Ghost of Clough

This came from the club's live Youtube Fan Forum. He was talking about making sensible business decision to cut losses and sell players at the right time (ie. not letting players leave for free at the end of contracts). Also referred to a discussion they had with supporters - if players don't want to sign new deals the will sell them which confirms both of those players will be sold - I would sign them both if they are affordable.
Other than a lot of waffle and hiring consultants for every department of the club, the key takeaways from that stream...
Charlton have lost £45m over their 6 years in L1 (£7.5m per season). Their board believe they have a top 3 wage bill (confirms my thoughts). They aim to cut losses down to £1.5m a season Identified a regular change in playing style as a cause of underperformance Plan for squad building is 8 top end L1 players capable of stepping up, 8 'consistent' L1 players, 8 academy graduates Concern over number of injuries. Their recruitment didn't consider historic availability when signing players (sounds familiar?) On the academy, they're ramping up the number of academy coaches and employing a coach to aid the transition between the academy and the first team (similar to the role Justin Walker originally had under Cocu?). Also linking up with a Jamaican academy. That was a boring listen. It makes me appreciate the Fan Forums we have with @Owen87ITK, Warne and Pearce a lot more!

For reference, in Wigan's promotion season, he played half his games on the right (7 goals and 7 assists) and the other half down the middle (8 goals and 3 assists)

That would take us to 8 absentees! (Nyambe and Smith are the others)
If all of those players are out, I would go with this...
Wildsmith
Nelson   Bradley   Cashin
Barkhuizen   Bird   Hourihane   Sibley   Elder
Collins   Mendez-Laing
 
Subs: Vickers, Bartley, Cox, DRobinson, Thompson, John-Jules, DBrown
I imagine we'll see Wilson in the squad, but the bench will still be very youthful

Ignoring quality of performance and judging players for minutes on the pitch this season against (guessed) wages, you've got to admit our summer signings on the whole haven't been great?
John-Jules, Elder, Ward, Washington and Bradley have got to be towards the bottom of the list. Nelson and Wilson have been the exceptions, with Nyambe, Waghorn and Fornah in the middle of the pack. VIckers excluded due to being a backup keeper.

Ignoring quality of performance and judging players for minutes on the pitch this season against (guessed) wages, you've got to admit our summer signings on the whole haven't been great?
John-Jules, Elder, Ward, Washington and Bradley have got to be towards the bottom of the list. Nelson and Wilson have been the exceptions, with Nyambe, Waghorn and Fornah in the middle of the pack. VIckers excluded due to being a backup keeper.

The pedant in me wants to know where the missing game has gone? 😉 
But also, the numbers don't seem great at a glance, but that's 15 starts out of 20 (or 19 depending on which numbers are right) appearances. It's not the worst return from a loan spell ever.

Just seen that. He stated "a few" are on course, so at least 3 and not including Bird or Cashin, Whilst Thompson and Waghorn haven't played in too many games to be classed as "on course". Smith is injred with no fixed return date, and is also down the pecking order of CMs so I also doubt he's included. Although, that could be another reason for the rumours suggesting we're trying to move him on. Wildsmith, Forsyth, Hourihane, Barkhuizen and Collins would be the leading candidates - with only Wildsmith being a regular starter in the Championship

It's why it's usually a good idea to include a couple of U21s in the team. They bring enthusiasm and unpredictability to the team, the sort of energy which helps motivated the more senior players in the team.

I have no problem not overpaying in fees and wages considering all the hurt we went through with the administration and very nearly losing our football club. Just look at our last types of fees paid out because they were basically disastrous.
i know Warne wanted Cashin and Bird sold perviously to spend out but at least he has worked out that we actually need them and his record at Derby with signing players is not good at all is it, well not in my opinion 

To be honest, there aren't many in this league who would be a significant upgrade on Bird regarding driving forward with the ball or forward passing. Ollie Arblaster would be one player to give both. The only others who aren't at promotion rivals are Carlisle's Owen Moxon (weak passing stats) and Bristol's Antony Evans (would be expensive).
Dan Kemp (recalled by MK Dons this month) would be the pick of the bunch in League 2. Mansfield's Davis Keillor-Dunn could be an option, but I think he'd be too expensive for us.
If looking at players not getting enough game time in the Championship, Adil Aouchiche from Sunderland could be an option.

John-Jules - we put an offer in, they countered, we've put a new offer in and we're almost there. Sounds like the loan will be extended until the end of the season. We could be negotiating on the wage contribution or an obligatory fee to pay if we want him in the summer (only 22 so Arsenal will be due compensation if they were to offer him a contract. 

John-Jules - we put an offer in, they countered, we've put a new offer in and we're almost there. Sounds like the loan will be extended until the end of the season. We could be negotiating on the wage contribution or an obligatory fee to pay if we want him in the summer (only 22 so Arsenal will be due compensation if they were to offer him a contract. 

Ipswich - 8 summer signings
Plymouth - 10 summer signings
Sheff Weds - 12 summer signings
In summary, it doesn't matter how good your squad is in League 1, you'll end up signing half a new squad anyway. We have 11+ players I would be comfortable having in a Championship squad (even if not regular starters).A couple of quality signings this month eases the summer burden, so I don't share your current concerns

The restriction is the budget which Clowes set and the EFL signed off. 
It could be that we had a bit of wiggle room to sign players, but Warne was hoping to sell one or two players to give him a larger pot of money to use on new signings (we were planning to sell Cashin in the summer) but results since the last window have changed those plans so we no longer want to sell those players. This means a tighter than planned budget.
Let's say we had 5% of our budget left in reserve, that'll only be enough to pay for the wages of 2 top L1 players (each on £10k pw) or just one if a small £250k fee is involved. If we had £1m+ spare in the seasonal budget, then the next question would have been "why didn't we use it to strengthen further in the summer?"
This isn't just a Derby problem. All L1 clubs will have tight budgets this month unless they receive fees for players.
We have been told that no fee was paid (upfront) for any players in the summer. However, we will pay fees for Fornah, Wilson and Washington depending on clauses (promotion, sell-ons, etc)

Bardell is injured and I believe Radcliffe still is too. Bartley is a CB. DRobinson has played RB before (for us and N.Ireland) but he's been missing since our EFL Trophy game against Wolves in November so may also be injured.
The U21s also haven't played since December 15th so will be short of match fitness. Moore played in that game, and I would say he's some way off being ready for the first team.
Perry (started RW in that U21 game mentioned above) started the last U18 game (vs Forest on Christmas Eve) but he came off after half an hour with an injury. Osayande, who came off the bench to make his first team debut against Wolves U21 and played RB, played the rest of that game. However, he's primarily a CB and is some way off being ready for first team football (especially at RB)
It's unlikely that we'll want to move Nelson away from CB (as the next best RB option), hence why I think it would be Barkhuizen at RWB if Ward and Wilson are unavailable.
 
Oduroh was sent back by Rochdale where he was in and out of the side. He needs another loan to a National League or National League North side.

Are you suggesting we 'gamble' along with the likes of Oxford? If they fail to go up having spent more than was originally budgeted for then they are going to be in even more of a straight jacket next season.
I'd be really disappointed if Clowes went down this path just to satisfy the aspirations of a few fans and don't for one minute think he will.

That would take us to 8 absentees! (Nyambe and Smith are the others)
If all of those players are out, I would go with this...
Wildsmith
Nelson   Bradley   Cashin
Barkhuizen   Bird   Hourihane   Sibley   Elder
Collins   Mendez-Laing
 
Subs: Vickers, Bartley, Cox, DRobinson, Thompson, John-Jules, DBrown
I imagine we'll see Wilson in the squad, but the bench will still be very youthful

It’s all relative though isn’t it? IF we go up to the championship with a relatively low cost base and sensible expenditure within a controlled budget, having sold Knight and banked the money, we have whatever increased sponsorship and tv revenue to add into the budget after promotion and the spending of fees and wages adjusts in line with that.

Would it be concerning? We may earn more than others clubs, but Clowes may have made the decision to run us more sustainably. For example, Charlton have averaged losses of £7.5m since they were relegated from the Championship. Clubs such as Oxford have also taken this season to push the boat out in an attempt to get promoted too.

Carries the ball exceptionally well. Was top of this chart by a long way last season too.
Decent output as well. I think Charlton fans are salty because they're losing him.

I don't know how we're coping in this league against the mega millions Cheltenham have.
On Hull, they still only the 9th highest transfer expenditure this season and I'm willing to bet there are just as many teams who are spending more on wages. I know we've been out of the Championship for 2 seasons, but surely you couldn't have forgotten how much clubs spend on wages in that league? £40m is top 6, £30m is top half. Hull had a wage bill of just £12.7m 2 seasons ago. The way you talk about Hull's finances suggests you thing they've quadrupled their wage bill in just 2 years?

We'd struggle to field an XI if we picked the team based on the Bradford game

We'd struggle to field an XI if we picked the team based on the Bradford game

Absolutely baffles me that clubs still aren't factoring this in these days. I just assumed it's part of the basic due diligence anyone does on a player so you can assess the risk and make an informed decision?