Jackal

With CBT, Adam's really spoiled us with performances from day 1, add to that injuries and whilst we became more solid with a midfield 3 towards the end of the season when the situation became critical, we also removed the position I'm sure we signed him to fill (wide attacking midfielder). 
Back to the retained list, hopefully it wont be too long until its released, I'd imagine that the players already know. I believe I heard Warne say he was meeting with some players last week. Some are in Vegas for a bit now so if Warnes not had those meetings yet it'll be a while. That said it may be a while until Thommo sobers up and can have a proper meeting anyway.

I think there are very few 10 million payers in the championship other than those with Parachute clubs. We cannot and will not be competing with Parachute money. I suggest that there will be no signings above 1 million. There will be deals, trades, swaps, loans and hopefully surprise finds.
 
If the Adams conversation is all about the difference between 250k and 500k then we have an idea of the sort of funds we are going to be talking about.  If a business has a turnover of 30 million a wage bill of let’s say 20 million and an owner who wants it to more or less break you don’t need to be a mathematician to make a reasonable guess as to likely expenditure. Well that’s my deduction anyway 

Yeah, this one is getting done.
Doesn't even sound that fussed about Adams being a Cardiff player next season.

Sounds like, make me a sensible offer.

Since Saturday I've been looking at some of the statistics from the players this year and some of CBT look quite impressive over the course of the season (including the first half before joining us. While he's shown the occasional glimpse of what he could do, I think it's fair to say he hasn't performed to the levels we (and probably himself) expected. This may well be down to joining while injured and taking time to settle in.
Anyway onto the statistics I was on about. I noticed that he actually did better than NML in a lot of statistics relating to attacking players. One of these being successful dribbles, where CBT averaged 60% of dribbles being successful. NML was marginally behind averaging 47% being successful. His accuracy of passing is what stood out to me 81% ending up with a teammate, which was the best out of all the players to have been involved with us in L1 this season. He was also second in the team with his passing accuracy in the opponents half, with 73% of passes being successful, being behind Nyambe. His crossing was also quite good with a third of crosses being won by teammates. This was only bettered by Barkhuizen, Fornah? and Korey Smith?.
While most of this potentially came from his time with Charlton, it at least gives an indication of what he could potentially do once he's had a full pre-season with us and hopefully settled in. 

Totally agree I think Neville is very honest and talks a lot of sense and Forest hate him as he’s upset them with his comments which is great….truth hurts !!

Well he was right about Forest 😂😂

In fairness so far under the recruitment team we have been shopping for freebies or at least very cheaply acquired out of contract players. The real time to see what they can bring to the club on an actual spending  budget, albeit probably still quite tight, is in the next few months leading up to the start of the season.(in my opinion )

That's why Rotherham are bottom.
Their match day staff is Madge from Pies....

Smith and Bradley really stepped up towards the end of the season when we needed them most. Nelson and Cash were great for the majority of the season, but I thought Bradley was a colossus over the last month. Similarly, Smith really came into his own around the same time as well. I love that we really carried no one this year. At different times in the season everyone has contributed something.

If we're looking to keep the role, first person I'd be on the phone to is one Mr Curtis Davies... just been released by Cheltenham.

And I wonder if we'll look to replace his hybrid role. I'd say Fozzy would be a good fit for it, but he'll probably end up back in the first team and starting matches knowing him 

500K is right on the limit of what I'd be prepared to pay. 28, one year left on his deal, and still an unknown quantity in the Championship.
If we can split the difference and go 350K + some add-ons, that would be great business.

I’ve been thinking a lot about that this week.  If you think about the last 4 years since COVID started it’s been an emotional rollercoaster as a Rams fan.  We seemed to lurch from one disaster to another - FFP charges, fake sheiks, tik-tok takeover failure, transfer embargo’s, forced to play kids in the cup, staying up on the last day, administration, points deductions, dodgy Yanks, relegation, 5 players, 1 week from disappearing and probably more.
It feels like this is end of the first chapter of the David Clowes era.

I’d question if any Derby fan is actually human if they didn’t get emotional at least once yesterday. 
We nearly lost it all. Everyone has their ritual, whether it’s going with lifelong friends and getting on the beers, travelling from afar to visit home, seeing family they may otherwise rarely see… would be all gone  
There were kids that pitch who were probably too young to remember the Villa play off loss, let alone the QPR one, they wouldn’t have seen a single moment of success watching us. I’m 33 and don’t remember promotion in the 90s, all I have is 07. Suppose we could support Man City? Nah, never, that’s not football. That’s not belonging. That’s not family.  
There’s a lot of pain in the recent past, and yesterday was a stark reminder of what may never have been again. 

Not sure if I am alone in this today but I feel an overwhelming sense of closure after yesterday’s achievement. What a relief to be back in the Championship. But it’s more than that.
It feels like all the hurt over the last couple of years: the administration, the points deductions, the financial turmoil, the humiliation, the relegation; it feels like we can finally turn the page on that sordid chapter of our history. Like we can move on. 
I’m not sure why I’m sharing this, but it feels even more personal for me than that, too. In the summer of our relegation, I lost my grandmother to cancer. She was the major connection to Derby for me. My whole ritual of going to the matches involved staying with her for the weekend. For some reason Derby County, the city of Derby, the supporters bus that would pick my Grandad and I up from outside The Gate in Swanwick, the cone of chips before the game, all just seemed to have disappeared.
I know it sounds strange but I feel like I lost my connection to the club in so many ways that summer. 
Yesterday, watching everyone celebrating and the tears and David Clowes and Ed Dawe’s’ tears, just felt like closure. The end of the trauma and the start of something new. It felt like moving on.
Thank you, Mr Clowes, for all of that 🐏

Couple of side notes to add -
 
My 1 gripe with Evatt is that he is a bad loser and needs more grace when things don't work. I hate excuses and as I've learnt from reading other forums, every set of fans thinks they're hard done by by the referee every week and sometimes just accepting that we didn't take our chances is a better way to learn, move forward and grow.
The other side note is that I live in Stockport, have various friends who are rams around here and have a soft spot for you, especially as someone who went to Uni in Nottingham and developed a great dislike for Forest, mainly over their arrogance in referring to themselves as "the famous club"

Hi all,
I just wanted to pop on and say congrats on a successful season and well deserved promotion. I know there's been some ill feeling between fans, mostly on the toxic social media platforms (not helped by a large number of idiots of which we at Bolton have f****** loads). I've scanned through your forum and a few others to regularly to check in on the thoughts of some of our promotion rivals over the season and as forums go, this one is generally positive and full of good and honest opinions. We have another fan called Wanderlust who often peruses the various forums and I feel he is a good fan for honest opinions too. I hope we can join you, I'm sure there's plenty of you hoping we stumble and end up stuck in L1 for at least another year, mainly for the fans who've been making stupid excuses for us not winning points this season. Reality is, you and Pompey were the most consistent teams over the season and thoroughly deserve your promotion, so well done and good luck in the championship next year. With your stadium and fanbase and what your fans have been through (trust me, I know what it feels like too), you deserve some good times now!
 
All the best gents (and ladies)

These lads stuck with us when the likes of Buchanan scarpered. Much love

Former ram from that time period who I’d be interested to look at: 
Emil Riis Jakobsen

Ebou Adams and Cameron Brannagan would be decent! If we can afford them...

Christian Walton GK Ipswich 
Harrison Burrows LB Peterborough 
Josh Knight CB Peterborough 
Nathaniel Chalobah DM WBA 
Joe Morrell? DM Portsmouth 
Jodi Jones RW Notts County (contract up June 2025)
Chris Willock LW QPR
Davis Keillor-Dunn AM Mansfield (contract up June 2025)
Jonson Clarke-Harris - needs no intro
Shorrock & Dipepa from Port Vale, good young attackers, bags of potential.
Max Lowe, Jayden Bogle.............?
There are tons of young Prem players due to be released, but I suspect Warne wants more experience for the first team. 
A big squad is vital, and the Championship bottom six teams are full of old duffers, if that's any indication of what we should be aiming for. 
Hourihane, Waghorn, Washington, Bradley, Elder out. Collins, Smith, Barks, and Fozzy I'm in two minds about. too much change can break up what's been built.
 
 

Based on what I have seen this season I would look to try and move on Washington, Fornah and Bradley even though they have contracts.   Fornah might get better, perhaps loan him out, but the other two have been on a downhill trajectory for a couple of years. Good character is not enough in the Champ. I would look to retain Collins though. One season. Still giving his all, keeps himself in good condition, chips in with important goals. A good back up but hopefully not even second choice No. 9 next season. God I hope we don’t go big for Michael Smith from Wednesday.

Playing utter semantics, and with a pinch of pedantry but maybe they can. Work with me.
Theory is:
Derby have been negotiating with Willdsmiths team, wages, bonuses, each different depending on league status. No cast iron contract offered right now, perhaps once agreed and league confirmed it gets drawn up and formally offered? So this makes Wildsmith is right, no contract offered.
In these negotiations, Wildsmiths team have either got a price in their minds, or a league in their minds, or a first team assurance in their minds, or another offer somewhere else in their minds and they have been giving it a hard "nope" to these informal talks unless something is offered that meets their price point. We'd be unlikely to be extorted given a) we aren't that flush and b) Vickers is sat right there and he is Warnes man. Wildsmith turning us down makes Radio Derby true.
Dunno ... maybe?
It'll be interesting to see how new and improved some contract offers are, Sibley and Thompson are no brainers, regardless of future; as the days of losing saleable youth players for nought has to end. Personal opinion I want to see them stay with us anyway, I can't help but like them both. The rest, as important as keeping a bedrock, a spine of a winning team together is, we mustn't rush to spend our increased budget retaining that squad. Especially if it then prevents us from strengthening elsewhere.
Next two weeks will be interesting.