the first few games but will have to wait and see if it works as the season progresses

11 minutes ago, JfR said:

 

Disgraceful, but no surprise to hear they were singing about themselves during such a moment 

Ref performance summed up with 1 minute added time after all that time wasting at throw ins. Some shoddy decisions in there to boot.

11 minutes ago, Gee SCREAMER !! said:

Was that seriously his pay off . The mind boggles. Fwanks compo paid for some of it I suppose

I’m not sure what the amount was, but it was thought that Cocu’s wages werent too high.  Although Cocu waivered his payout when he left anyway so it didn’t matter.

Probably saw what the clubs finances were like and realised he wasn’t going to see it for a good few years!

I’m being tongue in cheek, but starting to wish I’d placed a bet that Derby/EFL announce Derby’s 9 point deduction 48 hours after the season ticket deadline. 

Season ticket money in, HMRC paid and accounts are sent first thing tomorrow. Deduction confirmed before KO Friday!

Probably when Mel accepts he has to take a very significant loss on any sale. Not just on the money he put into the club to fund poor transfers and extensive contracts but also a loss on the value of the stadium. 

This won’t be over until someone takes over I’m afraid and no one else is going to cover those mistakes. 

I have no idea whether a two year ban has any truth to it, I have no idea whether the clubs owing us money has any truth to it either.

But I am fed up of the games being played, Im fed up of the silence that fans get which breeds contempt, Im also fed up of the position our local press outlets constantly find themselves in. As a fan, I can accept honesty and transparency even if it’s not great news, but I can’t accept what’s happened off the pitch these last two years as the can has been kicked down the road and the lack of info as to why. The latest headline is another eye roll in a long list of eye roll moments that I’m afraid make more and more people tune out. Thing is I like the team, they aren’t good enough but atleast they work hard and give 100% and I can’t ask for anymore, but this behind them doesn’t help with the relationship with fans to the club and therefore that set of players.

Time to talk to the local press and provide some honest answers, don’t forget times ticking on a season ticket deadline this week. 

Dads need pints too!

He’s a good footballer is Wisdom, but he hasn’t looked anywhere near his top form since the incident. I think there was a time during last season where he needed resting but once Davies was injured then he had to carry on and he just never looked like he was enjoying himself, which had a knock on effect to Clarke.

Hoping a bit of time away from football may have helped him after a hectic couple of seasons. As a defensive option with Stearman, Davies, Jags, Fozzy then I don’t particularly mind it.

14 minutes ago, JuanFloEvraTheCocu'sNesta said:

I'm sorry, but I simply cannot ignore the state in which Morris will be leaving the club when he finally sells it. He is leaving it in a much, much worse state than when he took it. A couple of trips to Wembley didn't pan out, but that's football. The club is an absolute shambles as it stands when compared with the well run, sensible club he purchased.

Don’t particularly want to get into this too much and fear putting my head over the parapet with this, but I have long wondered how much our local investors in the last 20 years have had the true best interest of the football club at heart. I guess what I’m saying is who’s come in with the intention of being the chairman for 10-20 years with a long term plan. To me, it’s been a plan to get that prem money asap and that pursuit over 20 years has been absolutely fruitless.

11 minutes ago, DavesaRam said:

It might be getting easier and easier to adopt that viewpoint, but no,I don't think the EFL have actually ordained ways in which refs should screw DCFC over. A lot of people say things like these decisions even themselves out over the season. But looking back over past Derby matches should give us times when a reffing howler gave us the points, but there are not many that stand out. But there are plenty where questions can be asked of decisions which have been made against us. And yes, fans of probably every other club under the sun will have stories of being hard done to, which might suggest that standards are constantly slipping. The contrast between EFL reffing performances and those of the match officials for the Euros is plain enough to see. 

I can’t comment about this game as truth be told I missed it today (I’m gonna sit back and watch the full 90 and will add thoughts if I think there’s anything relevant to say), but I wrote about Tuesdays game that I think refs struggle to get key decisions correct.

BUT I think the problem is that you’re talking about 1-2 instances in a game when you are asking the ref to give a decision your way and hoping for a bit of luck. If you can make 3-4 instances when you are forcing the ref to make a decision then you are more likely to get decisions. We have to make defenders commit more and force the refs hands more in my opinion.