SSD

With respect, this ain't the thread for using the word "lucky", regardless of context, and regardless of our personal thoughts towards "The privileged few".
Cancer is a b****** to all classes, and all peoples.

I think DC has given Warne a good enough budget to work with this season. No excuses in my view.
Warne chose to go for experienced freebies who would demand higher wages and signing on fees. He could have looked lower down the leagues for younger talent, pay a transfer fee but less on wages, bonuses etc. The manager might want to be daring and risky in his football tactics, so far his transfer policy is safe (putting it politely).
This short term transfer policy of buying older players has never worked in the 30 odd years I have watched Derby County. Every bleeding time we try and go for signing these "experienced, been there done it" players, we always end up increasing wage budget and struggle to ship them off because they're passed their best. And funnily enough never gain promotion, end up clearing a mess and starting again. Thankfully this time, most of them are not tied into silly contracts because we are lower down the football food chain.

Guys, I think I need help.
I went straight from the end of The Traitors into the US version.
I may not come back from this.
Speaking of The Traitors, how thick were Mollie and Jaz?
All Jaz had to say at the end was, 'If I were a traitor, I'd have voted for the end of the game because I was guaranteed at least half the pot and, in all likelihood, all of it'?
Plank. 

Amazing what one player can do for a team. Adams had one of the best debuts I have seen for a long time. What a monster of a player in the middle. He's not afraid of getting stuck in.

Amazing what one player can do for a team. Adams had one of the best debuts I have seen for a long time. What a monster of a player in the middle. He's not afraid of getting stuck in.

Amazing what one player can do for a team. Adams had one of the best debuts I have seen for a long time. What a monster of a player in the middle. He's not afraid of getting stuck in.

3-5-2

3-5-2

I think DC has given Warne a good enough budget to work with this season. No excuses in my view.
Warne chose to go for experienced freebies who would demand higher wages and signing on fees. He could have looked lower down the leagues for younger talent, pay a transfer fee but less on wages, bonuses etc. The manager might want to be daring and risky in his football tactics, so far his transfer policy is safe (putting it politely).
This short term transfer policy of buying older players has never worked in the 30 odd years I have watched Derby County. Every bleeding time we try and go for signing these "experienced, been there done it" players, we always end up increasing wage budget and struggle to ship them off because they're passed their best. And funnily enough never gain promotion, end up clearing a mess and starting again. Thankfully this time, most of them are not tied into silly contracts because we are lower down the football food chain.

I think DC has given Warne a good enough budget to work with this season. No excuses in my view.
Warne chose to go for experienced freebies who would demand higher wages and signing on fees. He could have looked lower down the leagues for younger talent, pay a transfer fee but less on wages, bonuses etc. The manager might want to be daring and risky in his football tactics, so far his transfer policy is safe (putting it politely).
This short term transfer policy of buying older players has never worked in the 30 odd years I have watched Derby County. Every bleeding time we try and go for signing these "experienced, been there done it" players, we always end up increasing wage budget and struggle to ship them off because they're passed their best. And funnily enough never gain promotion, end up clearing a mess and starting again. Thankfully this time, most of them are not tied into silly contracts because we are lower down the football food chain.

I think DC has given Warne a good enough budget to work with this season. No excuses in my view.
Warne chose to go for experienced freebies who would demand higher wages and signing on fees. He could have looked lower down the leagues for younger talent, pay a transfer fee but less on wages, bonuses etc. The manager might want to be daring and risky in his football tactics, so far his transfer policy is safe (putting it politely).
This short term transfer policy of buying older players has never worked in the 30 odd years I have watched Derby County. Every bleeding time we try and go for signing these "experienced, been there done it" players, we always end up increasing wage budget and struggle to ship them off because they're passed their best. And funnily enough never gain promotion, end up clearing a mess and starting again. Thankfully this time, most of them are not tied into silly contracts because we are lower down the football food chain.

I think DC has given Warne a good enough budget to work with this season. No excuses in my view.
Warne chose to go for experienced freebies who would demand higher wages and signing on fees. He could have looked lower down the leagues for younger talent, pay a transfer fee but less on wages, bonuses etc. The manager might want to be daring and risky in his football tactics, so far his transfer policy is safe (putting it politely).
This short term transfer policy of buying older players has never worked in the 30 odd years I have watched Derby County. Every bleeding time we try and go for signing these "experienced, been there done it" players, we always end up increasing wage budget and struggle to ship them off because they're passed their best. And funnily enough never gain promotion, end up clearing a mess and starting again. Thankfully this time, most of them are not tied into silly contracts because we are lower down the football food chain.

I think DC has given Warne a good enough budget to work with this season. No excuses in my view.
Warne chose to go for experienced freebies who would demand higher wages and signing on fees. He could have looked lower down the leagues for younger talent, pay a transfer fee but less on wages, bonuses etc. The manager might want to be daring and risky in his football tactics, so far his transfer policy is safe (putting it politely).
This short term transfer policy of buying older players has never worked in the 30 odd years I have watched Derby County. Every bleeding time we try and go for signing these "experienced, been there done it" players, we always end up increasing wage budget and struggle to ship them off because they're passed their best. And funnily enough never gain promotion, end up clearing a mess and starting again. Thankfully this time, most of them are not tied into silly contracts because we are lower down the football food chain.

The budget was set at the start of the season, we’ve manipulated it as best as possible to accommodate CBT on the basis we were getting another in. I don’t think there is any issue with Clowes’ financial commitment to the club at all. 
I don’t know his opinion on the recruitment, going by what Warne said the whole thing was planned out and everything documented but the dominos didn’t fall. Clowes will have an insight into the inner-workings of the strategy so perhaps won’t be as blunt as we are as supporters who can only really focus on the results of the recruitment. It’s not been good and we’ve brought in a lot of players who have struggled to string games together. I’d imagine the one thing the owner hates more than anything is signing players on wages that they’re picking up sat at home.

The process used for this season will need to be overhaulled. 12 summer signings and a further 2 in January, of which only 3 are likely to be regular starters is absolutely shocking (Nelson, Nyambe, Blackett-Taylor). This is also after the squad failed to place top last season, losing 3 of our first 11 (Roberts, Knight and McGoldrick) and not even having a right back in the entire squad.
It's summarised by having no long term vision. That's in terms of: a) bringing in younger players who will either maintain their current standards for longer, or have room for improvement; or b) planning how the players will fit into the team.
Warne put a clear focus on older and more experience players, based on the rationale of higher wages equates to better players. If more budget is put towards the wages, we'll end up with a stronger squad of players.
Warne also had no plan on how to fit the players into the team. This is demonstrated by early summer recruitment being with 3421 in mind, which quickly changed to 352, and then alternating between 442 and 4231 during the season so far. We signed a LB (Elder) to play as a wing back, but also signed Nyambe (RB) after already signing 2 wing backs. He also signed a slow CB who cannot play in a high line and is uncomfortable on the ball under pressure. We've basically got through from October with only 1 fully fit forward whowas 2nd choice last season and failed to improve on in the summer AND January.
The style of play our CF targets prefer also varied. Summer targets like Harris, Rhodes and Sharp all have different strengths and weaknesses. Similar with January targets such as Smith, Gregory, Mubama, Ennis. It's just a scattergun approach all round. Most of these targets compromise on the high intensity press Warne wants to implement too.

An accurate summary of our current striking options:

Exactly. Here we are in need of a forward and Brown has played a grand total of 13 minutes in L1 and is now out on loan.

Korey Smith, Hourihane, Collins, Barkhuizen, Sibley are all likely to leave this summer, and what have we seen of Weston, D Robinson, Fapetu, Lindsay, Cruz Allen, etc.? It's great that Cashin has signed a new deal but a big offer would take him out, Bradley is 32 and obviously not up to it, Elder & Ward have struggled. Maybe Bartley, Radcliffe, Cox, or Bardell could step up and follow in Cashin's footsteps. Maybe we'll never find out if these lads are good enough.

It's so bloody short-sighted!

I hope they're paying him at least what Bradley earns every week.
Congratulations Cash! 

I hope they're paying him at least what Bradley earns every week.
Congratulations Cash! 

http://thera.ms/cashin2027
 

We are missing a striker, that's obvious to everyone involved. The loan option was the right move because why would you sign a permanent striker when Collins doesn't need replacing? We needed a back up who could rotate when Collins got tired. Warne didn't think Brown was ready, hence why he left on loan to gain experience. 
Putting my pretend football manager hat on, why not approach a young player on loan who wouldn't be a starter but have some energy to come off the bench and compete with Collo? I couldn't get my head around why we insisted on trying to look at the Sheff Weds old boys when it was pretty nailed on they would not move unless we gave them silly loan fees.
We have been unlucky though. Ennis was taken off us by Stoke at the last moment. JJ doing his hamstring again. Washington injured on international duty. I just don't think it was the right call to let Brown leave on loan without bringing someone else in. He might have proved himself as a really useful option. But letting him leave without a replacement beforehand was a huge mistake. Collins is one bad tackle away and then we have no strikers for a number of games. We are risking having to rush back Washington.
Happy with the two lads we signed. In comparison to our rivals, I don't think we have had a great transfer window and I do think this will come back to haunt us again. Whether that's Warne being stubborn on his targets or our recruitment team not getting deals over the line. We will never know.

Think there's more chance of signing Peter Sutcliffe as our new attacker from Yorkshire than trying to bother Sheff Weds again.
 

Have Stephen Pearce and Mark Thomas just been playing Clash of Clans today?

"Well I waited outside Hillsborough all day for Smith and Gregory, and forgot there's other clubs with players available."