Turnstile

1 hour ago, Mick Brolly said:

Comical statement 

Not as comical as watching him.

2 hours ago, Spooney1963 said:

Keogh  was a good player, leader and Captain who always gave his all for the club

Yes he had a mistake in him but his other attributes far outweighed that as proven by always being picked by every manager

he was badly treated by a chairman who we can now all agree was awful at running this great club

Good luck to him

 

He was just absolute crap as a footballer.One of the least talented ever to wear a Derby shirt.I just don’t understand some fans love in with him.

Do we DCFC (Rooney) have any say on who stays and who is sold or are we completely in the hands of the administrators 

12 hours ago, Mucker1884 said:

Whereas the current procedure means that when Derby County goes bust, they quickly get followed by "Derby Fire Safety Ltd", "Chad Floors inc", "Spondon Office Supplies", "Alvaston Bye-Lines and Goal-Post Supplies", and "BeerTent Billy & sons" etc.  So that's not so bad!  Keep's the football authorities happy, I guess!

In all honesty, I cannot believe they can (legally) get away with such a rule (giving preference to football related debts)? But they seem to be able to?  ?‍♂️

Surely as we’re a football club there all football related debts.Disgraceful rule.

2 hours ago, PistoldPete said:

 No but most of it was in wages for players on long term contracts arranged by rush. 
 

but hey Mel signed the cheques , the buck does stop with him. Just not all his fault not by a long way.

Completely Morris’s fault 100% ,the buck stops with him.Ignorance to what was going on is no excuse.If he didn’t know what was going on with Rush he should have done.

3 minutes ago, DCFC27 said:

Another cost saving shower of **** from Morris. Honestly the man has made Derby look terrible for years. Keogh was a great servant of the club. He made a big mistake but, they all did and they all deserved the same punishment. 

Great servant my arse .I just don’t get that he did anything of note on the pitch.I thought he was one of the least skillful blokes ever to wear a Derby shirt ,yet some thought he was brilliant Ffs.He’s gone to right place now ,the sand will be good for his joints.Donkey .Rich one but still a Donkey.

5 hours ago, CornwallRam said:

The Rush thing is strange. None of us know quite what happened and I doubt he was squeaky clean, but there are several questions which need answering before we can fully condemn him:

Why did Mel have to settle out of court and pay him compensation if he was such a villain?

If his dealings were so bad, why was this not noticed by the Chairman or the CFO?

Why did the wage bill rise significantly after he left?

If he is such a crook, why is Andy Appleby so keen to work with him again?

Personally, I have no idea either way, but I'm not sure we can condemn him purely on the words of Mel Morris.

 

Probably Morris decided to keep him (rush)quiet. I thought Appleby said he was prepared to help dcfc short term ,but that he would not be interested in Getting too involved ie owning.

2 hours ago, 24Charlie said:

This has been discussed on various threads but I think it’s status is key. 
 

Valued at £80+million. If Morris had paid the club the money then we would actually be in profit. 
So why are we circa £60m in the hole. 
 

How have we lost this asset when it hasn’t been paid for?

I’ve read stuff on other threads but I’m not clear on where we sit with it.

 

He already owned the stadium he just transferred it to one of his other companies.whos going to complain though? Has he done anything illegal?

20 hours ago, Carl Sagan said:

Mostly, over the last few seasons Derby have competed at the top of the Championship consistently, which is an incredibly tough thing to do. We have been in the playoffs more than any other team. But for a few sliding doors moments, we would have been in the Premier League. 

Mel has also created a Premier League class academy. We should have won the FA Youth Cup but we did win the English youth league and made impressive progress in the Champions League equivalent.

Football is broken and the rules are written so that you're not allowed to spend money to buy success nowadays, but fans want success so on the whole they're OK with an owner who tries to find a way around the rules to reach the promised land of the Premier League. Almost every Championship club that gets there has had to break the rules to do so, but because they have escaped EFL jurisdiction in the process, they can get away with it. 

Something went wrong. Maybe it's simply funding too many campaigns to reaching the playoffs, but not getting over the line, and the EFL then catches up with you? Or maybe it's Mel's health and he has been forced to prioritize that and his family above the club? Or maybe it's something else again? It's very hard to understand from the outside looking in, and I think we're currently in the middle of the storm, but I won't judge Mel until the situation has become clearer, which might not be for quite a long time yet. 

 

How can it become any clearer? We have been put into administration and Mel has walked away.His choice. PS ,I don’t blame him for saving his family fortune .

18 minutes ago, CBRammette said:

Numbers 1, 3 and 4 werent discussed. Number 2 i think he said they were discussing why one mistake should punish us multiple times.  So I guess his argument is accounts still compliant with standards just not your silly rules but we will reluctantly restate, and now breach but only breach because of your silly restatement so should be punished once not for multiple profit cycles or something.   
i think the interview was ok for the time available (no silly breaks) but so many questions he could never have covered in an hour. Ed Dawes was much better than expected

Yes I was impressed with Ed Dawes.

B4 This is all Morris’s fault no one else’s mate.

This was always on the cards ,no prospective buyer would pay any more out than they had to.we may well have been relegated any way.Thanks a million Mel 

4 hours ago, RoyMac5 said:

How did we look like 'rabbits in car headlights'? When? A poor back pass and a lucky deflection into a players path?

 

All the match mainly in our own half.

42 minutes ago, leroyoftherovers said:

Bowyer said after the game that they had to adjust their press in the first half because we were getting out to easily .Second half Rooney did implement your plan by going two upfront to find space in the channels we just couldn't do it or we are not good enough? 

We’re not good enough that’s why Rooney wanted 8 more players.His tactics are woeful though ,as bad as cocu’s.The players just look like rabbits in car headlight.Morris is the one killing us but Rooney seems totally inept.

6 hours ago, RAM1966 said:

It probably comes as no surprise that I am no fan of Mel, I was initially, but, when I saw the players arriving for the fees they were and the salaries they were being paid, it immediately set alarms bells ringing with me.  That day was when we signed both Butterfield and Johnson in the final hours of the TW for a combined fee of around £10M.

Where has Mel failed:

Firstly he has wasted far too much money recruiting managers to then sack them, meaning he got the appointments wrong.  Each manager, wants to build there own team and as such it cost £10Ms each time we do this, as a complete rebuild from players to formations and style of play is required.  I was particularly unimpressed with the majority of his appointments, he should of gone for someone like Warnock which knows his way out of this division and proved it on numerous occasions.   

Clement was a poor choice a talented No2 but no experience in managing, let alone in the Championship and his football was negative and dire.  Pearson was an enigma and I think there was a bust up behind the scenes, well what else can you assume from the Derby Way comments?  McLaren was a great appointment but sadly it did not work out the second time, but, we played the best football under him since Jim Smiths era.  Rowett was a complete farce, dire boring negative football and thankfully we did manage to offload him to Stoke at a profit (Only for him to be sacked as I predicted to a Stoke fan I know).  Then there was the one season gamble with Lampard, who sold the talent to fund a 1 season loan strategy to get us up.  Firstly it was always going to be risky employing a rookie, secondly what if it failed we were going to be left with a depleted squad, which is exactly what happened when Frank selected the wrong team at Wembley.  Cocu another gamble, although the guys CV looked good, he could not gasp the pace of the English game and particularly in the Championship.  History is repeating itself with Rooney on the rookie front, to be fair though Wayne has become a quick wheeler and dealer under these tough embargo conditions we are under and I wish him well.    

Then there is the financial side of things, either he has appointed a poor CFO who has badly advised him on the finances, or Mel has ignored the sensible approach to keeping the books within the EFLs P&S limits, we have had to take the nuclear option to sell the ground to stay within the rules, it also appears we have been creative with our accounting policies.  I understand the last point is perfectly legal, yet the other 23 clubs in the league were using a differing method, now the EFL have revisited our methods and we are in this endless embargo and disciplinary process. 

There is also meddling Mel, the man who allegedly enters the dressing room at HT to administer to rift the players, cancelling training camps in the sun, flies drones around Moor Farm to allegedly spy on Nigel Pearson's training methods as was reported in a national newspaper.  This is not inspirational leadership, its overpowering and the fundamental reason why the teams performance dipped as the players did not take kindly to the interference.

The communications from the club has been nothing short of a disgrace, inviting a small selection of fans into a forum and making them sign NDAs was a grave error of judgement, the only thing to come out of it was a few sentences from Rams Trust and the more detailed version from Punjabi Rams that actually told us anything (Thanks Guys).  Rams trust assured us that all was well, yet a short time later we have another open letter to the board.  That's aged well then, it fills me with even less confidence than I had before!  

Which leads me to the ticket office debacle, its still closed, many older fans with no internet can't get tickets and are missing games.  Why on earth do we still have an unmanned ticket office that could be generating income for the club.  Maybe its because we are rolling in money and don't need it?

My view is that Mel has been far too hands on, not kept an eye on the balance sheet and gambled by spending far beyond the clubs means.  How the debts are parked; with Mel personally or against the club is immaterial, everything is going to have to go through the accounts and this is going to take years to put our house back in good order.   

However you dress it up, he's the man that appoints the people in the key positions to make the key decisions, he's made poor appointments, he's sanctioned the overspending at the club to the extent we no longer own the ground.  How anyone can defend his actions is beyond me, I suspect when the accounts are all filed and up to date, there are many more that are going to desert him.  I'm sorry but the buck stops at Mel's door and the whole club from top to bottom is nothing short of a shambles which smacks of sheer incompetence.  Can anyone think of a more embarrassing situation for a football club than we are in right now?

What talent did Lampard sell ?

53 minutes ago, Mostyn6 said:

If he wasn’t our academy product and we paid £5m for Hughes, he’d be in the same bracket as Butterfield and Anya for Derby fans!

Take away that academy fact and judge him solely on football, he’s bang average. Sorry. 

A lovely gifted footballer but for me he was just as good the day he made his debut as the day he left,he never improved,got any quicker or stronger.Sadly his talent is unrealised.Just another one who didn’t fullfill his potential .

1 hour ago, BuckoBeast said:

Some big changes are going to happen soon, Mel won’t sit back and let us drift to relegation. Wazza will go, we’ll get taken over or go into administration. Can feel something big is going to happen 

If anything was going to be done it would have been before now.He is just drip feeding the club ,how long for who knows! He has lost interest,objects to paying the bill for the last two years and does not want to pay for any “extras”. Such a sorry mess.

A couple of questions.What legal grounds are there to get rid of him ?Where / Who is the money going to Come from to pay him off ? Some people just don’t seem to realise why we are in the mess we are. Ps I’m no Rooney fan.

14 minutes ago, Rev said:

Not the case. HMRC are treated the same as any other unsecured creditor.

It's a term of membership of the EFL that in insolvency/administration events, football creditors are paid in full, before any other creditors receive their 25p in the pound.

https://www.lawinsport.com/topics/features/item/football-creditors-rule-is-the-football-league-s-new-insolvency-policy-a-step-in-the-right-direction

I stand to be corrected Rev?

16 minutes ago, jono said:

You know good business isn’t done on the hoof with a great big pot of cash ready to dip into whenever you want. There will have been plans, strategies, monies in place (that take time to assemble) and then bang .. along comes a pandemic that takes away 50% of your revenue. Plans need to be adjusted, money and the sources that it comes from need to be found. That is not easy for anyone.  I think you are fundamentally wrong in your assessment. No one doubts Mel has made errors, trusted the wrong people, been let down, had gambles that didn’t  come off … all true ….  but given that, whatever his motives, even if he was gambling on promotion pay day he has been putting around 12 million pounds a year for the last 5 years … just to cover the difference between income and expenditure (not including transfers and investments in the academy) He owned the stadium .. but bought it again as part of that.

It is a joke to say he isn’t committed but there comes a point when you need to look for help … not easy in this changed world. 

We will see I think his commitment to the club finished months ago.He know just wants rid as quickly as possible.I think Morris took the club on with good intentions but was naive about football financial dealings.Swimming with sharks has taken it’s toll on him.

2 hours ago, Rev said:

Football creditors, as Cocu and Keogh would be, have to be paid in full. 

 

Surely that depends how much money is left in the pot ,HMRC have to be paid first.

2 hours ago, G STAR RAM said:

Not when they have agreed deferment or time to pay agreements.

Or until such agreements are not met.

7 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

What assets do you think they will be buying if he club is put into liquidation?

I think if they are waiting for MM to put the club into liquidation they will be waiting a very long time...

Creditors very often HMRC put businesses into receivership it doesn’t have to be the owner.

1 hour ago, angieram said:

And a twelve point penalty? Yes, very astute.

There’s every likelihood we will go down anyway.The differential losses between division 1 income and championship income will pale into insignificance compared to taking the full debt on now or buying when we have gone into receivership.The vultures are circling but none seem to be buying.

40 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

The purchase price would already reflect any debt to HMRC, so paying it off would not make it any more or less attractive.

If a buyer thinks MM would let the club go into liquidation then I would doubt that they are very astute.

I would say they would be very astute,buying the same assets and not having to pay the creditors out at full value.millions saved if you only have to pay cocu and Keogh  and other creditors 10% in the pound.