IlsonDerby

10 hours ago, Rev said:

Quite right.

Nothing will encourage me more to tap out the best part of 1k for 2 adult season tickets than signing a fella I've never heard of, from a team I care little about.

Best part of 1k?! I’d move seats 

we pay about £300 in south stand (18 years so we do get a discount I think) works out at about £13 a game. Bargain when you consider Ilson town are charging nearly that for non league.
 

So whoscored gave him the 16th best rating last season in league 1. 
 

7 of the players above got promoted. 
1 of the players was Cashin. 
1 of the players was McG (no longer in the league) 

1 of the players was Johnson Clark Harris (unlikely to be in league 1 due to funds needed to buy him this year). 
 

So as of the end of the season we have the 3rd and the 6th highest performing players in the division in our defence. 

2 hours ago, dcfcgodd said:

He was in the league one team of the year when they got promoted.

Was going to say this. 
 

whoscored have him as being alright too. 
 

I think wingback will be a good position for him. Seems he had a bad game against us when they were playing 4 at the back? 

3 hours ago, Ambitious said:

If Knight leaves at the end of his contract we would still receive £1.5m - in my opinion, if not more. 

I’m just not sure the club wouldn’t rather use the funds this season rather than wait on a tribunal - depends on a number of factors I guess. How much is Knight going to help us towards our goal next season and would he be better used for other assets than himself?

Are you assuming here that he won’t be picked up by a non UK club? They wouldn’t have to pay near as much as a UK club would they? 

9 hours ago, YouRams said:

Anyone else notice Bristol City was on his mind? 

I noticed this! 

2 hours ago, U.M. said:

A free transfer would create a £2m loss, but save £2m depreciation ( last year of his contract, his ‘value’ disappears either way)

Any return is better than nothing, plus saves wages.

The “bad business” part was done years ago.

If he’d stayed for for the 2 years we were in the championship I’d bet the house on us making a big profit on him. He was a monster! 

Who would I like it to be? 
Smith, Knibbs, Bradley, Wing, Harding 

Think this would be a real statement for next season. 
 

Doubt it’ll be that 5 mind. 

8 hours ago, JuanFloEvraTheCocu'sNesta said:

I guess it depends who our other targets are. 300k is probably fine in isolation but if we are paying fees for other players on top of that it soon stacks up. 

Our business plan has been relaxed but we still presumably have some pretty hard limits. 

Guess it all depends on what we receive for Bielek and Knight - assuming everyone is under the impression they’re both off this summer. 

D Robinson will definitely get minutes in the pizza cup (I hope we try and win this even if it is a bit of fun). I’d imagine there’ll be at least one other from lower down that’ll earn minutes. It’s clear Aduroh isn’t a first teamer in Warnes mind but he’ll play papa John minutes too so if he wants a squad of 20-22 we’re already up to 23-25 in terms of players who will play. 
 

Will Loach be here still? He won’t be counted towards the 20-22 so again up to perhaps 24/26 in terms of players to pick from. 

GK

JW / new / loach 

CB

new / Rooney*, Cashin/ new, new/ fozzy* 

RWB/RB
new / Smith* / Rooney* / Aduroh / Barkhuizen* 

LWB/ LB 

new/ Fozzy* / Sibley* / Barkhuizen*

CM: 

Bird/ Hourihane / new / Smith / Thompson / Robinson 

Attacking Mid/10/ Support:

Sibley* / New / NML* / Barkhuizen* / Hourihane* 

Forwards: 

New / Collins / new / NML* 

Players with * indicate players who played in more than one position under Warne at some point last season and gives an idea of the versatility we’d have. Something like the above would give us a squad of 26 players including Aduroh and Robinson who clearly aren’t first teamers and Rooney and Thompson who Warne hasn’t given much game time to. This is 22 players with those 4 on the edges. Around 10 new signings needed to win the league I reckon 😎

9 hours ago, Ghost of Clough said:

Fraser Hornby. 23 year old CF who came through at Everton and was lethal in front of goal at youth level. Now at Reims with 1 year left on his contract, but went on loan to Oostende (Belgium) with a view to making it permanent. Definitely available and I imagine pretty cheap.

High defensive contribution, aerially dominant, and likes to shoot from outside the box (including freekicks). Ticks quite a few of Warne's boxes.

8 goals and 2 assists in 21 games last season. 

Always does well on football manager too 👀

6 hours ago, Kernow said:

My grandkids said he supports Oxford United, apparently loads of people who grew up in Oliveira de Azeméis do.

You can’t begrudge him joining his boyhood club.

He’s just saying he supports Oxford. I know from his kids at school that he’s actually a massive Cambridge fan. 

2 hours ago, therealhantsram said:

I agree. Let's not overhype this appointment. 

Southampton are in a very different situation to Derby. They have almost no competition for the best kids in the south. Portsmouth have been a mess for the past 10 years and after that it's Exeter.

Kids near Derby have options around Stoke, Derby, Forest and Leiec. It's very different.

Not saying this won't be a good appointment, but he will have a bunch of challenges he hasn't had before.

Came here to say this. 
He could be excellent but I wouldn’t expect that to lead to a Southampton style conveyor belt. We are in much tougher competition location wise. 
 

10 hours ago, Gee SCREAMER !! said:

The only player we could ever sign who would get booed by everybody when he walked on the pitch 

I wouldn’t boo him. 
 

he reacted badly to being called a sex offender by our fans. Hardly crime of the century. 

You have to assume he lives that way still otherwise it’d make sense for him to do it with our academy. 

All this b******* about him being another year older… he wasn’t enjoyable to watch because he covered ground like Kante. He was a joy to watch because he’s 3 moves ahead that the opposition in his head. 

4 hours ago, Kokosnuss said:

A gradual, sensible approach is good, however I doubt anyone's going to get the 10 transfer windows and 66 signings to build the squad like Clough had.

That’s what people forget. 
 

he was allowed the time to have about 45 misses by the time he’d clocked up 20 successes. 

So we’ve all probably seen the article from the Ireland national manager saying that Knight is close to leaving. Figured it was time to open a thread for him. 
 

I don’t mind Knight going. I don’t mind international managers wanting their players playing at a higher level. 
I do think their gaffer has overstepped saying he’s close to moving. It isn’t his place to say, surely that belongs to Knight, Derby or the new club. 
 

anyway all the best Knighty.

I think this lad looks exciting but that’s probably because I don’t know anything about him. 

23 hours ago, TuffLuff said:

Had a think about this question over a few days and I think I’ve come to the conclusion that while I expect us to be challenging near the top, I’m not too bothered about promotion. I mean if it happens then great, I’d be ecstatic but a few things bother me.

1) I want us to be a sustainable club, I don’t want us to have a chairman who’s having to throw thousands, if not millions, into the club just to keep us afloat or chasing a near impossible dream. We are a community club and I don’t want us to have an idea that the finances of the club are an ownership problem rather than an overall problem we need to keep an eye on.

2) I want us to have an achievable plan in place to build something. We might have this already in place internally but I want us to have a plan to build something over x amount of seasons rather than just getting to the championship and then going from there. 

3) I have great concerns for the football pyramid as a whole, I can’t see the point in being a championship team with more overheads, trying to get to the prem where the gap between the have and have nots gets ever bigger.

Yes I’d love promotions and getting back to being a big club again, but I also like local ownership and I want us to be steady and stable. We need to be careful what we wish for and think about what’s next and how it’s going to be achieved as much as just having expectations.

 

The issue is that they said on the play off final that championship football is worth around £8/9m more per year than league one. 
 

£8/9m is a lot of money now (since the lower league covid reset where teams aren’t spunking silly money) 

I suspect that with clever recruitment, sustainability is easier within the championship due to the extra breathing room. 

20 hours ago, MadAmster said:

If you count RamsTV interviews with David Clowes as reliable, then, yes. Plus something he said to me in the Directors Lounge (actually, we were in the doorway) at Forest Green. The plan is for the club to be self sufficient, paying its own way. Remember, when it was first mooted that he would buy the club to save it, he was said to be worth £250M. Buying DCFC and PP cost him £50M. Most of what he had left will be in non-liquid assets rather than ready cash. He also said, when there was talk of him buying that his Dad had told him NOT to buy the club. DC is a canny man and won't be imposing further on his "worth" than he already has done.

He doesn’t own us though personally does he? His business owns us and his business makes 10s of millions in profit per year so his personal wealth won’t be impacted by this surely? 
 

The pressures come from making sure it doesn’t consume his successful business his dad built up to protect that and all of his employees in that business I’d imagine. 

1 hour ago, MadAmster said:

1) I can assure you David Clowes will not be putting any money into the club. His philosophy is that the club is self financing.

2) He does have a plan. Based on what happens season on season, there are plans for L1 and SBC. Following promotion there will be a PL plan as well, although I suspect the basis of it is already in his head if not on paper.

3) Luton seem to have proved that all things are possible. From non-League to the PL in 9 years with a ground that has a 10K capacity.

The expectation is there. Looking at what we achieved last season from DC's takeover on July 1st it's hardly surprising that fans are expecting promotion. Most, maybe all, of the bookies have DCFC as title favourites at between 5/1 and 6/1. Achieving it is another matter altogether. Imagine that PW is able to get the 12 or so new signings he wants. There's no guarantee they will gel quickly or even at all. That's why the game is so attractive, intoxicating. You never ever know for certain. Look at Chelsea this past season...

You heard this from a reliable source? 
I’d heard he was happy to fund us to X amount per season if needed.

3 hours ago, Scott129 said:

Perhaps.

But it's the exact same promotional photo. And you can see that the sponsor has been photoshopped on.

I'd be stunned at Umbro's laziness if this is real.

It is fake but let’s be honest Umbro would be exactly that lazy 😂

46 minutes ago, Scott129 said:

 

Is it unlike Umbro to reuse a previous design? 

I’m not saying I expect this but wouldn’t it be just a brilliant season to run away with the league playing high intensity football. 
 

best chance we’ve ever had since I’ve been a season ticket holder to win a league title 😂 

I think minimum expectation for the club would be top 6 but expecting a push on the top two. 

3 GKs 

3/4 proper WBs 

5 CBs 

4 CM 

6 Forwards (10s, attacking mids, strikers - anyone to play in his front 3) 

GK: JW, ?, ? 
WBs: ?, ?, ?, ? 
CBs: EC, CF, ?, ?, ?
CM: MB, CH, KS, ? 
Forwards: JC, LS, NML, ?, ?, ?
 

Squad of 22 with Rooney, Thompson, Oduroh and a few other youngsters like D Robinson utilised in the JPT etc 

I would let Barkhuizen go if we’re not playing with wide forwards. 
Also assume Knight and Bielik are heading out. 
 

13 signings minimum. 
Hope Didzy and Roberts resign. 
I’d also quite like Dobbin back as something different the way he just gets on and runs at players. Granted his finishing needs some work but he’s an exciting player. 
10 new players. Granted some will have played with Warne previously but that’s still a hell of a lot of players to gel. 
 

Going to be a slow start and hopefully a season that improves as the players begin to gel. 
 

Let’s say that Loach resigns as does the lad from FGR, that’s down to 8 outfield signings left to sign.