duncanjwitham

2 hours ago, Crewton said:

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/sep/18/efl-wants-to-charge-leicester-with-financial-rules-breach-if-club-relegated

 

"The EFL has successfully brought charges against clubs for historical PSR breaches. Sheffield Wednesday and Derby were docked points by the EFL in 2020 for breaches of regulations that had taken place more than two years earlier, with both cases related to using the sale of their stadiums to sister companies to generate profit in their accounts."

FFS 🤬

20 minutes ago, WystonRam said:

Can players leave outside of the I window on Youth Loans, or have I imagined that ?

Yes, but only to non-League clubs.  I imagine we'll want Brown playing league One football if he goes.

18 minutes ago, Ambitious said:

It would be easy to pick holes in that, of course. It’s becoming exceedingly rare that teams don’t play the ball forward quickly in the Premier League, the top teams are so dominant in possession that you have to think more tactical in terms of being as effective as possible with what you have. 

There are plenty of premier league teams who average 35/40% possession over the season. Forest stayed up with an average of 37.2% possession. Southampton have dominated the ball in both their games, lost them both and haven’t scored, because the opposition team have been more tactical.  

It's not a binary choice of get it forward quickly, or play sideways on your own 18 yard line all game though.  There's a spectrum of positions in between.  Last season, we had a lower pass completion percentage than every single Premier League team, played more long balls than every one of them, and put more crosses in than every one.  The situation is pretty much the same in the Championship - last season our stats would have put us in the bottom 3 (or top 3 depending on how you look at it) for all those stats too.  Nobody in the higher leagues is playing the way we do, or at least not to the same extent anyway.   (You can argue Prem players are better the ours etc, but they were also playing against Prem standard opponents too.)

I don't think anybody is absolutely demanding that we play like a Guardiola team or anything, there's a reasonable spread of ways of playing that are both entertaining and affective.  And if we pick one of those and play it reasonably well then most people are going to be happy.  But at the moment, and for most of the last 2 years, we've been so far beyond the other end of the acceptable range (IMO anyway) that it's dreadful to watch.  Nobody minds the ball going forwards quickly.  I can't imagine anybody really like the ball getting slung forward/wide at the first chance and more often than not always given away, and then we get to watch the other team pass round us for 5 minutes.  And that's been happening far too much.

12 minutes ago, Ambitious said:

I do struggle to see how managers have a 'ceiling' in all honesty, he was promoted in league one because he had a budget that afforded him to compete towards the top end. In the Championship, he had the smallest budget in the league but as I said: was competitive in each season - two points off safety in one season, four in another. 

Rotherham in their first full season without Warne finished 24 points off safety in the Championship to give a little context.

For me, that's actually an insight to show the job he did at Rotherham was nothing short of excellent. He got the most out of the players he had, he recruited well and kept them on task. All qualities we will need from him this season. 

In this specific case, I think it's basically because there's only so far you can go by trying to out-run and out-work the other team.  There are diminishing returns as you face better opponents.  At Championship level, all of the other teams are going to be pretty fit too, and they're also going to keep the ball better when you lose it, punish your mistakes more often, make less mistakes themselves etc.  You can't just rely on fitness and work to make up for your deficiencies elsewhere, sooner or later you have to work smarter not just harder.

Even at League One level it was visible to some degree.  There were many games where we were completely reliant on good defending (plus a bit of luck) and then NML, Hourihane or whoever magics a goal out of nowhere to get the points.

There's a few different aspects to this.  Firstly, I think it's difficult to pin blame directly on Warne because we don't know how the process is working behind the scenes.  Are the recruitment team finding great players and Warne is saying no?  Are the recruitment team struggling to find anyone and Warne is on his own?  Are we finding great players but can't afford them, or they're turnings us down for whatever reason?  From the outside we have no clue on those aspects.

Secondly, I think it's clear that the recruitment hasn't been good since Warne got here.  Too many players that contribute nothing because they are permanently injured, or they suddenly don't seem to fit the managers plans, or they keep getting played out of position and struggle.  Obviously it's early days on the new signings, but I'm far from convinced that new midfielders fit Warne's usual high intensity box-to-box style, and I'm unclear as to why we've signed a short striker if we still want to cross a lot.  Even the one that looks good so far (Jackson) plays in the same position as our best attacker from last year, with the result that his form has dropped off a cliff when he's been moved to the other side.  Something, somewhere needs fixing.

Thirdly, and this is the key one for me, is do I want a squad filled with "Warne-type" players, and the answer is simply no.  Obviously character, fitness and work-rate all matter, but if you prioritise those things over everything else (particularly if you aren't exactly overflowing with cash) then you end up with a lot of players that aren't actually very good at the passing/crossing/shooting/tackling stuff that actually matters.  Even if we do get the recruitment right, and all the players fit Warne's style etc, I don't think it will be the kind of squad I particularly want to watch play.

1 minute ago, Gerry Daly said:

My post wasn't rhetorical at all, it was in response to Sherriff who was basically saying we are all on the managers back unfairly. I agree with you entirely. My best years watching Derby were seeing Arthur Cox building the club back up from just as weak a position. You could see what he was trying to do. You could see the progress. Sure we didn't win every game but the fans were right behind him for the reasons you give in your first paragraph

There was definitely a hint of "I can't imagine what is it about Paul Warne's terrible, abysmal football that makes Derby fans get on his back so quickly..." in your post 😉

5 minutes ago, Archied said:

No. Excuse ,,,, we were very very poor that’s on manager and players , 

here’s the thing , it’s not about what style we choose to play ,it’s about being very good at whatever way we (the manager) decide s to play , we could turn up every week and play the style that the Warne bashers want and be poor / inconsistent because let’s face it if the players struggle to complete single passes with any degree of competence then they ain’t gonna string 20 in a row together,

I don’t care what style any derby manager wants to play as long as we get bloody good at it and get results , so far in the main we / warne have got the results needed to get us back to the championship, if he doesn’t get his team getting results that realistically match our budget then I will be hoping for a change of manager but not because he doesn’t play the way I think football should be played or the style I prefer🤷🏻‍♂️

What is that though? Does anyone actually understand what we're trying to do this season?  If we'd gone out last night with Collins up front, and dropped a load of crosses on his head, we probably win that game.  It might not have been pretty, but it would probably have worked.  Instead he barely got a single cross all night.  Like I said earlier, we started with a narrow right winger, a wrong-footed left winger and our best crosser stuck at right back.  It was blatantly obvious from the line-up that Collins would get no service.  

If the plan is to pump a load of crosses in like last season, I don't understand why we've signed a 5'9 striker and have no left-footed left winger at the club.  If the plan is sit deep and break, I don't understand why we've signed a bunch of midfielders who seem to struggle when teams run at them.  We've got Yates and Goudmijn who seem to want balls into feet and passing options, yet we move the ball forward so quickly that they're always isolated, and we never play into feet anyway.  I genuinely have no idea from watching the first 5 games, what we're actually trying to even do.

2 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

Collins vs Barrow

 

Thompson was our only midfielder to touch the ball in the box (once), with only three starters had more touches in the box (Collins, Barkhuizen and Forsyth with 2 each).

Mendez-Laing had 6 and Jackson had 4.

Yeah, they're basically all like that.  The only one that looks anything like a half-decent centre forward performance is Brown against Chesterfield:

2 minutes ago, tomsdubs said:

Look at the service Yates got at Watford, he never stood a chance of scoring a goal. Could play all day and still never the ball at his feet in the box.

Yates touch map against Watford:

I can't believe I have to actually say this, but we were attacking the goal on the left.  He had one touch in their box in 83 minutes of football, and that was offside.  And only 3 other touches beyond the centre circle.  You could put prime Brazilian Ronaldo in this team and he wouldn't do anything.

32 minutes ago, Gerry Daly said:

Why are the fans so quickly ready to pounce on him? Why do they have far less patience and trust in him than they might in another manager do you think? Particularly given that he achieved promotion quickly? 

Is it that Derby fans are a particularly impatient, fickle and entitled lot or is it something about Warne and the way he goes about things?  

I can't tell if your question was supposed to be rhetorical, but for me it's simple.  If you aren't getting results, then you've got to have something to fall back on.  If you're playing attractive/entertaining football, then by and large the fans will give you time to get it right.  If you are clearly building something, then the fans will give you some time to get there.  If you are blooding youngsters then the fans will give them time to develop.

As it stands, we're playing absolutely awful football, and we've got a team that's largely full of players over 30 (or close to anyway) and other clubs youngsters.  Of the guys who are getting regular football for us, who do we think could potentially be a really good player for us over the next say 3 years (or at least a player who improves in value, that we can sell and reinvest)?  Cashin, Goudmijn, Zetterstrom, Wilson maybe, and that's it?  Rooney hasn't kicked a ball in a year, and was barely involved before that.  Thompson gets the odd appearance, Brown even less, and none of our other youngsters get a look in.  The rest of the squad will either be retired, have moved to club down the leagues, or have gone back to their parent clubs.  We're not building anything, we're not developing anything.  There's basically nothing to give you any hope that things will get better.

2 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

Then we need to loan him out and not let him sit on the bench for every league game.

His level as a regular starter is L1 right now - but we aren't even willing to start him against L2 opposition. 
Last season: 1 minute against Notts County, 45 vs Wolves U21s, 17 mins vs Blackpool, 13 mins vs Northampton, 1 min vs Leyton Orient
This seasonL 69 mins vs Chesterfield, 29 mins vs Barrow

However, as I constantly try to remind people, there's a difference between being a regular starter and being a squad player. Brown is ready to be a squad player for us. Young players need to be trusted and they learn quickly in the first team. Brown's the sort of player who needs to be played to feel like he belongs at this level - we'll then reap the rewards for putting the faith in him.

Games like those against Barrow are the ones we need to be starting him to ensure he adapts to our team as quickly as possible - just like we should have in cup games vs Crewe, Notts County (more than 1 minute), Bradford and Fleetwood last season. Even in the league games when he was named on the bench, he should have been brought on much sooner. He was a last minute sub bs Leyton Orient despite being 2 up after 47 mins and 3-0 after 79 mins. 4-0 up after 49 mins vs Northampton and he got just 13 minutes.

I'm not sure he's going to learn anything playing in this team at the moment.  Experienced forwards in Collins, Yates and Jackson (when played through the middle) are barely getting a touch of the ball, let alone any actual decent service.

33 minutes ago, rammieib said:

Honestly I don’t know. I’m not knowledgeable enough on various managers out there. Here is what I want in my manager:

- more progressive attack minded football, with greater control on the ball and playing through the lines more. I’d like a 50% possession line (in most games, some we can’t I get)

- a manager who makes players better. I don’t think PW does (open to debate of course). A manager who can take what we have and find the optimum performance levels from them

To add to that, I want to see a manager actually trying to get his players doing what they're good at, not just jamming them in a random formation and hoping they run around enough so it doesn't matter.

What was the point of having Collins in the team -  he needs crosses to thrive off, and we had a right winger tucking in, a wrong footed guy on the left and our best crosser stuck at right back.

Goudmijn is wasted in this team - he barely gets the ball, and he never has anyone to pass to when he does get it.

Ward can't play right back - he's nowhere near good enough defensively, and you're just making it harder for him to do the one thing he's very good at (crossing).

NML coming on on the left - he just about did okay there last night (without actually producing anything), but he's struggled more often than not.  He's the best out and out winger at the club, but he's hamstrung by playing on the wrong side.

Ozoh as a holding midfielder - he looks decent on the ball but ropey defensively, so if you set up to force the ball forwards/wide all the time and then keep get broken on, you're not letting him get on the ball and play, while exposing his weaknesses.

I could go on and on. I do think there's a half decent team, somewhere amongst the players we have, but I don't think we'll ever see it with Warne in charge.  I don't think the majority of the players can do what Warne wants them to do (despite him signing most of them), and he seems to have no interest in getting them to do what they're actually good at either.

Just now, TF Ram said:

Is anyone else watching on Sky Sports+ ?

Keeps freezing for a few seconds, not sure if it's just mine or affecting everyone.

Same happening here.

I think you're all being really harsh.  They clearly wanted to make it look classy.  And in Nottingham, nothing says classy like 4 types of mis-matched concrete, a badly-painted bit of moveable barrier, a cheap corrugated plastic roof, a bunch of exposed wiring, 2 air-conditioning units, some steel ducting and what appears to be a side entrance for dwarves.

1 hour ago, jimtastic56 said:

Paul Warne needs to make it clear tonight to Cashin that he is not playing midfield. Stay back , mark a centre forward and keep a clean sheet . Moral booster for Saturday. 

That's easy to say from the side-lines, but not so easy to make happen when everything around you is falling apart.  He's not coming into midfield because he wants to, it's because there's a massive gap there, that attackers are running freely into whenever they like.  We seem to be playing the same "everyone bombs forward, then everyone sprints back" strategy that we started last season with.  It's great if it works, but when it doesn't you get absolutely killed, and that was happening more often than not on Friday.

For example, this is the lead up to Blackburn's second goal:

You can clearly see the massive hole in midfield.  Ozoh (green) has gone and pressed their left winger, and got bypassed.  Cashin (red) has stepped out to pick up the guy that Ozoh should have been covering.  If he doesn't do this, that guy controls the ball and is turned and running at us, plus he's got 2 more Blackburn midfielders breaking with him, along with the forwards already there.  Cashin eventually gets a tackle in on him, and then wins 2 more tackles in midfield, ultimately resulting in this moment:

Cashin is the one just getting up from making a tackle.  It's a full 10 seconds after the first screenshot, and at this point there are 7(!) Blackburn attackers streaming onto our backline, while barely any of our midfielders or forwards have got back to help out.  We might have got away with this kind of situation in League one, but we get punished in this league.  The other goals are similar, we bomb forward, they break on us and we get killed.  The 3rd goal they are breaking 4-on-2 at one point.  The 4th goal is a 5-on-5 breakaway.

I'm not saying Cashin is blameless, or playing amazingly, but it's nowhere near just down to Cashin.  And it's certainly not as simple as staying back and marking someone.  We are almost deliberately making the game chaotic and stretched, and it's resulting in players making mistakes.  No centre half looks consistently good when they're outnumbered, and have got players turned and running at them at the time.

34 minutes ago, Tombo said:

Of course they did. They're a very good team

Do you enjoy watching them though?

Yes, they’re an excellent team to watch.  They play good football, create lots of chances and score lots of goals.

I genuinely don’t understand your argument - you moan about them spending far too long passing the ball around the back, yet they spend more time in the attacking third than any other team in the league.  Last season, we spent more time with the ball in our own defensive third than Man City did.

11 minutes ago, Tombo said:

I think a conversation needs to be had about what exactly constitutes "attractive football" anymore.

Do Pep's City play "good football"? I don't think so, I think it's dull and negative and just suffocates the game into submission until you win.

Do fans want to see their team play it around the back and keep the ball away from the pressing attackers?

A team who move the ball fast on the counter and try to beat the defensive line and get in behind is much better to watch, even if it means that they have to play very direct football to get it into the attacking third as quickly as possible.

There's more to enjoying watching your team play than just "I hope they don't pass it more than 5 yards at a time otherwise we'll get called hoofball merchants"

Last season, in the Premier League, Man City:

Scored the most goals
Had the 2nd most shots
Had the most shots on target
Scored the most goals from open play (by a long, long way)
Had the most possession in the final 3rd
Had the 4th most dribbles

53 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

There's a difference between a player's value changing and being sold for that new value, and applying amortisation in a non-linear manner.

I stand by my view that there wasn't much wrong with what we did - it just needed a systematic way of deciding how much to charge each season, taking into account contract length and age. The main argument against what we did was to do with an unfair advantage... a policy which any club could use, and one with a net zero impact over 3-5 years, therefore no advantage gained.

What the PL clubs have started doing (Forest being one of them) was predicted years ago. The rules should have been changed years ago, but the people deciding the rules are the ones who need to bend them to suit their needs when needed. What they've done isn't against any rules, so they shouldn't (and won't) be punsihed. I'll be surprised if the rules aren't changed by next season though.

Our argument for why we were applying non-linear amortization was that the accounting rules required us to account for all benefits derived from players, both from playing for us and by potentially being sold on for a profit.  That second part required us to approximate the potential resale value of players to account for it.

The EFL's counter argument was that it's impossible to apply a value to a player (for accounting purposes) until someone actually bids for them and you have a concrete value to use.  So you can only account for benefits derived from playing for the club.  The Prem are now saying the complete opposite, and they want to start deciding what appropriate values for players are, even when clubs actually bid for them, in case they think clubs are overcharging for them.  

The thing is, I don't see how you fix it without completing changing the way FFP (or whatever it's called now) works.  Are clubs going to have to run every single transfer by the relevant governing body to determine exactly what an appropriate transfer fee is, for their accounts?  Or are they just going to start "revaluing" transfers when the accounts are submitted, and clubs will have no idea if they are going to pass or not.  It will be chaos either way.

12 hours ago, Shipley Ram said:

hopefully

https://www.footballinsider247.com/premier-league-could-investigate-newcastle-and-nottingham-forest-deal-sources/#Echobox=1722013793-2

Pretty much the entire basis of the EFL's case against us was that you cannot, under any circumstances, value players (hence requiring straight-line amortization as the only way to account for them).  And here comes the Premier League insisting that you absolutely can now.

Not that it's going to happen of course, but it would be peak hilarity if Forest simultaneously screwed themselves and opened up some kind of line of recourse for us.

1 hour ago, Ambitious said:

We could well have four former academy players go for fees combined worth £60-70m this summer. 

Delap, Kellyman, Brown & Whittaker. Two have already (or close to) moved for a combined £39m - Brown and Whittaker expected to move on for eight-figure fees. 

You've got to laugh, eh? 

Elsnik could well go for a decent chunk too.

40 minutes ago, Wolfie20 said:

Not necessarily. The deal is reported as being up to £19m, with various 'add ons' so what we receive will be dependant on what the initial fee is - anything else might not be guaranteed.

If it's true that they're doing this as a way to cheat FFP a bit, then there has to be a fair amount of guaranteed money in the deal,  otherwise it won't work.  You can't book profits in your accounts that might never materialise.

14 hours ago, Ambitious said:

In terms of impactful signings, Ebou has etched his name into Rams folklore because without him I don’t doubt for a single minute that we wouldn’t have been promoted automatically. He’s been absolutely phenomenal for us. 

At first there was Osman, then there was Thorne, followed by the trio of Mount, Wilson and Tomori.. now there is Ebou Adams.

And Taribo West before that lot.  Came in on a self-proclaimed mission from God and pretty much kept us in the Prem on his own.

12 minutes ago, Carl Sagan said:

Yes this is two leagues below, but you look at all these goals -

left foot, right foot, headers, and often very clever finishes, poaching in the six yard area, running from the halfway line, shooting from outside the box - 

And all the other stuff too.  He looks quick enough to run away from players for the first goal in that clip.  There's a great first touch and some lovely close control to create the space for the second of his hattrick.  There's some great runs to get into position to score some of those poaches - the one for the last goal in particular.

10 minutes ago, TuffLuff said:

That’s the issue with the article, it’s alright saying ‘look at this wrongun’ and MM or Preston saying ‘we knew he was a wrongun’ but they didn’t raise any concerns at a time when they could. Yes there is an issue of football clubs that are going into the wrong persons hands, but part of that is those that help legitimise those people and push them through in the first place. Saying they didn’t know absolves the EFL, Cook, Stretford, Quantama and a whole lot of others who caused a lot more mess for Derby County. 
 

 

Can you imagine the absolute meltdown amongst the fanbase if Morris had basically come out and said he didn't like/trust/whatever Kirchner and wasn't going to deal with him?  The same with the EFL and Quantuma really.  Kirchner passed the basic tests he was required to pass, and had all the hallmarks of a reputable businessman - it wasn't like he was that random Sheikh who may or may not be related to the Man City lot, or that Spanish guy who seemingly had very little beyond an Instagram profile (which was probably faked anyway), or any of the other chancers who cropped up over the years.  He owned a legit business, had major financing from reputable companies and was actively involved in sports sponsorships.

If any of MM/the EFL/Quantuma etc had come out and said they weren't dealing with Kirchner, then Kirchner would have been all over Radio Derby/social media etc saying he was trying to save Derby and whoever was stopping him doing it.  It would have been chaos.

3 minutes ago, Oldben said:

What about proximity to suspension.

 

The cut-off point for a 10-yellow-card suspension is the clubs 37th game, which we're already past.