Raich Carter

Whilst Cash was our best CB, he was very lucky to stay on the pitch. The recovery tackle in our box was a defo straight red (it was right in front of us) and he should have had a second yellow for the shirt pull. He needs to learn from that.

Midfield is all wrong. Central defence didn't look to have a clue and up-front... dreadful. Collins cannot play with his back to goal. He misjudges every single ball played to him in the air. He's always underneath it, body position all wrong, etc - it's just not his game.

I think we all agree  that with Wash, Tommo and Waggy we looked much brighter but we're desperate for a decent CM to get pull us together. Bird and Hourihane should have the nouse between them as they're technically strong but we just look a mess. I don't know what's going on but we do not look good.

I went to 5-6 games last season and we just seemed exactly the same last night - no obvious system, players not confident in roles or passing and never in control of the game. Last season, it was fair to say that they weren't PW's players but this lot are and whilst I'll give him time, I'm really starting to lose faith I'm afraid. 

Was talking to a Florist fan this morning and he said there's clips of this game all over their forums saying it's exactly how they were when they were down here. They also felt they'd romp League One and they just couldn't attract players, attendances dwindled (well, it is Florist so what do you expect...) and it was not the 'we're a big club, we'll walk this' experience that I'll admit, I felt it would be!

9 hours ago, Ambitious said:

Not that I disagree with anything you have said, but that’s the sport we’re in. I wouldn’t say we’re anymore entitled than any other fan base, obviously we’re not used to being in the third tier - only our fourth year at this level in our history and I think fans are desperate for something to cheer about. It’s been four years since we spent a fee on a transfer, in time where our closest rival has spent the best part of a third of a billion pound to just compound matters. 

2 things on the bit highlighted:

1) We had a long time where we were ahead of them with Eranio, Baiano, etc. Florist fans seem to have forgotten that particular 20 year period of history. 

2) I hope with all my might that they go spectacularly bust. Their owner seems an absolute liability (Mr Creosote anyone) so if his heart finally gives in, I suspect they'll be right in the mire. I hasten to add, I'm not so mean-spirited as to wish the guy ill health. And his companies does seem pretty solid to be fair. But then so did Maxwell's...

3 hours ago, CBX1985 said:

A contract is a contract.  A boat, a footballer, a dog walker, a manager, a tin of beans, a house.  A contract is a contract.

If we have said he comes for four years and he wants to walk away, he needs  to compensate for the difference (including finding replacements etc).  We would need to do the same for him.  

 

Footballers are rarely sacked and their contracts are typically designed the protect the investment in that player. Managers almost always are sacked hence the contract terms, especially around termination, will likely be very different.

So of course a contract is a contract but the terms of it can be very different. I've done 1000's of contracts including 5 year contacts with year-by-year no fee break clauses, cancellation clauses, etc and it could be that PW's is a min 4 year with 100% settlement if terminated early but I very much doubt it. More likely a cancellation clause of £x. But obviously we don't know so my guess it absolutely as good as yours.

btwI inline 6's - don't make 'em like that any more 😉 

Or bet the farm on a has-been like Diego Costa or Alexis Sanchez. Ah, sorry, wrong era!

Genuinely slim pickings out there. Shame we don't have someone ready to burst out of the academy.

8 hours ago, alram said:

I thought he was poor at the athletic and always talked down to people as if they were below him

Journalists... pretty much all the same in that regard. A bit like finding a nice Estate Agent - almost impossible. Cliches are usually true.

10 hours ago, littleover ram said:

We tried getting out of Keogh’s contract on gross misconduct and it backfired 

Not a Manager. Very different scenario, very different contract.

2 minutes ago, Grumpy Git said:

If DC thought he needed a getout clause, surely PW wasn't the man for the job in the first place?

A bit naive me 'ode. I'd imagine there's a settlement / cancellation clause - probably is in most Manager contracts these days.

7 hours ago, NottsRam77 said:

Its called taking responsibility 

hes the first one to blow smoke up their arses and lavish praise on them publicy and he then reserves the right to bring them down a peg or two

i played for a former forest youth team coach back in the day. 
he was one of brian cloughs right hand men… end of every game he would sit us in the dressing room and go round the room. He would critique us all infront of our team mates.

if u got a bollocking u got a bollocking .. hed make u feel like a mouse infront of all ur mates but if u got praised hed make u feel like a god amongst men

to this day 30 years on .. i would run through brick f****** walls for him every day of the week

its about character and what u choose to be 

 

Agree with the sentiment but not everyone is the same. Obviously that style worked for you (it works for me - I'm a direct person) but it might not work for the next man. Personally, I think there's only any point in saying things like that if good comes from it. I'm struggling to see (but happy to be proven wrong) what good could come from saying some players have had their head turned. 

It suggests disloyalty and if it wasn't said deliberately then it's probably a bad move. If it was the plan and he wants whoever it was aimed at to 'have it out' then fair enough but it feels a rash move to say it publicly. Feels like it could have been said in the changing room amongst the people it directly impacts.

I hasten to add, give PW a chance chaps. 

3 hours ago, sage said:

PW won promotion in his first full season.

Immediately after their relegation so arguably a Championship squad / one that went up the season prior.

He didn't inherit a squad of dads army + academy players, a club pulled apart by mismanagement over many years and with a set of players he didn't sign, entirely unsuited to his style of play.

And he might yet get us promoted in his first full season. 

Apart from that... it's the same. 

On 06/08/2023 at 12:29, TomTom92 said:

If we fail this season. Then next season will definitely be interesting. No EFL restrictions to hide behind. 
 
I’ll never say a bad word against DC. However, he rightly pointed out in his interview that for the last 30 years our success has been somewhat limited. As this selfishly covers my years of supporting Derby I’m as keen as anybody to see us start achieving. 
 
I fear if DC is GSEx2 then it could be another 10 years before we’re competing at the top end of the championship.  
 
I’d be interested to see who would win out of a match between PW promotion winning side 2 seasons ago and us today. I dare say Rotherham…which says it all.
 

No EFL restrictions to hide behind? An interesting phrase. We are what we are. We are where we are. What is there to hide?

I’d be interested to see who would win out of a match between PW promotion winning side 2 seasons ago and us today. I dare say Rotherham…which says it all. Yeah, it says we nearly went out of business and are building from the ground up with a Manager who's not yet had a full season in charge. PW had years at Rotherham to build his squad - he's not even had a full season here yet. 
 

On 28/07/2023 at 15:47, Eddie said:

This thread's full of how we have a (supposedly) bigger income than others, and that we may or might not be a more attractive enticement for certain players.

In truth, we have been a basket-case of a club for the best part of 45 years, with the odd ray of sunshine poking through.

The Lionel Pickering/TBE years were great and a bit more than a ray! Cheap up youth! We'll be League One Champions... one day! 

1 minute ago, Ghost of Clough said:

Do 20 goal forwards not exist in L1 then? We'll have a top 3 wage budget and a top 6 player budget once transfer fees are accounted for. It's not unreasonable to expect to get a 20 goal forward when we should also expect to br challenging for automatic promotion. That's not to say we need one to achieve that goal.

Out of the last 5 seasons, there have been 20 occasions where a player reached 20 goals. 9 were free signings.

20 goal forwards are rare and sought after - literally every club in the League is after one or wants to hold onto theirs! And at this level, typically, they were probably not 20 goal strikers in seasons before else they'd be playing in a League above... I.E. we need to get lucky and get a young lad or someone who's hit form or plays well in our system. For example, Chris Martin can be class in the right system but also looks shocking when asked to press, balls over the top, etc so he could be a 20 goal a season man in a system that's built around him or equally, 1 goal a season if it doesn't suit his game. Obviously our system suited McG hence his goal return.

We don't know if Wash is that guy... Based on his record, probably not but then the same was true of McG. 

Being realistic, we're rebuilding the entire squad since the fire sale. We want goals across the team, to rely on one person for goals is not ideal but obviously great if we can get that kinda guy but it's not easy.

9 hours ago, mwram1973 said:

How do you know Collins or Wash won't get 20 this season?.

How many seasons did Mcgoldrick score 20 in a season before he signed for us?.

100%! I must have said this on about 5 threads. We've not had a 20+ goal a season striker for eons and now over-entitled moaners go on and on like we're Man City - they really don't get that we're in L1 on a L1 budget - it's really not that complicated! How quickly they've all forgotten that we were almost closed down and now they're demanding top players. Ridiculous.

And as you say, McG was NOT prolific before last season. PW made him a 20 goal striker. This is factually inarguable - he played for 20 seasons and didn't get 20 goals in any of them prior to playing for other managers.

I'm not going to bite anymore - just pray to god that Wash gets 20+ goals so the spoiled brats stop bloody moaning.

25 minutes ago, simmoram1995 said:

 

Sadly not just me being resourceful I think if we got flint in we could move Forsyth over to LB /LWB to cover for Elder 

As Wilson can cover the RWB or LWB if desperate.

get Festy on loan for RWB competition plus power and pace in the side 

now say we sold Bird for £2.5-3m plus we might be able to possibly get a striker for a small fee + Sharp so say a league 1, non league striker . maybe get a midfielder as part of bird deal + wages for 2 extra players .

say we have a final budget of £800k including wages add bird to that we might now have budget of plus £1m giving us more wiggle room.

as my source said probably 5 players we are after with bird potentially going I see that figure remaining as I think we’ll get 1 maybe 2 as part of the hull deal 

 

 

I'd be a) gobsmacked and b) VERY disappointed if Bird went. 

17 minutes ago, Srg said:

Or our restrictions are more than we think. 

Or are we just being realistic about being in League One? 

1 hour ago, jameso said:

I'm going to stick my neck out and say you might have to sweat a little over this one. The early signs are that Birdie might have more work in the opponents' box this season and if he keeps free of injury I think we're going to see a few more goals from him than we're used to.

Agreed. PW has said a few times he wants Max to shoot more often and I suspect we'll try him in a more advanced role at times - particularly if we sign a proper DM and/or Thomo adjusts to that position (he just looks like a DM to me but apparently he played CAM in his youth and did look tricky in some pre-season games).

14 hours ago, Millenniumram said:

McGoldrick scored 8 goals in the Premier League two seasons before joining us.

I really don't want to knock McG but he also scored 2 in 28 games in the Prem and had lots of other poor seasons. I'm just saying that for a striker, so much depends on the side you're in - it's not just about their own ability.

It's true that Waggy has rarely been prolific (although 20 in 25 for Rangers one season) but he is played wide quite a bit too.

I don't think he's as good or as suited as McG but he's prob 3rd or 4th choice so not a bad squad player. 

18 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

If we were to only sign players who are free agents, I'm struggling to see beyond this list of options:

CB - Di'Shon Bernard, Steven Caulker, Jack Whatmough
LWB - George Cox, Matt Penney
CM/AM - Dennis Adeniran, Cameron McGeehan, Caleb Watts, Daniel Batty, Jamie McGrath, Luke Amos
CF - Gary Madine, Chris Martin, Martyn Waghorn, Macauley Bonne, Billy Sharp

And about 1.3 million non-British players. Not sure if PW is looking at those tho.

Steven Caulker is class at this level but a) prob big wages and b) has some significant personal issues that he may or not be on top of.

53 minutes ago, TomTom92 said:

Doesn’t mean anything, pretty sure Tim Sherwood to be our manager during the Mel years. 
 
I think a lot of people have us as favourites because we’re the biggest team in the league. But our forward line isn’t as good as last season where we finished 7th so I don’t see it unfortunately.

McG had a stellar year yes but come on, he was getting the supply and was definitely not prolific until last season. Collins wasn't good last season (I really, really didn't rate him) but has looked great in pre-season and Washington was a £2.5m player a few years ago so whilst I agree that'd it'd be great to have another decent striker, I think PW is trying to create a squad that goes up rather than be thin in some positions.

And it wasn't our front line that let us down last year (obvs), it was the defence and we're much, much stronger at the back now. 

IMO we're going up with the squad we have now and PW has said he wants 2 or 3 more so I'll take bets that we'll go up as Champions. 

11 minutes ago, Nuwtfly said:

Pretty awful situation if your choices are either Waghorn or Billy Sharp. 

Actually it's Washington, Collins (starters) and maybe Waggy. I don't see Sharp coming here.

Given that we need another midfielder, a number 10 and a striker, if Waggy isn't too expensive then as a squad player, I can see the logic. 

I keep saying this - we're in League 1 chaps. Forget the olden days of over-paying - we're not that club anymore. When we 'attracted' big players it's 'cos we paid top, top dollar and it nearly killed us. We need players to get us out of League, that's all and Waggy on a one year isn't a bad option.

22 hours ago, DCFC_Sloth said:

Not really a player who was hated or despised, but I always thought Tom Ince was never liked as much as his output might suggest he should have been. He scored at a rate of about 1 in 3 and got a fair few assists - probably a goal or assist every other game - but he was never really loved by fans. I can’t remember there being much unhappiness or sadness when he left; people just sort of accepted he was gone and moved on. Bit of a weird one, really. 

Good shout. I think it's because he was a bit arrogant - a bit like Tom Lawrence. But yeah, he was very effective if a bit irritating somehow. 

56 minutes ago, Kernow said:

Not paying transfer fees doesn’t necessarily help you to be self-sufficient though, if anything it can stunt things because generally if a player is free, there’s a reason for that. I understand why we can’t/won’t pay fees right now following admin, but if we got promoted and still wouldn’t spend then I’d be a little concerned.

What we should be doing going forward is focusing on a good recruitment strategy. Coventry as an example signed Gyokeres for £1mil and sold him for about 20x that. They also got Hamer for a similar fee, and if sold then would generate a similar profit. 

Nowadays, £2mil would be a big outlay for us, but if it’s a calculated risk then it’s not a bad thing. We could’ve bought Watkins instead of Nugent and made a massive profit, instead it went towards our losses and was part of the chain of expensive decisions that lead to us going into administration.

If a player is free, there's a reason for it - yep, often that they've got the confidence in their ability that being a free agent means there's no transfer fee so they get increased wages. As opposed to some being a) crap b) don't fit the system anymore. But it's definitely not true that free transfer = damaged goods if that's what you meant. There are many, many examples of great players going on a free (Messi for example).

Of course we're focused on a 'good' recruitment strategy but that depends on your definition of 'good'. For every Gyokeres there are 100 Tommy Lawrence's. There are so, so many players that we might have signed, nearly signed, could have signed, etc that it's waaaay too simplistic to say 'let's take a calculated risk'. In MM's world, he was doing exactly that - spend £100m to get £500m. Look where that calculated risk got us.

As I said on another thread, we are simply not in that world anymore. We're in the business of signing players of known ability and personality to get us out of the league and that's pretty much it. Given where we've been, we can't argue with that boring but safe strategy.

17 minutes ago, Tamworthram said:

Interesting. You said “to use your numbers” but then used different numbers.😀

Ok, I meant your scale of numbers. My point was that I was suggesting 20% difference in my original post and you were suggesting almost double - that's my point - that you were exaggerating to illustrate your point. 😉

With regard to being an honour - I think when Sonny looks back on his CV he'll be more proud of having DCFC on there than Luton assuming they disappear down the leagues again! 😉

On 26/07/2023 at 08:04, Tamworthram said:

I’m pretty sure if it came to a choice between a one year contract at Derby on say £6,000 a week or a two year contract at somewhere like Wrexham on £10,000 a week (made up figures and made up alternative club before anyone questions my source or shoots me down) a player wouldn’t have to think too hard. Strangely, with such a scenario, in the post signing interview the player would say what a great club Wrexham is, they’ve always admired the manage etc 😀

That's quite a stretch on the numbers there - not really my point. To use your numbers, if it was £6k pw at Derby or £7k or maybe even £8k pw at Wrexham then you'd imagine an older player, who should already have some money behind him, will go for the bigger club. Also, we've (arguably) got a better chance of promotion so you can imagine bonuses coming into play (even on one year contracts).

29 minutes ago, BaaLocks said:

Maybe that's the next thread - players who everyone else seemed to despise / dislike / get irritated by and you quite liked them. 

If anyone suggests Beck they get an instant lifetime ban from the forum though - agreed?

My other unpopular view is that Curtis Davies wasn't that good. He couldn't pass for toffee and was glacially slow. Great guy and all that but I was nervous every time he had the ball.