TuffLuff

Billy Sharp is the type of striker, who at 37 isn’t going to start games, but you could bring on with 20 minutes to go when it’s 0-0 and can score you a goal. We haven’t really had that striker for a while md I think we need a young, pacy option up there too but I see no problem with having a look. 
 

He might only score 5 goals but those 5 goals could gain us an extra 10 points come the end of the season. Also that 5 players for 2 spots would be about right wouldn’t it?

Collins, Washington, Godden, a young pacey loan and Sharp wouldn’t be a bad mix would it if Sharp was 90% of the time your impact sub?

I feel a sense of nostalgia 

I think it’s a bit like some Derby teams we’ve seen in recent years, players may be putting in 100% effort for a manager and trying to make a project work, but if they aren’t quite convinced or have any doubt about what they are trying to do it simply won’t wok consistently 

Controversial opinion but get a collar on it and there would be a lot more people saying they love it.

I like it but there’s probably just a bit of room to have something a bit more to it

Knights at a point of his career where he needs to be around better players to progress. Knight going to Bristol for £1.5 million doesn’t really help him, only helps us in the short term and will only help Bristol for when he’s worth £5-6 mill in a couple of seasons.

If I was a prem side the size of Palace, Villa etc I’d be tempted to take a gamble in the region of  £2.5-3.5mill now with the aim of developing him into a first team player. I can’t see the point in us selling him for £1.5mill to a champ team with little ambition to get out the league they are in. His potential is more than that and Bristol know it. If the chance is to build our side around him now and next season he can be a championship player with us, then it’s a gamble worth taking even if we didn’t get promoted and he left for nothing next summer.

I want him to be a success and an asset out of Derby County academy, going to Bristol doesn’t feel like a good development move to me. Top of the champ, lower-mid prem then I think that would be a great move for everyone involved.

45 minutes ago, angieram said:

I've not seen much discussion of the cricket report in here or the England thread, but while it's quiet, thought I'd mention the following.

Just my experience,  but I'm a member at Derbyshire. EVERY time I enter the pavilion, I am asked to show my membership card by the old man on the door, who is suitably blazered up and part of the furniture. If it's face up in its holder, I'm asked to turn it round. Same with my husband.

Must have done that 20 times in the past few weeks. Never a smile or an acknowledgement  let alone an hello. 

Because we prefer to sit on the terraces rather than the clubhouse balcony  we dress casually with lots of layers. Is that why we're treated with suspicion? Might we expect to be recognised at some point? 

At the same time, he is waving other smartly dressed people through with a cheery hello and no checks whatsoever. 

It's starting to get on my nerves as the bloke clearly needs some re-training. 

It's the little things like this that make experiences unpleasant. The golf was similar last week. Full of little jobsworths with an over-inflated sense of self-importance. 

I was chatting to a mate last night, mainly about the test match to be honest, but he made a point about the ICEC’s report last week and how what’s it’s saying trickles down into what happened in the Long Room and other odd behaviours we’ve seen ourselves elsewhere at other grounds. 

Whilst I don’t want to push a direct link to that report and your situation, it might be he’s a bit of a silly bugger, it is that elitism and privilege aspect that does desperately need change and I hope isn’t ignored. 

I loved that goal away at Leeds in Cocu’s season, the free kick against Bournemouth at home in the last minute and…bugger it the one against Forest when it was lockdown.

Seen a lot in this off season on Twitter about ‘best championship striker’…and it’s a going to be a lasting shame that a lot of players from *that* side probably don’t make these discussions because the only thing they didn’t get was a promotion (Bryson at Cardiff outstanding). Martin places around 6 highest for goals scored (depending which era you want to start in and presumably would creep higher if it was overall goal contributions, but Martin seemingly falls below players like Mitrovic, Pukki and others and it’s only a lack of a promotion that I think really takes him out of the top 5. It’s be interesting to look at stats such as goals per game, where I imagine he comes lower in but then compare with overall contributions but I don’t have access to anything but the most basic data 

No. 1 is Billy Sharp btw and my top 5 includes Mitrovic, Pukki, McCormack and probably Murray tbh but Martin ability wise should be in that conversation really.

From what I saw and what I’ve listened to post game, I think Cummins has been short term smart (getting Bairstow out probably won them the game) but long term stupid in that they will now have two tests away from Lords where the atmosphere will be a lot more hostile than today, especially with such a short turnover. It’s hypothetical I guess but maybe going to Headingley with a bit of good grace and you make your job a little easier. It’s also worth remembering that it’s currently unlikely Lyon won’t be playing too.

I do think the Aussies are getting a bit cocky, they are a great side without doubt and arrogance isn’t a bad thing in any sport, but you have to manage it and I’m not sure they were in control of it today. For as good as Stokes batting was, the Australian bowlers had a proper wobble after the Bairstow dismissal. It showed a weakness to me that England could have exploited more if they had managed the first innings better.

England aren’t too far behind Australia here, like the first test I think England have made too many individual errors and a couple of key players need to step up before the series is gone. Don’t like singling out players at the best of times but it could be argued that Bairstow has cost them in both tests at pivotal moments. I’m loving the entertainment, I just don’t want us to be so close and feel this series is what could have been. 

Aussies appear rattled to me from last night, unfortunately it’s a bit too late in the game 

Think Starc may have had a better chance of getting away with that if he didn’t have the most guiltiest body language you could possibly have in the moments after it

1 hour ago, Alpha said:

Is it native Derbonian to say

Wunt - wouldn't 

Dunt - doesn't 

Int - isn't

C¢nt - couldn't 

?

Someone once said to me that the Derbyshire ‘accent’ is just making your point as quickly as possible, and what’s the point in using 2 syllables when 1 will do!

Phrases and dialect change depending where you are in Derbyshire and it can overlap with the counties that surround us, so because we are surrounded by a lot of different places it means there is a lot of overlap with what might more of a Birmingham phrase or even a Lancashire or Cheshire phrase. I quite like the word mithered, which if you look online is a derbyshire phrase but I think pretty much anywhere north of Birmingham uses it!

Good game and made up for Khawaja tbh. 

I think with ‘bazball’, you have to have all your components working faultlessly and I didn’t think we fielded well enough to control the lead. Look at the total Green got when he should have been out for 3 in the first innings and where we ended up today. I think it was noted on TMS at the end of day 2 about how leggy we looked, and whilst there was delays for rain, you could see once we lost momentum in that last hour that Robinson, Broad and Root had lost ideas.

How England play reminds me in part of ‘Bielsaball’ in football. It’s high impact, working hard and pressing the opposition and it will work for a bit but eventually you get tired and the opposition works out how to counter it. I’m all for entertaining cricket and I don’t want to seem like I’m criticising the approach too much, but I do prescribe to the theory in sport that you have to ‘earn the right’ to play your game and I don’t really think we had a spell where we just tried to tire out the Aussie bowlers for a bit or anything like that. 

I’m the first guy who loves the rumour mill, mainly because it keeps the most quiet weeks of the year ticking over, but it is worth remembering that we’ve had no concrete link to any of these players. This is agents talking to journalists who have seemingly linked Derby with every ‘wanted’ player in League 1 and 2 for reasons that are pretty obvious. Also it’s maybe worth pointing out that we’ve seen very little of all these players.

Warne has said he keeps his cards close to his chest on these matters and January proved we are going to linked with every player possible so I think we have to take it all the drama with a pinch of salt.

My guess is our starting 11 in August will have a good smattering of players we haven’t been linked with yet or wont be until they are announced officially.

I will say, that despite not being a metal head Download was probably the best festival I’ve been to.

It was some years when I went though and I saw The Hives and Iggy & The Stooges on the same day 

6 minutes ago, JuanFloEvraTheCocu'sNesta said:

Good for him. If it's something he can do in addition to playing for us then fair enough. Don't see what the fuss is about.

I think after a week where some think we are losing McGoldrick, have all but lost out on Roberts and other supposed targets then in our ‘fan bubble’ it puts our noses out of joint a bi moret. In the grand scheme of things it probably means very little, just crap timing and probably something we don’t need out there!

Going to be an interesting one with Knight in regards to what fee he’d demand. As a fan we’d probably would want more goal contributions and his stats could be a bit better, but he ended up having a bit of a ‘Rolls Royce’ season to me. He looked like a mature athlete and was often a class above with his positioning, touch and stamina. Also he was accomplished in quite a few positions. These are all things that scouts will be looking at over goals/assists and can imagine quite a few clubs thinking he’s worth a punt. 

I don’t expect him to stay and I don’t really think he should for his own career development overall,  but his next move is very important. It’s ok for the Ireland manager to think he should be in a better league, but if you move to the wrong club where you don’t quite fit in then he ends up in the Hendrick scenario. He’d lose his value internationally anyway if that was the case. I think he’s got limited options of where he can go and really help his development, and maybe he’s better seeing out this season with us? He can really dominate league 1 and he might finish the season where he could walk into another sides first team rather than maybe being in a position where you play an odd game then out for a few. 

Again I think he should go, probably, but it really has to be the right move and he won’t go somewhere to make up numbers.

Going to be in Derby next Friday afternoon for a bit of a pub crawl before going to the County Ground in the evening. Does anybody have any food recommendations we can pop into? I’ve suggested Silk Mill but it’s been a few years since I last went.

Pub recommendations also appreciated as it’s been a few years since I’ve been for drinks in the city

Had a think about this question over a few days and I think I’ve come to the conclusion that while I expect us to be challenging near the top, I’m not too bothered about promotion. I mean if it happens then great, I’d be ecstatic but a few things bother me.

1) I want us to be a sustainable club, I don’t want us to have a chairman who’s having to throw thousands, if not millions, into the club just to keep us afloat or chasing a near impossible dream. We are a community club and I don’t want us to have an idea that the finances of the club are an ownership problem rather than an overall problem we need to keep an eye on.

2) I want us to have an achievable plan in place to build something. We might have this already in place internally but I want us to have a plan to build something over x amount of seasons rather than just getting to the championship and then going from there. 

3) I have great concerns for the football pyramid as a whole, I can’t see the point in being a championship team with more overheads, trying to get to the prem where the gap between the have and have nots gets ever bigger.

Yes I’d love promotions and getting back to being a big club again, but I also like local ownership and I want us to be steady and stable. We need to be careful what we wish for and think about what’s next and how it’s going to be achieved as much as just having expectations.

It won’t quite be for everyone, but really loved Gallows Pole on BBC2 last night. Directed by Shane Meadows and I think has a lot of his tropes but set in a period drama rather 

All three episodes are on iplayer. If you are familiar with the book I think it serves as a prequel rather than a direct dramatisation of the book 

15 minutes ago, Jimbo Ram said:

Wednesday June 14th I believe 😁

…two weeks of pre-transfer window to get ourselves fit and raring to go for opening day?

Glad we’ve got all that pesky football out of the way and we can start looking forward to the real reason we love this sport…
 

The Summer Transfer Window opens Thursday! The summer sagas, the twists and turns, the crushing blows when a free agent goes elsewhere, the highs when we see a Twitter announcement from the club, the disappointment when tweet literally anything else that’s not a signing, Imminent!, 48 hours!, what will be the journalistic buzzword this year?, what Twitter account can we trust, will Nixon show any form or consistency?, when will Barry the Ram turn up?

Best time of year!

😉

Highlight was Bannan telling someone he wanted the captain armband on before going up the stairs, get up the stairs ya bloody arse!

My experience from knowing a few Leeds fans is that they have a Bielsa shaped cloud still over that club, which has only intensified after a poor appointment in Marsch. I think it’ll hang over them for a while yet, there’s quite a bit of unrest aimed at the owners (not undeserved) and the squad still needs an overhaul like it did last year. Bielsa was a great appointment, he got a feel good factor back at Elland Road and thousands of fans returned and gained interest in the club. But there was always a price to pay for that appointment, they held on too long and didn’t really have a long term plan for the club without Bielsa. A lot of those that came back because of Bielsa aren’t going to stay around for Leeds as they are now. Managers like him are great when the going is good but they leave you no legacy, nothing to build and unmotivated footballers. We did it with Billy Davies with the lost disastrous effect, other clubs have done it with managers like Redknapp (bit more successful, but it’s what he leaves behind). 

3 minutes ago, Srg said:

Of course you do. That's potentially a couple of players and he's 32 with 1 year left. That'd be silly money not to take.

I’m probably over valuing at 400k! Was probably thinking more along the lines of 250k. Hard to know what a realistic valuation would be