Ghost of Clough

Gellaw Newco 202 is the company which owns the stadium. This company was bought by Clowes Developments. This shouldn't be mixed up with Gellaw Newco 203 which owned Sevco 5112, which in turn owned The Club, The Academy, etc. Gellaw Newco 203 and Sevco 5112 are both dissolved. Clowes Developments also bought Derby County (The Rams) Limited, which bought the assets of The Club.

Another factor may be a maximum of 3 year contracts under the EFL agreed business plan. That in essence means a 2.5 year contract in January. By structuring the signing the way we have, we have tied Blackett-Taylor down for 3.5 years instead.

We also get about £1.2m per season from the PL for having a Cat 1 academy

It's OK to admit you're wrong. Maguire made a comment which was 100% incorrect. That's what is being debated here.

It's a potential benefit for future investors/buyers though

If signed on a 3 year deal for £300k, £100k would be amortised per year. However, if we paid a £300k loan fee and signed him in the summer, we would take the full £300k hit this season, allowing us to spend more in future seasons.

Exactly... those companies are not 'The Club'. You'll probably find it was all equity. Shareholders are only paid if there is money leftover after paying unsecured creditors and in most cases (including ours) those shares are considered worthless. Going back to Maguire's comment: "the club owed Mel in excess £200m but he claimed nothing". The club didn't owe him money, and he wasn't entitled to any money as there was never going to be any money left after paying all the creditors anyway.

The administrators report showed Sevco (5112) and Gellaw (Newco 203) both owed someone over £100m

This squad got us to 4th best in the league (based on points per game), and we want to be 1st or 2nd best in the league?

The recall is the one benefit to loaning out to NL sides instead of L2 (where it would last until the end of the season). There isn't too much of a drop off in quality either

Warne has shown himself to be adaptable (with a bit of pursuision). He didn't always play 3 at the back at Rotherham - it was only the 2nd half of 20/21 when he started using it consistently. In his previous 2 seasons in the Championship, he only used 3 at the back on three occasions. With falling back on 4 at the back 2 seasons in a row, I wouldn't bet on that being the intended shape next season either. Blackett-Taylor and Mendez-Laing are both types who will mix it up, particularly when playing on the left when both will cut in.

Whoscored's actual team of the week was slightly different as it's 442 based. The EFL removed Leyton Orient's Sweeney (LB) and Agyei (CF) and Blackpool's Hamilton (RW) to put in Brayford (CB), Wigan's Aasgaard, and Portsmouth's Kamara

I can see Warne's intended style of playing mimicing Klopp's Liverpool. The question then is, can we recruit players in the summer which will allow us to play that way at Championship level. Will we even shape up with a 433? Anything else will sacrifce the press - playing either a 3 at the back or 2 up front would reduce the effectiveness of Klopp's high intensity pressing style.

Not quite that extreme. It looks like we would have to cut our playing staff budget in half to breakeven. We'll also have increased our sponsorship income this season (no shirt sponsor this season. What's hard to judge is the one offs - repairs to stadium and training ground that were sidelined over the previous few years.

I don't think Sibley had the best of games, but I would say he did better than John-Jules. It was only his 1st league start since December 9th (a game he scored in)

If the Bielik amount and legacy agent fees are deducted, the total is about £4.5m. However, this also incldues just over £1.4m in 'transfer profit' which will mostly be Birmingham's contribution towards Bielik - so back up to £5.9m. The difference between 9 months and 12 months won't be far off being linear - wages vs 4 more games of revenue and end of season handouts from the EFL. Let's say, £3m extra on wages and approx £2m in revenue. Still need to pay for general stadium and training ground costs too, but I'll ignore those for simplicity. Total losses for the 12 month period would be back up to the £7m figure.

O'Connor and Coutts were 2012 It looks like Warne plans on primarily using a 2 man midfield. Thompson is ahead of Fornah in the pecking order, and we also appear to want to sign another CM. For the rest of this season, that would mean Hourihane, Bird, Thompson and a new signing. I'm struggling to see Fornah ever being more than a L1 player... maybe a Championship squad player at best. If we do get promoted this year, I woupd expect 2 new signings (unless we sign someone permanently this month) - both of which you'd be comfortable giving regualr starts. I don't see a place for Fornah.

Since you need a reply .. "Can't imagine Rick and Trev sat in the office on the weekend just to get our deal over the line. Any transfers we make WILL be subject to approval, after all. Tomorrow's the day I reckon." I thought those comments implied that we needed to wait until they're in the office on Monday before we could announce the deal. My sincerest apologies for misinterpreting your comments.

Would you have said the same to Nigel Clough? He eventually got the club down to a budget similar to the one we're operating woth now, yet not all signings paid off, with some being moved on quickly. Just looking back through some Nigel Clough signings which cost us money and how little they played for us before being 'binned'... Dave Martin - £100k, 324 mins Lee Hendrie - technically free as we traded him for Jordan Stewart, 440 mins Chris Maguire - £400k, 329 mins Tom Naylor - £100k, 735 mins Michael Jacobs - £600k, 1811 mins (it feels harsh putting him in this list as he had 3 goals and 13 assists, 5 assists in a single game) James O'Connor - undisclosed, 1440 mins Kieron Freeman - undisclosed, 1371 mins

Is a £6.8m loss over 9 months sustainable? Book value is not the same as worth. The squad had a £3.3m book value when Clowes took us out of admin - we later sold 2 players for the majority of that figure. When you add on the minimum fees expected for the like sof Cashin and Bird, then our total squad worth is significantly higher than it's book value. After seeing the figures for the 9 month period, it's now reasonable to assume we'll have the highest wage bill in the league this season. Clowes will be expecting promotion from such outlay, so it's reasonable for fans to expect promotion too.

That would mean 5 players this window... LB - Roberts CM - Arblaster (?) RW - Olakigbe (?) LW - Blackett-Taylor CF - Smith Blackett-Taylor and Smith will probably happen early this week. But the others may depend on players leaving first? Smith, maybe Sibley, etc...?

Do you not remember seeing "subject to EFL approval" when we've announced pretty much every signing in recent history?

We sold him in the January before admin. Rooney didn't want him so got rid. The fee was got for him was the difference between going in to admin when we did, or at the start of September. His record at youth level showed exactly why he needed time to adjust at first team level. Even when stepping up to the U18s and then the U23s he needed time to adjust to the increased physicality.