Ram@Lincoln

I don't quite understand the clamour made by those who have attended the EFL games, and kicking up a fuss that they should get priority for the Wembley should we get there. There's been gates of circa 3k each game, the Bolton/Plymouth final last season had 80k in attendance. There isn't going to be much high level media attendance, or much interest from the Club Wembley members, but even if we do deduct say 10k from the 80k, heck even 20k off it. That's still 30-35k allocation to each team, so 10x the attendance in the early rounds. We currently get attendances around the 26-28k mark, removing away allocation, lets call it 26k. This still allows 4-9k extras to be sold than on a normal attendance. In addition to that, I can't recall the team - but I remember in one of the recent Wembley finals - one team sold out their allocation very quickly, the opposition struggled, so the sell outs were given a sizeable allocation from the opposition. Overall, everyone should just chill out and enjoy us competing in a competition that we have a fairly good chance of winning, or at least getting to the final in. Then if we do get to the final, be rest assured that the final is played at Wembley, not the likes of Stevenage/Burton/Fleetwood and there's going to enough tickets for all.

He barely played for Blackpool, been recalled to go somewhere to play week in week out. We're currently leaving out Fornah from the squad even with Smith injured. This would just be another midfielder being left out.

There's supporter branches in Alfreton and Ashbourne, I'd imagine Alfreton to be fully booked as they have a very loyal following. Ashbourne tends to have spaces whenever I've heard of friends needing a seat somewhere.

"He has penned a one-year deal which will run for the 2023/24 campaign." - He's here for the season. https://www.dcfc.co.uk/news/2023/08/striker-waghorn-completes-rams-return

Surely the best option is just to pay for a car park season ticket? I enquired this summer for disabled parking for an elderly couple I've sat next to for years, the official disabled parking is fully sold out with a waitlist so long they stopped accepting more to it. The next best is to just buy a regular seasonal parking ticket in the South Stand/Derby Arena car park. The club still operates those little golf carts to shuttle the elderly around to their gate. If you let the steward know on the gate, he'll radio through for one, eventually he'll get to know you by sight and be on it straight away. Sure it costs, but I can arrive to the car park at 2.50pm, park up no bother, walk over to my gate and be in my seat for the players coming out. Sure, after the game it's a wait to be let out but a wander around the club shop, sandwich in Subway, drink at The Yard or just a flask and biscuits in the car listening to Radio Derby post match and time passes fine.

The problem started this season with the rule change for added time being shown to supporters. The old scoreboard clock can only show 2 digits for minutes, not 3 digits. So if 10 or more minutes are added on, which happened with keen referees sticking to new rules, then it goes over the amount the board can display. On a newer screen, they'd just make the text smaller, on this one they cannot.

Most importantly, have they sold out the car park?

How did Barnsley find that Daryl Dike chap from the USA a few years ago on loan. He was brilliant, pretty much single handedly dragged them into the play offs then got sold for big money to West Brom. I don't recall him being that well known or known at all before he went to Barnsley.

From what I see in reports, he cost them around £1.5m, Wycombe said it was a club record sale at the time. Have we got that sort of money as they surely wouldn't want to take a bit hit on him?

Yeah it got moved for TV I believe. Scandalous.

I've always ran a rule of thumb that 30 wins in the league season will get you promoted. Likewise with the goal difference, concede less than a goal a game average and score around the 80 mark and you'll be right about there. Therefore, we need 19 wins out of 27 games, 46 more goals scored and can afford 30 goals conceded (obviously less than be ideal). With 19 wins added to what we have now, even allowing for losses in the other games that's 93 points which gets us promoted 7 out the last 9 seasons.

As you say, any deal for Cashin or any others leaving need to be completed early doors. We can't have anything hanging over us the entire window as that'll be more disruptive than good for us. Allows us to get cracking on the incoming transfers and not disrupt the flow of the team anymore than needed.

Question for those in the academy know, are there any whispers of pro contracts/scholarships being given out/offered any time soon? I was chatting to some folk involved in the Lincoln setup and they're trying to sort everyone out pre Christmas, so anyone not in the plans have all of January to either get sorted/in the shop window on loan, for next season.

Celtic have done excellent there, but I'd assume that was mainly through the manager at the time having extensive first hand knowledge in that market. Definitely one to be explored if given a chance.

Is there the home advantage or not this time round like there was tonight?

The one time my missus comes to an away game and she's subdued to a portaloo. There were no brownie points won that game!

Not the actual rail seats like Liverpool and co have. This seems like a half way house between the two, and a quick solution to avoid any disruption this season. I assume the club will assess the feeling/performance on the practicals of safe standing at PPS, in due course and look to introduce the full fat version in the rail seats.

And despite all of those excellent stats, we're not playing anywhere close to the standard we should be with the players we have. It's ever so frustrating, we're in a very good position overall like you say. It's the "if only", if we play that bit better as we've shown in glimpses this season or back into last season we'd be steamrolling the league. But heyho, Derby never do anything the easy way!

For me, this is the time now before the January window opens to put some of the better ones on the bench every game in December. Give them ten minutes here and there to see if they can handle it in the first team. If they can, it relieves pressure in January over recruitment and we can focus on what's really needed to strengthen the team. I wouldn't want to bloat the squad of senior players who might be blocking the pathway of the younger boys who might be good enough - just unable to show it due to lack of chances.

We have to make sure Nyambe is extended in January as he's been pretty much perfect since signing. Do we actually have a exact expiration date for his current contract in January? Is it the start/end of the month?

You're missing one of the most successful products from the academy, Izale McLeod. 15+ years in the football league, taking him to circa 500 games and 160 odd goals. Add another 50 odd games and 20 goals to that tally for non league. He's the all time record goal scorer at MK Dons too. Compare him to say Jamie Hanson who's currently on loan at Long Eaton from Ilkeston. He's definitely filled out from the skinny boy we had playing for us.

Did we ever get paid for him? Last I saw it was still going through the courts after their two Bob compensation offer.

I deal with quite a few Lincoln players with my job. While we were in admin with the £5k salary cap, I joked to one of their players that came in about joining us for "only" £5k a week. His reply was that £5k was substantially more than most of them are on and they'd all take it despite the uncertainty at the time. They're all on 12/18/24 month contracts anyway, so a 12 month contract on way more money more than makes up for it. £2.5-3k a week, like Mansfield, is probably about in line for Lincoln.

I certainly wasn't trying to discredit Wassall in the slightest. Just for me, looking in from the outside, it seemed to be if you weren't a old friend of Wassall or literally one of his boys ala Ethan (retained much longer than his ability showed), then a position wasn't available. With that, the same could be said about the Southampton heavy team being brought in, but a change is good for all. There's green shoots for sure, let's hope it continues to develop and the first team can benefit.

What's been the biggest change to the previous regime with Wassall? From the outside, it seemed to be jobs for his boys, not necessarily the best for the job. What's Fleming and co doing differently? It's early days but it's obviously working.