Macintosh

3 hours ago, RoyMac5 said:

Not what I meant - I meant how likely is it he'll stay fit? 

If any other team was interested I'd say cut our losses and say bye bye. Too much risk in our situation.

? Only the medical staff know that.

17 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

But how likely is that to be possible?

Any player in the squad should be hoping to play 35-40 games in a season if their form is good and they are fit. I'd be looking for that from Conor Hourihane, Tom Barkhuizen, Haydon Roberts and Nathaniel Mendez-Laing. Joe Wildsmith, it is going to have to be 100 per cent. With Bielik in our side it would increase our promotion chances considerably, him and Hourihane should be the standout players in this division by a country mile.

40 minutes ago, Carnero said:

And?

Whatever we still have to pay Arsenal is due whether Bielik is sold/loaned or not.

No consideration needs to be given to what is due to be paid to Arsenal, I don't understand why this keeps getting thrown out there as an issue.

The 'And' is do we offload him now and take a £5m hit on what is owned to Arsenal still, if that's the true amount? Do we loan him out to remove his wages? Do we hope his value increases if he was to get games at the World Cup and then sell him? He has become a millstone because the gamble Morris took thinking he was the missing piece of the jigsaw to get us promoted. Value-wise it is probably best to play him every week here even if it harms his World Cup chances.

The problem we (the club) has with Bielek is that the transfer fee suggested for him on many sites is around £3.5m, but that does not cover the amount still owed to Arsenal. With him being the biggest earner here now, we really have to hope for a brilliant World Cup from him and clubs are interested in signing him in January. But what a gamble that is with his knees.

The whole package looks to be around £13m invested, an awful bit of business by the club to achieve nothing. But similar amount was invested in Lawrence, to show it was not a one-off bit of craziness, and I guess more so with Rooney and his wages (Wayne, not Jake). Those three alone add up to approx the amount David Clowes has just had to pay.

I've seen him play twice, but as a defensive midfielder, a Bielek.

A lovely read. One of my favourite games in recent memory was the cup match against Palace under Cocu, with Rooney and Huddlestone totally dominating midfield and a silenced Palace crowd. I thought it was the start of something big happening – couldn't be more wrong – and that might have been the last we saw of Tom being influential for us.

I've been told Brighton want to help Liam if they can. Evan Ferguson is a possibility this season, he's played three first team games and unlikely to get an opportunity next season. They have Deniz Undav, a January signing loaned back to the Belgium club and a chasing other strikers.

Having chatted yesterday to someone from his old club that Liam had a lot more input into managing the team than people were aware of, especially with Rooney's lack of qualifications, there's only one in the running for me, if he wants it. 

I fully expected Wayne to turn our fortunes around, persuade many to stay on and bring in players we should not expect to come here. It got better when Liam Rosenior appeared to have been persuaded to stay and be part of this rebuild. Now, we can't even appoint a new manager. Whenever I read anti-Kirchner comments I thought it might have repercussions.

Congratulations Dominic, last I heard you'd headed off from Church Broughton to Plymouth Uni I think it was. Dominic is an exceptional tennis player and coach, and mum was Judy Murray's assistant for a number of years. Not to mention big brother James who was a BBC Junior Newsround reporter covering motor racing at Silverstone. 

That's Redrow Homes on the shirts sorted, ready to go to the printers.

Does the Premier League have a hardship parachute fund for disabled football clubs that got relegated not due to team performances?

With Pride Park sold, does that £18m lean against it now disappear off the administor's books?

7 minutes ago, BramcoteRam84 said:

Can’t honestly see anyone paying £50m to buy us. That is about double what we are worth. If someone does then whoever it is, we cannot grumble. 
 

Mel bought Derby for £50m on brink of premier league. Sunderland in L1 went for c.£25m! We’re a L1 club with barely any playing squad. 

I was informed by a Derby journalist that Morris paid £82m, along with hefty debts and a £16m mortgage on the stadium, and injected several million to purchase all the loan deals set up before transfer of the club outright to him.

Kyril Louis-Dreyfus – son of French billionaire Robert Louis-Dreyfus only holds a 41 per cent stake, not all the shares, and he paid £25m for that. Stewart Donald retained a 34 per cent share while Juan Sartori has 20 per cent and Charlie Methven owns the remaining five per cent. At the moment there are talks of a £42m takeover and it appears £36m debts were written off the previous season. They are nearly as deep in do do as we are.

2 minutes ago, Mostyn6 said:

the way MSD have been offering us cash, I would be confident that they will accept a restructuring of the loan/debts.

Only guessing though. I have no ITK. But if I was one of the bidders, I would (via the Administrators) ask if the MSD debts can be paid over 5-7 years, and not starting until next season. This would make the initial investment less. There's no rule that clubs mustn't be in debt, just that they must not be defaulting on those debts.

Except it comes at a huge cost, take Burnley as an example going this route: ALK Capital took out their £65m loan from MSD Holdings to finance the buy out and currently pay only interest – at 8 per cent – on it. The full amount is due to be repaid in 2025. That is £5.2m each year or £21m interest they will have paid. You can buy Pride Park for that and have your own car space!

Maybe it is the Neanderthal in some that make them behave like this, because not one single person I've known would act like this, or hit a woman, certainly not instigate the attack and put her in hospital. They wouldn't even do that to a bloke. Both the attackers surely need locking up, they are a danger, they could have killed her. I hope she has a speedy recovery and can get over this eventually. When they are found and charged, get their names out on Midland's TV, and let everyone who knows them realise how sick they are.

4 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

Maybe so.

But all I care about atm is that the club survives. If the new owner wants to bring in Neil Warnock as the new manager, so be it! ?

No thanks. Warnock is presently under investigation for demanding payments off players to play them, and with previous, it looks unlikely he'll be so lucky with the result this time.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-10856905/FA-set-investigate-claims-Neil-Warnock-demanded-6-000-ex-QPR-star-select-games.html

You've got the money, it's stuck in cyberspace, or going through checks and you know for certain it is legit, why not go to MSD Holdings and say can I have a £21m loan for a week, and here's my plane as collateral? It would probably have lost him £200,000, but saves the deal, our club and his reputation?

I remember Anton Rippon resigned when told he had to go out and video the stories he was made to report on. Not likely thought he. Newspapers never needed fixing, just the same as LPs never did, nor the atmosphere from old football grounds, or the size of Wagon Wheels.

Billy Steel

35 minutes ago, Coconut's Beard said:

There's a difference between commenting on something and whining about it.

 

Well all those having to use food banks because their energy bill is tripling, they should just shut up, put a jumper on and be happy Shell made £9.1bn profit between January and March this year, while BP only made £6.1bn. Suck it up and get a better paid job, it is as simple as that, no right to complain. I only hope you are not in charge of season ticket prices this year.

1 hour ago, Coconut's Beard said:

 

Maybe rather than being butt-hurt by the amount of money they earn from this job you should go and train up to do something similar yourself?

Okay, I've handed in my notice and signed up to train as an administrator, so I too can earn three lifetime's wages in only six months. To comment on football matters I am taking my coaching badges. And so that I can be sure all facts I quote I will run them through the BBC fact checking system first.

11 hours ago, FlyBritishMidland said:

I think some of the criticism of Quantuma has been unfair.  Yes, they could have managed their comms better and expectations around timescale.  Gerald Krasner said this was a complex case and now CK’s legal team are saying the same.  If we complete at the end of May it’ll be just over 8 months.  That’s the average timescale and this is far from an average case.

Why, though, was Kirchner's bid in November ever rejected, £61m that included Pride Park, later to be underbid by the Binnies, Appleby and Ashley at £28m minus Pride Park? And this raged on for a further four months. Kirchner's parting statement in December was: "Only getting worse as player contracts expire, club becomes much less valuable without the proper moves in January." Adding, "he had 'very little engagement with Quantuma'."

Then we had the Boro debacle to add, a further £4m loan from Dell, many players gone, no contracts able to be signed, and, ultimately, relegation because we could not add to the squad. Other than that, I agree, a great job by Quantuma – £3.8m costs and rising.

Comms could have been better, sure they could, at £650 an hour for just one member of staff to say hi.

No thanks, I hope no other club ever have them as administrators.

2 hours ago, sage said:

Did he mention any players he recommended that we missed out on?

He said that he'd often scout for replacements, should a player get injured or sold on, someone who could fill the void if needed. He mentioned when his dad was boss he knew the type of player to look for, they had that chemistry. But added that he sometimes did not have that same connection or communication with other managers. He did not mention player's names, he was very respectful.

I've alway had the impression that he only had an input with the younger players brought here, that a manager like Lampard/Rowett/Clement had their own ideas and bypassed our scouting process. Maybe we can blame Joe for Nugent, for those here that did not rate him.

Having listened to the McClaren podcast, where Joe guested, I have a lot of sympathy for him, that he'd find players and recommend them, and then see them go elsewhere. He had a plan to bring in up-and-coming Dutch players to eventually sell on, but that never happened, especially with the manager being changed every season, mid-season, or before they got to double figures.

It would have helped if I mentioned Andrew was Tim's son.

A lot won't know who he is, and some may not know who Tim Ward is, but I think it deserves a mention. Sadly, Andrew passed away recently after a battle against cancer and dementia. He had already won a previous battle against cancer.

Tim Ward was one of Derby's greatest players. Signing for the Rams just before the outbreak of war, and missing the Cup Final because of national duty. His time in Germany saw him miss all but one game of Derby's 1946 FA Cup campaign. He played 238 times for us, and also gained two England caps as a right-half. He later left to play for Barnsley. His managerial career started oddly, having been appointed manager at Exeter. However, Barnsley had not released him and appointed him their manager eight days later. He won promotion for them from the Third Division and was there for eight seasons. He then managed Grimsby and got them out of the Third Division. For five years he was Derby's manager, signed Kevin Hector, and a lot of the team that went on to gain promotion under Clough: Durban, Webster, Boulton and Daniel. After a short stint as Carlisle manager he is to thank for the Ex-Rams charity matches, and the formation of the Derby County Former Player's Association in 1991.

Where does Andrew fit into this. Well he was an accomplished author, and he co-authored The Derby County Story with Anton Rippon in 1983. It was hugely successful and following soon was the Derby County Complete Record and the success of Breedon Books, whose importance to the world of football publishing cannot be ignored.