duncanjwitham

4 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

Then you'll be looking at the U18s to fill the bench as they won't count towards the professional standing quota.
I imagine Ryan (CB) and Ibrahim (CM/AM) would be the likely contenders

That's not right, is it? If they play for the first team in a league or cup game, they count as of-professional-standing, regardless of age.

43 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

But this bit seems to be the relevant bit, but thinking about it again, we wouldn't need to 'upgrade' their contract would we @Gladram? It's just we'd have more than 23 players of professional standing if Cashin played in the Cup? 

Upgrading their contracts isn't an issue, the players we're talking about playing (Cashin etc) have already signed professional contracts, as far as I know.  We upgraded (or possibly just extended) Ebosele's contract this summer, so it seems the EFL are allowing us to do stuff with academy players anyway.  The relevant bit is the first bit - registering academy players. But again, all of those players are already registered and given squad numbers.

Hopefully this Americano takeover sorts everything out.

3 minutes ago, Rambalin said:

We should be OK to play anyone we choose on Tuesday because according to the Efl's own rules

'The limits do not apply to cup competitions or include under-21s unless they were signed on loan"

But this is the EFL so they will probably make up a rule just for us. 

That’s the 25-man squad limits that apply to every club IIRC, it’s nothing to do with the embargo/professional-standing rules.

2 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

Unless we sell Marshall (if he wants to go) before playing the youngsters and then there's a spot left.

Yeah, the restriction isn’t having 23 professional players, it’s making signings when you have 23+.  If we want to play say Cashin on Tuesday, we need to get anybody out *and* get their replacements in before then.

Or we clear the HMRC issue/hard embargo and then we have plenty of spots left, obviously.

I think there’s a few crossed wires going on with that Steve Nicholson tweet. I think by “add another player” he’s referring to a new signing.  My understanding is that we can play as many of our own youth players as we want, there’s no restrictions on that at all. What it would do though, is block up a spot for a potential new incoming. With Ravel Morrison signing we are at the limit already, so in theory we can just play everyone and not worry about it. But it does mean that if we, for example, sold David Marshall, we couldn’t replace him.

4 minutes ago, Grumpy Git said:

The other 10 will be selected from the first dozen supporters to arrive at PP without a blue badge.

Wouldn’t surprise me if Rooney has a thing for blue badge holders tbh… ?

3 minutes ago, RAM1966 said:

Example 5 year contract play worth £1m deprecates at £200K a year at the end of the 5 year contract has a zero value.

My understanding is we were not doing that I think we were perhaps depreciating at say £100k a year leaving a value of £500k at the end of the contract, that has to be considered as a residual value and that's where we differed from other clubs.

I could be wrong but that's the way I understand it, anyone help?

We were doing things like £50k for 4 years, then £800k in year 5.  With the exact amounts depending on the player (age, usage, form, injuries etc). But they always ended up at £0 when they left.

Just now, Spanish said:

Why have we had to restate the accounts then?  No point in discussing this as you have blinded yourself to any argument that suggests the CEO has a responsibility for the mess we find ourselves in.  Corporate governance is a board responsibility. 

We have to restate them because DC2 couldn't overrule the LAP decision, only decide on the punishment.  It's pretty clear from the DC2 written reasons that they don't agree with the decision.  There's a comment in there about the club operating in good faith, believing what it was doing was absolutely allowed with the rules, even to the extent that the original DC thought what we were doing was allowed.  It's hard to criticise the club for that particular aspect when so many other accountants think what we were doing is fine.

I'm not saying don't criticise the club, I'm just not in the business of piling blame on someone when we don't even know what their actual responsibility for it was. 

36 minutes ago, Spanish said:

The professor of accounting didn't agree.  The DC dismissed his evidence, the LAP agreed with the Professor that is was far from fine.

Like I said, every actual accountant that's looked at them thought they were fine...

The original DC with an accountant on it explicitly decided to ignore his evidence because he had no experience of practical accounting.  The LAP with no accountant decided his lack of experience made him perfect for the role. DC2 came back and said that there was basically no reason for the club to think what we were doing wasn't fine.

4 minutes ago, Nuwtfly said:

For whatever reason, Rooney appears to be sticking this out.

I suspect he thinks he's got a bit of a free pass in terms of his reputation. If we struggle, any other club thinking about giving him a job in the future is just going to write this season off as an impossible task and not blame him for it.  And if we do well, he looks like a genius.  So while he's still getting paid, I'm not sure what the incentive for him to walk actually is.

17 minutes ago, Sweetness34 said:

So that's it? Someone uses an exaggerated example to highlight why it's ridiculous to say people shouldn't criticise (on a Forum no less) the people who are involved in leading us to this point, but you can just dismiss it because of Godwin's Law?

I'm no expert, but based on what I read about the club, what other people on this forum say, what the man himself has said on Radio Derby, let me be clear that in my personal opinion, Stephen Pearce is as much of a disgrace as Mel Morris.

But opinions can be changed. I could be wrong so feel free to present me something that suggests he's not a disgrace instead of trying to be a smartarse with links to wikipedia and I'd be happy to say I was wrong (as I was supporting Mel Morris for 5 and a half of the last 6 years)

The point isn't whether he is a disgrace or not, it's that we're not in a position to actually know.  We have no idea what advice he's been giving Mel, what decisions he's made himself, what decisions have been made against his advice and so on. I'm not saying don't criticise (hell I've been very critical of the lot of them on here), I'm just saying there's no point singling out individual members of a group when the only info we have is decisions that have been made collectively by that group.  

We do know that the actual accountancy decisions (amortisation, stadium sale etc) have either been signed off by the EFL (the stadium), or are so debatable (amortisation) that every independent accountant that's looked at them (including the on on the disciplinary commission) thought they were fine.

1 minute ago, Sweetness34 said:

So when the club is in a complete mess financially, we can't aim any frustration in the direction of a charted accountant responsible for managing our finances?

What next? Not being allowed to discuss good/bad moments by individuals in a football match because they're only doing what the Manager asked? Or not being able to criticise Heinrich Himmler because we don't know what Hitler told him to do? 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

2 minutes ago, Sweetness34 said:

by that logic we may as well close the forum.

Not really.  There's just no point criticising someone for doing a bad job when we don't know what job they've actually been told to do.  Morris and Rooney are in overall charge of the off-field and on-field decisions, so any criticism should be aimed at them.

9 minutes ago, EraniosSocks said:

Finally today we are going to the hospital so my partner can be induced and give birth to our Son (in the next hour) So I won't look at this till later on but hoping for some good news and that our new little ram brings us some luck! 

 

COYR 

Poorly disguised "I got laid" post IMO...

Also congratulations, obviously ?

53 minutes ago, i-Ram said:

If you can’t pontificate on the job function and performance of Stephen Pearce on a forum set up specific to Derby County, can you tell us all where a more appropriate forum is for such discussion?

I see criticising Stephen Pearce in the same way I see people criticising individual members of the coaching staff.  None of us know exactly what their job description is, what specific instructions they've been given from higher-ups, what constraints they're operating under and so on, so there's no real point criticising individual members. We have no real metric to measure their job performance against.  You've just got to treat the management collectively (both the football side and the boardroom side) and direct any blame at the boss IMO.

6 minutes ago, Bris Vegas said:

I struggle to understand how somebody acting in the best interests of Derby could do such an appalling job given where we were in 2013-14, 2014-15 and the funds that were at his disposal. There is no malice on Mel’s part, just sheer incompetence and lack of planning/organization throughout his tenure.

You see a lot of football fans who like to watch the game but seem to have no actual understanding of it at all. The kind of person that would say things like "Bradley Johnson is great, let's sign him", "Clough should never have sold Shackell", "We haven't had a decent right back since Wisdom left", "Blackman is top of the scoring charts, let's buy him", "Wayne Rooney is still a great player", "Nigel Pearson did a great job at Leicester, he'd be great here too".  It honestly feels like we're being run by one of those types.

3 minutes ago, Dan_Ram said:

https://twitter.com/dcfcofficial/status/1423287767191068675?s=21

 

Derby have released training photos with all the triallists in and all smiling. Makes me wonder if Nixon is full of Bull like usual or if those photos were taken yesterday.

You ever seen the photos that North Korea release from time to time? Everyone's smiling in those too. Just saying... ?

15 minutes ago, brady1993 said:

Possibly. I do think though that Bielik was doing a lot more heavy lifting tactically than merely being the primary defensive cover. At the time he was simultaneously the sole playmaker, the defensive anchor, the only player consistently looking to get on the ball and one of few players capable of carrying the ball. Basically I think we were really wonky tactically but got away with it because Bielik is an excellent player who could paper over the cracks.

That's the big thing for me.  He's the only midfielder we have that actually does that.  Shinnie is always out of position because he's gone off chasing the ball (not saying that's a bad thing necessarily, sometimes you want a player like that), and Bird has a really bad habit of hiding from the ball - so when our centre halves have it, he's stood stationary with 2 attackers between him and the ball, instead of busting a gut to get into space.

I actually think we weren't that bad a team in the final third last season when we got the ball there, the problem was we really struggled to get decent ball into the them.  Too many moves breaking down because of a lack of passing options in midfield or because we took too long to progress the ball.  Bielik just solved that problem in one player.

16 minutes ago, hintonsboots said:

David is still working on the financial section.

99% sure he's just bumping up the capacity on the forum server, for when he posts and the entire Derby fanbase all log on at the same time.

1 hour ago, NottsRam77 said:

Anyone else having an absolute nightmare trying to buy tickets for this game 

 

every time I finally get to the pay button screen I press it and the screen just goes blank and nothing happens 

doing it on my phone ?’ Maybe need to try laptop

Any suggestions welcome 

Try scrolling up. When I did it on my desktop, when it hit the credit card details screen, it was scrolled halfway down a massive white space below the payment form.  It was obvious to me because I had scrollbars, if you're on a iPhone or something that hides scrollbars you might miss it.

1 minute ago, Ambitious said:

The comment about wanting out for two years, and having to still pay the bills… YOU BOUGHT THE ducking CLUB! 

Not to mention he's the one that allowed the wage bill to be run up, which is the major reason it's costing him so much money.

3 minutes ago, DRS94 said:

Under Morris we have seen Hughes Hendrick Lowe Bogle Delap Gordon Brown Whittaker and Bennett all leave I can’t get my head around this academy comment. If we got offered a decent fee for Buchanan or sibley they’d be out the door too the bloke has consistently talked out his arse throughout his tenure.

The only explanation I can think of, is that while he really wants a team full of academy lads, he genuinely has no idea how to actually make it happen. The Scott Malone signing just epitomised the whole thing for me.  We had 2 promising youngsters who were on the verge of the first team (Lowe and Buchanan) and an aging, injury-prone Forsyth.  If we genuinely didn't think Lowe or Buchanan were quite ready yet, or we wanted some more reliable experienced cover there (in case Forsyth got injured again), then either get a loan in or sign someone like Byrne (relatively cheap, shortish contract etc). What you don't do is spend £3.5m and prem wages on a very average player who's not going to improve the team and just sit there burning wages and blocking the academy lads.  

The problem isn't directly down the recruitment, the managers, the academy lads themselves etc, it's a lack of vision (and the nous to implement it) from the very top.  If we genuinely wanted a team full of academy lads it should be club policy to not sign old players on big money/long contracts, to not sign expensive players where we have academy lads on the verge of breaking through, to not appoint managers that only want a team full of experienced players and so on.  You can't just throw money at the academy and expect it to work.

Mel's whole "I'm not a boss who says no" schtick (in regards to managers wanting signings) just reminds of a parent who can't say no to their child wanting sweets.  It's literally your job to say no.  Tell the manager he can't have that new left back because he already has 2 promising ones coming through. And if the manager doesn't like it, get a different manager who does.

4 minutes ago, Sparkle said:

I think you can read that completely the other way round?

I certainly read it the other way.  No, taxman is still unpaid, and the charge is still on the crime sheet. 

1 hour ago, Ambitious said:

Buchanan will likely miss the game through injury. Forsyth will likely be needed at centre back, depending on who we sign this week, so do we see Shinnie return to a position he once played OR Dylan Williams get a start. I'd assume the former as it doesn't impact the 'professional standing' numbers. 

I suspect we'll still end up having to 'cap' someone anyway, without Buchanan.  We need a LB, 2 CDs, and 2 CMs from Forsyth, Bird, Shinnie and then Jordan Brown, Louie Watson, Ebosele, and Hutchinson.  Assuming Sibley (and CKR) are already in the front 4. Starting Bird + one of Watson/Hutchinson in midfield is crazy lightweight for a championship game.  There's a (dubious) argument for playing Bird at centre half too, and that makes us even worse in midfield.  Starting Ebosele at left back (or on the right, and moving Byrne over) might be the least worst option IMO.  There's still an issue at centre half then though.