Rampage

Just now, Yani P said:

Lovely play by Knight to harry and steal the ball...lovely finish by Tom..pure class

Fantastico

12 minutes ago, Burton_Ram said:

Watching from Dubai. COYR

Nice. Was 33 degrees today. I suppose that it was hotter there.

1 minute ago, ANGERMAN1 said:

All good for me.

Relying on you guys tonight. In Tenerife.

3 hours ago, hintonsboots said:

We badly need some news.

Willy Eckerslyke will not be taking over Derby County.

Who will be the first to write a book on this. Not me. Anyone want to borrow a pen.

4 minutes ago, oomarkwright said:

Jeff Bridges. 

I knew that. He calls himself 'Dude' in the Big Lebowski. Sort of a joke. Great film.

2 hours ago, IslandExile said:

Don't worry B4.

I really do not think those rumours linking him with Newcastle are true.

Now that they are rich beyond their wildest dreams, I would expect them to want a big name (management wise), a proven manager to take them to where they feel entitled to belong.

Eddie Howe in talks maybe.

1 minute ago, 86 Hair Islands said:

Who is this, dude.

Rams 1-0 Luton 

FRGS Lawrence

When Wayne says that he is going to see this job through, that is what he means. Wayne has had the equivalent of six years managerial experience since he took this job. In my opinion he has done remarkably well to get this team playing the way that it is. Top dude in my opinion.

2 hours ago, PistoldPete said:

He did a one hour interview with local jouranlists straight after the administration. Met with manager and players.

If he was involved in confidential discussions with EFL and with potential buyers there is very little he could have said.

Yes there has been a lot of over the top criticisms from many sources... some of it quite libellous.  Derby are in a mess for many many reasons, and Mel Morris is only one of those many reasons.

 

 

 

 

Mel is a lifelong Derby County fan as are many of us. 

8 hours ago, RAM1966 said:

He may have had the best interests of the club at heart, but, he has gambled and gambled and run up debts that could send us out of business......

How would you feel if you were one of the small unsecured creditors?  Some of which will most likely go bust, down to this mans actions.  How can he sit on £26M of Income Tax and NI contributions from the employees and not pay them to the inland revenue?  If your stamp is not paid, you have a gap in your NI contributions towards you state pension.  For the players that might not be so important, but the low paid at the club it will be devastating news....

You need to wake up and realise the extend of the damage that this man has done.  He's not personally lost the £200M+ that he claims, if he writes of the soft loans and includes the ground when the sale is done, that could be a possibility.

How did we get in this mess?  Mel was the man he decided to pay too much for average players and tripled the wage bill, at one point the 'players' wage bill was 161% of the total turnover at the club, that is nothing short of reckless......

It seems unlikely that Mel picked the players, decided the wages, did the solicitor work, wrote the accounts or fully understood all the ramifications of how the EFL operate. So many genuinely well informed opinions on here do not coincide. Seems like a morass to me. I am not defending Mel. I am waiting till all is made clear if it ever is made clear. Shooting for the Premiership is a high risk business. Some clubs got it right, some did not. We did not.

29 minutes ago, TheresOnlyWanChope said:

I think a big issue is he/ Derby was losing this sort of money back in 2017. Why? The club wasn’t being run in a sustainable way. Kamikaze spending on wages. 

Big shot at promotion did not work. It did for some clubs.

1 hour ago, LeedsCityRam said:

Just read this article in The Athletic claiming Carlisle Capital made a bid for Derby this summer but Mel rejected it. I haven't heard this before

https://theathletic.com/2891171/2021/10/16/ashley-appleby-mystery-investor-interested-buying-Derby/

If this is true, this paints Mel in an even worse light. The rationale for him putting us into administration was seemingly to allow a buyer to step forward but if he had an offer from a credible party to take the club off his hands without incurring a 12 point deduction, I can not understand (if he truly wanted the best for the club) why he didn't accept. 

Can only assume Carlisle Capital were driving a hard bargain on Mel settling up debts or those debts reducing the cost of buying PP, in which case his refusal to do so & decision to subsequently put the club into administration can only be seen as being in his own interest, not the club's.

One small positive is that you'd assume they would come back for another offer now the debts are likely reduced from the summer (as non-HMRC & football unsecured creditors have lost their shirt)

When you are a lifelong Derby County fan and have invested more in the club than anyone else and have lost more than anyone else in the club and you are ill, you generally do not like losing another £1.5 million per month with no improvement in sight. If you have lost money because of COVID it tends to make matters worse. The vast majority of people in this situation would wish to bail out. Certainly I would bail out. I believe that a few on here would also have had to bail out. Mistakes have been made and we are counting the cost. I supported all of the managerial appointments and most of the signings. We may well be on an even footing by January. We may not. We will see.

4 hours ago, PistoldPete said:

Yes. In many ways the insurance thing is the opposite. That  Force Majeure exclusion is to protect insurance companies from a wave of claims that could make them insolvent. It is a specific clause written by insurers to protect the insurers themselves. Whether it is being applied fairly is of course a different matter. 

The Force Majeure clause in the EFL Rules is to protect the clubs from suffering further penalties in the event of an insolvency event caused by a Force Majeure event not of their making . It is very specifically written and there is no doubt that as it is written in the EFL rules, COVID is a force majeuere event. Whether it caused Derby's insolvency event is another matter to be decided at the tribunal.

 

 

 

Under really good ownership we could indeed again  become a Major Force.

18 hours ago, angieram said:

He also said we need to play Sibley off Richards. I completely agree about playing someone there.

We play one striker at a time and get no-one playing off them.

He was also complaining that Lawrence never gets into the box, imo because he's always trying to score worldies. 

I know we sacrifice attacking intent for defensive solidity, I get that, but I would like us to take the hand brake off sometimes.

Was better with Gregory

5 minutes ago, Ellafella said:

Unless you’re in Poland. Like me. 

Cannot find it in Tenerife.

18 hours ago, cosmic said:

Rampage… what a guy!

Cosmic...what a guy!

On 11/10/2021 at 09:57, cosmic said:

Is that why you've not changed your avatar? Think you're the only fan left who would say "Mel..what a guy" without any shred of sarcasm.

I do not know how to change  my avatar, Cosmic. If Mel is prepared to write off £100 million of debt, I will wait for ALL the relevant information to come out. I have been a Rams fan for over 50 years. We will have a good idea by the end of January. No problem to me if I am the last fan to wait for a final summing up. Someone had to do it. COYR

12 hours ago, KBB said:

Whoever takes the club over had better be prepared for demands to splash the cash on new signings in January.

Don't think that will happen? As utterly mindless as it sounds from the journey we took to admin there will always be an element who will expect, almost demand, significant signings every transfer window.

Mike Ashley or whoever will really have to send a clear message to an element of our support. The days of chucking money are long long gone. Think we will see the Butterfield and johnson double deal days again? Not a chance in hell.

We will need some players to at least cover for injuries.

7 minutes ago, MackworthRamIsGod said:

It's the hope I've had.

I've slated Mel, especially when admin was announced, but I honestly think he had run out of options.

The EFL were strangling him, they were making sure buyers were put off at every stage and again, Mel was running out of options.

He knew a buyer was very keen, they wanted it cheaper, the EFL were going to impose penalties anyway so Mel thought to hell with it, let's go admin!

To this day the EFL still haven't provided any update to additional points deductions, the absolute cretins.

If true that he may write off up to £100 million to help the situation why are we so anti. Might be nonsense. Could be enough to attract a buyer with plenty of cash. Let us see how it works out. If we do get taken over by someone with real cash, keep our players and Rooney then possibly a cloud with a silver lining.

2 hours ago, CornwallRam said:

Just musing on the figures being bandied about, especially the 'soft debt' to Mel. I've read that the club owes Mel £100m, but he doesn't want it back.

On the face of it, it seems a nice gesture  but is it going to cause some huge issues?

I know the unsecured creditors have to agree a percentage to allow the club to undertake a CVA and emerge from administration. I believe that each creditor gets a vote that is the same weighting as the debt owed - so if you are owed 10% of the debt, your vote is worth 10%. 75% of the creditors need to agree for it to proceed. Surely Mel accounts for at least 75% of the debt so he's effectively the one agreeing the CVA?

Further, if the unsecured creditors don't get at least 25%, I believe that we get a points deduction for next season - 15 points maybe? Does that mean if we don't give Mel at least £25m, we get penalised, even if he agrees to take nothing.

Finally, to run up a £100m debt, Mel must have been putting money in in loans for the last few years, rather than equity. Unless he's been putting in cash as well (and if he has, how has the club lost so much?), it reduces the P&S allowable loss to £8m per season. Does that mean we're absolutely bound to fail the next two or three rounds of P&S and going to be losing points for several seasons?

 

I have a feeling that when the dust settles, Mel will be seen to have done the best for the Rams that he could have done and found to have been let down by some people. We will see.

2 hours ago, MackworthRamIsGod said:

Whether you like Ashley or not, want him or don't, isn't it nice to have credible people with actual money linked to buying the club.

I don't expect Ashley will buy Derby, but it is good to have positive stories. Remember, Mel was all to willing to sell to Erik Alonso.

The names being linked to Derby today, not popular figures with their old clubs some of them, but they do have the finance.

Ashley has the money in his pocket and could probably buy it tomorrow if he wants it. If he wants it, I cannot see anyone beating him to it. He is entirely focussed to get administration bargains. I would welcome him. We would not go into administration with Ashley. More likely that he would make a few quid out of us when somebody offers big good money for us.

17 minutes ago, Boycie said:

I’d imagine possibly that the administrator will fund the appeal and add it on the fee’s on the sale?

£300k spent to get a lesser points deduction is a gamble worth trying in the bigger scheme of things. 

Mike knows a bargain when he sees one. He would probably spend enough to get us in the Premier League, then enough to just keep us in it. I would take that right now.