Ghost of Clough

1 hour ago, Chesterfield_Ram said:

99% of the time he uses facts that are there in black and white on companies house. However this falls into the 1% where the facts are not there on companies house as the club hasn’t published any accounts since 2016 or 2017. 
 

As the administrators report says £248,410,709 was either loaned to or the club owed (I’m not sure which), which was not claimed during the administration. I’d argue that by using a number of sources his argument would be stronger than just claiming to know this is the case. 

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

32 minutes ago, Curtains said:

Why spend thousands if we can keep what we have 

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

40 minutes ago, Chris_Martin said:

the high intensity pressing is really where the similarities end though. Klopp likes the 2 wide players to move in with the forward dropping deep to link play. Warne wants wide players to stay wide and cross to a target man up front. Klopp likes to control games with the ball, warne is fine with not having it. We also saw over the summer with all his signings, that warne's prefered system is having 3 CB's and wing backs, very different to Klopp's approach.

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.

1 hour ago, duncanjwitham said:

Oooh look, it's Eiran "Horror Show" Cashin, in the team of the week...

 

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

58 minutes ago, Chris_Martin said:

which is exactly where this squad of players should be anyway

Are you happy getting a lucky 0-0 draw against lincoln, nicking a last min winner v burton albion, being outplayed by peterborough at pride park, being knocked out cups by crewe and bradford ?

I know i have a glass half empty view on things, can't help it😅, but i just don't see how we will survive in the championship playing this brand of football. 

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.

52 minutes ago, trappatoni said:

Seems high - I mean if we player wages are averaging £500k a year (including all costs - bit of a guess but I've tried to go on the high side) that's 14 players.   That basically means our income covers costs so long as we don't pay the first team.    

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.

35 minutes ago, DavesaRam said:

Yes, but despite playing well he was still the first to get binned at half time.

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)

2 hours ago, BathRam72 said:

I would argue that a good deal of the £6.8m was probably legacy payments for the likes of Beilik etc. To be where we are not having paid a fee for players since 2020 is pretty good I suspect. When you rely on freebies and loans, you only have a pick of a very small pool of players. When you can spend, that pool gets much bigger and better.

I will not complain about where we are based on the current finances.

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.

3 minutes ago, Van der MoodHoover said:

I thought O'Connor was one of the Jewell influx with Connolly, coutts et al?

Mind, it's a few years ago now.....🤔

O'Connor and Coutts were 2012

Just now, Crewton said:

Yes, I did at the time (not to him directly unfortunately) as did many others. His treatment of Freeman, Jacobs and Maguire in particular were baffling, yet managed to have very respectable careers in the EFL (two of them even played for him at Sheff U). Jacobs got shown the door when he was in particularly good form, but at least we made a few bob on him.

Do you think Fornah is finished (which was the subject of the OP and my response, not Nigel Clough's idiosyncrasies)?

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.

6 minutes ago, Comrade 86 said:

Anything? I'll assume not eh! 🤓

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.

4 minutes ago, Crewton said:

The end?? He's 24, with good L1 experience.

Some of our fans could do with losing that "bin him off" mentality - and if the manager is trying to offload him already, maybe the owner should remind him who's paying the bills?

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

9 minutes ago, BathRam72 said:

So. The accounts and how much has been spent v squad worth should be a stark reminder to those who DEMAND instant success.  Blame recruitment if you want, but the plain fact is Clowes is running this club sustainably.  I take my hat off to you sir. Especially after the previous farce

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.

5 hours ago, Eoghan1884 said:

a Derby fan posted this on Twitter. No idea if it’s any way reliable.

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...?

4 minutes ago, Comrade 86 said:

Really? Not seen anyone panicking on here, just a few people quite understandably wondering why we've yet to hear a peep out of the club, so I'm not really sure what you find so amusing.

You sure? 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.

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

2 hours ago, Caerphilly Ram said:

In hindsight it does look that way, partly driven by circumstance/necessity due to admin though wasn’t it? 

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.

2 hours ago, rammieib said:

He also showed nothing to suggest he would make it in men’s football.

You win some, you lose some.

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.

2 hours ago, G STAR RAM said:

The £19m is in addition to the loan which appears to have been circa £24m.

The £19m would have been made up of the circa £7m paid to HMRC, the football creditors, plus a little bit to the other creditors.

The administrators report confirmed it was exactly £6,264,636.50 paid to HMRC (25%).

MSD loan was £22m.

Football creditors totalled £8.85m, but I understand this would have been later reduced to about £7.5m (Lech accepting less for Jozwiak). This had to be paid in full.

There was £3.1m of unsecured creditors. A minimum of 25% had to be paid, so just shy of £800k (bur could be anything up to an including the full amount)

My total is £36.6m (if minimum paid to unsecured creditors). Note, Clowes accounts state an extraordinary cost (purchase of DCFC) OF £36.6m.

4 minutes ago, Ram@Lincoln said:

From a trawl of LinkedIn, the first team scouting setup:

John O'Dwyer - 25 years as a scout for Southend, Bristol Rovers, Exeter, Crewe, Cardiff and Cheltenham. Joined Derby last January from Crewe. 

Alan Dawson - Old school again, 25 years as a scout for Bournemouth, Leicester, Leeds, Luton, Sheffield United, Bury, Crawley, Sheffield Wednesday, Cardiff, Middlesbrough, Sunderland. Joined Derby December 2022. 

James Fazackerley - Mark Thomas signing, was at Oxford 8 years, previously Birmingham and Leicester.

Robin Krasniqi - 25 year old Austrian, working from Spain, European scout. Mark Thomas signing from Oxford. 

The last one interested me. A few snippets from his LinkedIn page...

Whilst studying, shadowing different departments of League One Club Oxford United FC as an informal intern, before starting a formal internship as a Recruitment Analyst/Scout under the supervision of Head of Recruitment Mark Thomas.

Coaching staff at Croatian 1. HNL team NK Osijek as their Performance and Opposition Analyst. 

Derby County FC as First Team Scout, focusing on live and video scouting.

Since September 2023, additionally working for Rayo Vallecano as the Assistant Coach for their Juvenil C (U17) to gain practical experience for the upcoming UEFA-C exam.

15 minutes ago, Srg said:

Charlie Adam? He’s at Fleetwood? Or am I missing something?

Presumably Charlie Austin. Swindon are in trouble without Kemp and Young. They were their only 2 good players and were heavily relaint on them. They've alsonlost a couple of other players, so not a club I would be loaning to at this moment in time.

I could see a spot for Brown at Tranmere. They're in good form and play a front 2 so easier to get into the side, but will also have an experienced strike partner to coach him through games. Colchester and Walsall both need a forward to replace Joe Taylor and Freddie Draper who were both recalled by Lincoln this month - both teams also play with a front 2 more often than not.

16 minutes ago, Malty said:

The assets are worth whatever was paid for them. The valuation of those assets doesn’t have to be what was on the books of the previous company. However, the accounting policy on the valuation of a player via the length left on a contract might be similar to that on the previous company. 
 

The intangible asset here is possibly Bieliks contract. However this asset, in my view should have been significantly impaired. The carrying value which I’m assuming is around £2m seems too big especially given that he was later moved on to Birmingham at a price much less than £2m. So there must be other players within that valuation.

We just need more detail, we’re just guessing here.

The EFL wanted us to use straight line amortisation without any pre-approved gimmicks (such as impairment), even if it's a commonly used policy.

At the start of last season, Bielik's book value would have been c£3m.

3 hours ago, Kernow said:

One criticism I would have of today is that why have players like Brown on the bench if you aren't going to chuck him on to try and get a goal. Just off the back of scoring 5 in one game, whatever standard that is, he's going to be full of confidence. Sometimes there's games like today where you just need one to go in off someone's backside, so he'd have been a good backside for it to go in off.

I think you know the reason for that. I doubt Warne will ever change his approach either. On Brown scoring 5 (and Weston scoring 3), Warne put the 11-1 win down to the first teamers who played... they played 45 minutes and it was 3-0 when they all came off.

The even more surprising thing for me is the relectsnce to use Ward. Not used in the last 3 games, despite chasing a late winner in the last 2 games. Only 27 minutes over 6 games since being hauled off at half time against Lincoln.

Vickers

Wilson   Nelson   Cashin   Elder

Bird   Hourihane

Barkhuizen   John-Jules   Mendez-Laing

Collins

Subs: Wildsmith, Bradley, Ward, Thompson, Sibley, Blackett-Taylor, DBrown

Blackett-Taylor announced in the next 48 hours. Not enough time to get another signing over the line.

I think today showed we're lacking depth - not surprising when we have a whole bench worth of players unavailable: Rooney, Nyambe, Forsyth, Fornah, Smith, Waghorn, and Washington. Blackett-Taylor and a centre forward to add to the mix too.

With a full squad available, we would have freshened up our front line today, which would have carried us over the line. The important thing is we keep picking up points and stay within touching distance of the top 2. We'll then regain consistency when more players are back.

1 minute ago, sage said:

JJ for Sibley soon I'd have thought

It'll be JJ for Elder, with Sibley moving to LB