PistoldPete

I am sick to death of people on this forum with their self loathing of the mighty Rams. In fact i do wonder if there are some on here who are actually planted by EFL or by other clubs as pretend Rams fans stirring up pro EFL propaganda and anti Rams crap.
 

I am sick to death of people on this forum with their self loathing of the mighty Rams. In fact i do wonder if there are some on here who are actually planted by EFL or by other clubs as pretend Rams fans stirring up pro EFL propaganda and anti Rams crap.
 

You were implying that it isn't sensible to challenge people who are out of order.
I think it's eminently sensible and will continue to do so.

I am sick to death of people on this forum with their self loathing of the mighty Rams. In fact i do wonder if there are some on here who are actually planted by EFL or by other clubs as pretend Rams fans stirring up pro EFL propaganda and anti Rams crap.
 

I am sick to death of people on this forum with their self loathing of the mighty Rams. In fact i do wonder if there are some on here who are actually planted by EFL or by other clubs as pretend Rams fans stirring up pro EFL propaganda and anti Rams crap.
 

I am sick to death of people on this forum with their self loathing of the mighty Rams. In fact i do wonder if there are some on here who are actually planted by EFL or by other clubs as pretend Rams fans stirring up pro EFL propaganda and anti Rams crap.
 

I am sick to death of people on this forum with their self loathing of the mighty Rams. In fact i do wonder if there are some on here who are actually planted by EFL or by other clubs as pretend Rams fans stirring up pro EFL propaganda and anti Rams crap.
 

I am sick to death of people on this forum with their self loathing of the mighty Rams. In fact i do wonder if there are some on here who are actually planted by EFL or by other clubs as pretend Rams fans stirring up pro EFL propaganda and anti Rams crap.
 

I am sick to death of people on this forum with their self loathing of the mighty Rams. In fact i do wonder if there are some on here who are actually planted by EFL or by other clubs as pretend Rams fans stirring up pro EFL propaganda and anti Rams crap.
 

I am sick to death of people on this forum with their self loathing of the mighty Rams. In fact i do wonder if there are some on here who are actually planted by EFL or by other clubs as pretend Rams fans stirring up pro EFL propaganda and anti Rams crap.
 

I am sick to death of people on this forum with their self loathing of the mighty Rams. In fact i do wonder if there are some on here who are actually planted by EFL or by other clubs as pretend Rams fans stirring up pro EFL propaganda and anti Rams crap.
 

I am sick to death of people on this forum with their self loathing of the mighty Rams. In fact i do wonder if there are some on here who are actually planted by EFL or by other clubs as pretend Rams fans stirring up pro EFL propaganda and anti Rams crap.
 

I am sick to death of people on this forum with their self loathing of the mighty Rams. In fact i do wonder if there are some on here who are actually planted by EFL or by other clubs as pretend Rams fans stirring up pro EFL propaganda and anti Rams crap.
 

How much? £1 million each? So we delay admin by a month or two? Too little to late.. plus the risk that EFL embargo meant we coudln't get replacements, so increasing the risk of further financial strain through relegation. 

Wrong again, it is a common misunderstanding about the legal issue of "causation. It is the other things (eg Derby's historic overspending) that are "factors"... COVID was the cause of Derby 's administration.. unless there was something else that could have prevented us from going into admin... eg selling a player for £26 million to pay the tax bill.  
 

I agree with your last sentence. SInce the pandemic our actions have been reasonable with the possible exception of signing Jozwiak. Probably if we had known the pandemic was going to go on for so long and that he would not be much use to us we shouldn't have done that one, said Captain Hindsight. But as ~I say the delayed payments on Joz probably meant that made no big difference too.
 
the test is whether we acted reasonably, not that we acted with perfect foresight in everything we did.

A £20 million loss of revenue is not a "straw", nor is the collapse of possible sales of the club, or collapse in an effective transfer market for players below Premier League level.
 
And as I have said many times the historic losses are not really relevant unless it can be shown that admin was inevitable anyway even without covid, which given pattern of reducing spending, and Mel's past forbrbearance  I don't think it was.  

As many people have said , our case is much stronger than Wigans precisely because we went into administration 18 months after covid started its effect so the cumulative losses due to covid had built up to over £20 million.. arguably much more than that when you factor in the effect on player valuations etc, as Stoke are trying to do. Wigan packed in after only three months.
 
Also their owner filed for administration days after taking ownership which hardly helped Wigan's case at all. 

The covid impact is way more than £20 million,.. that was the impact on revenue up to the summer. It is still continuing to impact our revenues , and leave alone impact on valuations etc. We would have been relegated last year if not for signing Bryne who was our player of the year. Relegation to league One is said to have cost Sheff Wed around £8 m initially .. in Derby's case  probably much more if it had put off potential buyers. So we would have probably ended up in admin before September.  
 
Even this summer what you are advocating is a strategy that a club already firm favourites for relegation with bare bones squad should just throw in the towel and not compete at all. If we just played the schoolboys this season and lost every game it would not only guarantee relegation, but also put off potential buyers because we had already sold valuable assets at fire sale prices. Also no fans would turn up so reduced income.
We would still have big tax bills to pay, still instalments to pay on Bielik and payoffs for Cocu, still debt to MSD and no means whatever of paying them as we would have sent signals to everyone... fans , buyers and the whole world that  we had given up being a competitive football club . 
The only questionable decision imo is perhaps Jozwiak, albeit with hindsight. But even then we now know that the main instalment payment is in february 2022. That is after the January window so if there had been any chance of us making it to January then the Jozwiak payments wouldn't have changed that.  

Wigan’s then new owner had a bet on them being relegated. The named owner was a fictitious person who didnt exist. They’d only been affected by a handful of games without spectators. Their gate receipts were down already due to spectators disinterest. 
 
Derby can establish a pattern of relying on turnover, topped up by benefactor. The turnover was depleted. 

Since Lockdown, Derby sold Bogle, Lowe, Bennett, Evans, Holmes, Whittaker and Gordon, for combined fees well in excess of £10 million. Plus saving their wages (seven players there). Didn't renew contracts for Martin, Huddlestone, Carson, Waghorn, Marriott, Malone, Jozefzoon, and Wisdom, and only retained Curtis Davies on massively reduced wages. Huge savings in the wage bill there... sixteen players I have mentioned plus many more.  
We only missed relegation by one point.  If we had cut back any more last season we would have been relegated with severe consequences for revenue this year ... yet still had wages to pay for Lawrence, Bielik and co .. probably gone into administration in the summer.
We signed nobody this summer except for free agents on League Ones salaries. Our most valuable players,  Bielik and Knight were both injured during the summer so unsaleable.     
I think there is a strong case we did everything we reasonably could to cut costs.  
 

I wouldn't go so far as to say that historic chain of events is irrelevant, you do need to look at the pattern.
 
If our historic overspending had put us in such a weakened state that admin would have been inevitable anyway then we would lose the case.     
But we carried on trading for 18months after the pandemic started so I don't think that it would be seen that way. The covid losses in revenue alone have been £20 million plus and continuing at £1million per month, pus the effect on player valuations , PPS valuation (if that is in the mix for a sale), and the prospects of a sale of the club . All a pretty massive effect all told.
Mel's high spending days were clearly over, the wage bill was already being slashed  before the pandemic, and he was looking to sell the club. Our spending is now below pre covid revenues of £30 million per annum so if not for covid we would now be profitable and certainly sustainable. 
But you are right on the second point, EFL will no doubt try and say it was  Mel's fault for giving up. But it isn't like the Wigan case where the owner on a whim gave up after a few days. Mel had said he would continue to fund the club until a buyer was found.. and he did so  for a full two years, but no buyer could be found (exacerbated again by the covid situation) .   
Whether an independent panel  would take the view that an owner  benefactor should be expected to sell all his family wealth in order to avoid administration, I don't know. I would hope not, as it would  seem vey harsh. 
 
 
 
   
 
 

I wouldn't go so far as to say that historic chain of events is irrelevant, you do need to look at the pattern.
 
If our historic overspending had put us in such a weakened state that admin would have been inevitable anyway then we would lose the case.     
But we carried on trading for 18months after the pandemic started so I don't think that it would be seen that way. The covid losses in revenue alone have been £20 million plus and continuing at £1million per month, pus the effect on player valuations , PPS valuation (if that is in the mix for a sale), and the prospects of a sale of the club . All a pretty massive effect all told.
Mel's high spending days were clearly over, the wage bill was already being slashed  before the pandemic, and he was looking to sell the club. Our spending is now below pre covid revenues of £30 million per annum so if not for covid we would now be profitable and certainly sustainable. 
But you are right on the second point, EFL will no doubt try and say it was  Mel's fault for giving up. But it isn't like the Wigan case where the owner on a whim gave up after a few days. Mel had said he would continue to fund the club until a buyer was found.. and he did so  for a full two years, but no buyer could be found (exacerbated again by the covid situation) .   
Whether an independent panel  would take the view that an owner  benefactor should be expected to sell all his family wealth in order to avoid administration, I don't know. I would hope not, as it would  seem vey harsh. 
 
 
 
   
 
 

How much? £1 million each? So we delay admin by a month or two? Too little to late.. plus the risk that EFL embargo meant we coudln't get replacements, so increasing the risk of further financial strain through relegation.