Gisby

‘I think you do need to appreciate that many on an internet forum, me included, often post for reaction rather than necessarily having any serious conviction behind the point being made’

To claim I am a disciple is pushing it somewhat to say the least 🤣 but I do try to take heed of where forum members are coming from when they post. Some of us are deadly serious in our opinions others are more lighthearted, so when those who have a tendency to prefer the banter choose to be serious it’s not always easy to discern 🤷‍♂️. For what it’s worth I tend to disagree with your assumptions. My opinion is that, as he has stated previously, Mr Clowes likes to do his business away from the glare of publicity likewise Mr Pearce & Mr Warne will be expected to do so also. They will be working on the targets they want not those in the merry go round of an agents, journalists & ITKs gene pool. When the deal is closed they will announce until then we will just have to be patient. That’s my opinion, rose colored spectacles? Quite possibly … time will tell. Have a good weekend 😉

Okay getting a bit deep now. Can see where you are coming from but who knows. Is Mr Clowes the ruthless strategist who has appointed Warne to simply get us out of this division only to then dump him for a more ‘polished’ manager who can take us onto the promised land or has Mr Clowes recruited Warne because he sees potential beyond that which Rotherham could offer Warne and thus he sees that Warne can develop\grow (along with the club) into a manager suited for the higher echelons of the football pyramid?? I really don’t know. All I will say is that if Warne storms the league next season and gets us promoted that will do for me. How we do that I do not really care. Shortsighted?? Very much so … I’ll trust Mr Clowes to make the right decision once we are in the Championship. My heart says I’d love a good fairytale and for Warne to be the one to take us back to the PL and prove his doubters wrong, my head says football is a cut throat game and as soon as it’s deemed he has reached the limits of his ability he will be replaced. 

Going straight to the last part, it depends what I've had for tea. Sometimes if a pasty is far too peppery, but I get through it.
Seriously though, if another side in this division had Washington as their main striker, then no I wouldn't be too worried. But then I look at the top scorers in this division from last season, and there aren't too many there that would "excite" me if we signed them, but if they come here and score goals then job done.
Some of the players on the list we've had suggested, players like Alfie May, Freddie Ladapo, Sam Smith etc. None I would label as overly exciting. Washington scored 11 goals in both of his last two seasons at this level. The same amount as James Collins got, two less than Sam Smith last season, but I feel like people would be a lot happier with him than Washington.
What I will say though is that I have been happy with Warne's signings so far this summer. Yet I'm pretty sure we didn't even have a thread in the Transfer area of the forum until they'd actually signed, and if it wasn't for the man, the myth, the oracle, the legend, @Big Trav then they would have been names that came out of nearly nowhere. I'd hope there might be a name of a striker nobody was expecting come out and sign too.

A very good interview from a clearly very dedicated supporter who has clearly very deep roots into the club, much longer than when he took ownership of the club. He clearly understands business, people and has a vision of how he sees the club going - hopefully for him (and all our sakes) that he’s successful. It would make it all the much sweeter knowing he’s the beneficiary from it all. 
Interesting to hear him openly slam the figures involved in the Bielik deal, obviously one that he had a particular distaste towards, but also very interesting to hear that Warne has a sizeable budget available to him - even prior to the Bielik sale. I didn’t believe that was the case, honestly, also I thought we were within a budget agreed by the EFL. In the interview, it didn’t seem like that was the case. 
I guess we will see how it all pans out - I do like that Clowes seems to have an expectation this season too. Definitely feel like there is an expectation to be promoted and that he is funding that to some extent. It seems like this season we will have a more professional and expectant approach in our club. Thriving rather than surviving, again finally - it feels good!

To claim I am a disciple is pushing it somewhat to say the least 🤣 but I do try to take heed of where forum members are coming from when they post. Some of us are deadly serious in our opinions others are more lighthearted, so when those who have a tendency to prefer the banter choose to be serious it’s not always easy to discern 🤷‍♂️. For what it’s worth I tend to disagree with your assumptions. My opinion is that, as he has stated previously, Mr Clowes likes to do his business away from the glare of publicity likewise Mr Pearce & Mr Warne will be expected to do so also. They will be working on the targets they want not those in the merry go round of an agents, journalists & ITKs gene pool. When the deal is closed they will announce until then we will just have to be patient. That’s my opinion, rose colored spectacles? Quite possibly … time will tell. Have a good weekend 😉

‘I think you do need to appreciate that many on an internet forum, me included, often post for reaction rather than necessarily having any serious conviction behind the point being made’

And yet, without tourism, there are large parts of North Wales (and other parts of the country), that would suffer enormously. It is a dilemma but not necessarily a moral one as to whether we should have them as sponsors IMO.

White, Blue, White with Red numbers all day long for me. Childhood memories. Two league championships, Charlie’s hatrick against Real Madrid, Bruce’s free kick against Newcastle in the FA Cup and Franny’s ‘just look at his face’ goal. All in the  White, Blue, White with Red numbers. No contest. 🐏🐏🐏

And the bloke in his 70's with the gold pants that won't stay up leaves everyone eating his dust.  Fantastic and I'm not a mega fan

I would suggest that Yevgeny Prigozhin is very careful what he eats and maybe open his door with lead gloves.

Some of their contributions were minimal. I’ve raised this point many time before, regardless of his frustrating lack of finishing Dobbin had a direct hand in us collecting points last season. He scored 3 and assisted 4 in the league during his first season of men’s football. He had raw pace and the ability to panic defences. Whilst he definitely could have done more given the chances he wasted, there’s plenty of reason to believe a 20 year old with those raw talents could improve. 
We might find better loan options, or at least more consistently effective ones, but he wasn’t the disaster some people like to paint him as. 

It's almost like the crazy fecker is trying to build a team.
 
 

Ask Warne what he thought?

Joe Ward scored 6 and assisted 10 goals in a Peterborough side that got into the play offs last season.
Curtis Nelson has played 27, 30, 44 and 33 games in the championship in the last 4 seasons and has been captain at pretty much all his former clubs.
Callum Elder played 29 times for a side that finished mid table in the championship last season. 
 
Give them chance to show what they can do with a ram on their chest before completely writing them off.

The ones that didn’t get us into the playoffs, guess we’re in trouble then.

We were not

White, Blue, White with Red numbers all day long for me. Childhood memories. Two league championships, Charlie’s hatrick against Real Madrid, Bruce’s free kick against Newcastle in the FA Cup and Franny’s ‘just look at his face’ goal. All in the  White, Blue, White with Red numbers. No contest. 🐏🐏🐏

White, Blue, White with Red numbers all day long for me. Childhood memories. Two league championships, Charlie’s hatrick against Real Madrid, Bruce’s free kick against Newcastle in the FA Cup and Franny’s ‘just look at his face’ goal. All in the  White, Blue, White with Red numbers. No contest. 🐏🐏🐏

White, Blue, White with Red numbers all day long for me. Childhood memories. Two league championships, Charlie’s hatrick against Real Madrid, Bruce’s free kick against Newcastle in the FA Cup and Franny’s ‘just look at his face’ goal. All in the  White, Blue, White with Red numbers. No contest. 🐏🐏🐏

Still not convinced any of our academy players have been that good, sadly.
I'm not sure any have been better than Will Hughes - who was in the first team before the big investment in the academy - and even his career has been pretty underwhelming compared to what Derby fans expected. 
The academy has given us a regular stream of first team players, has been a source of great pride and excitement, and it has been great to see the youngsters come through. It's also a real shame that administration cost us the likes of Ebosele and Ebiowei and ripped the heart out of the set up.
But I've have hoped for one of two absolute gems and we've not really seen that. If making money was the aim we probably could have done better in terms of selling at peak value, but it wasn't the aim - producing premier league footballers was. Right up until we went bust. Arguably we managed to hang on to the crown jewels in Bird, Knight and Sibley, and to be fair they didn't exactly set League One alight. 

How many people said "no hard task" for you to state "some"?
The target this season absolutely should be top 2 and anything less would he a failure as far as I'm concerned.
The starting point is the performance of the squad last season. We were 4th highest placed out of the teams staying down (Barnsley, Bolton and Peterborough). A lot of that being down to multiple referee decsions.
Then there's the 3 coming down, two of those are in such a mess they'll be lucky if they finish top half. Add only Blackpool to the challenging group.
Portsmouth, Wycombe and Charlton are then next best placed to mount promotion challenges. However, they'd need to improve by 20-30 points on last season to be serious contenders. I just don't see that happening.
Our main list of challengers are therefore: Blackpool, Barnsley, Bolton and Peterborough.
Peterborough are trying to sell their top goalscorer, the only player they had who scored more than 10 goals, and are desperately trying to keep hold of their top assister. Two key players they need to replace just to stand still, after sneaking in to 6th due to a referee mistake in a different game.
Evanton has been at Bolton for 3 years now so they've had plenty of time to get the players in to suit his style. I didn't see anything last season which made me think they'll be pushing for the title next season. Trafford and Bradley were two of their most important players last season. Both were only on loan and won't be going back.
Blackpool. 6 players went back to their parents clubs when their season ended and 10 others didn't have their contracts renewed. A lot of players to replace, but they'll be up there.
6 players also left Barnsley to return to their parent clubs. They haven't lost anyone else they want to keep yet. They'll be fancying their chances of winning the league too.
 
We have by far the biggest budget in this league. We have more potential than any other L1 club. Warne has had a long time to prepare for this transfer window. We shouldn't have any excuses for failure this time round.

That’s a bad take. Let’s look at what was actually said rather than another heavily opinionated assumption 
Wanted:
“We need the players that can play in the league above and have got a bit of experience
I want the players that will make big sacrifices and are fully determined for success.
We need players that are prepared to learn and believe in the team more than themselves.
They have to be good footballers, good athletes and they have to buy into the way we play, the way we press and the energy we want from a team.
Also and this is a lot different to a lot of teams in our league - they have to be able to play in front of 30,000 people.
It's a psychology more than a physicality for me. I'm not here to break players but I am here to push boundaries and to try and get more out of the team.
We're trying to make them physically resilient for a 10 month season but a lot of that comes from mentality.
From that, hopefully you can build a squad and a team that are exciting to watch.”
Ignore how Warne says things and look at what he’s actually saying, he wants hard working and capable footballers who know what it means to play for this club and will put the team effort above themselves, what about that is such a bad thing?! From those quotes I’d say it’s more like; 
Wanted - football players with the ability and mentality to play for a well supported club planning to push for promotion. Must understand this is a team sport and all members of the squad will play a part in shared success. The plan is that the team will play with a high press, which means physicality and athleticism will be part of our identity as will playing an exciting brand of football. Ability to put up with manager’s rubbish jokes and constant pestering are an added desirable requirement.
 

Another ‘one of our own’ who in recent years we big up & believe they are destined for greater things who may be going on to a completely underwhelming move and then who’s career just seems to plateau. Are we as the fan base delusional or is the player just not reaching for the stars?? 

It will be disappointing for Derby County but especially for Jason Knight if he ends up going to Bristol City. But I'd suggest he'd have no one but himself to blame. Jason had the opportunity to set League One alight and largely failed to do so. He was best at right back, but frequently disappeared in midfield. Maybe right back was his position all along? I felt if he and Max Bird and Conor Hourihane played anything like as well as it was claimed and many of us thought they could, then we would boss the midfield in this division. It didn't happen.
Perhaps it would have been different had Rosenior then Warne given Sibley a decent run in his best position in midfield, as it would have made it easier for all those others to look better with an additional runner, goal threat and ball winner alongside them, but that never happened.
But I do feel what could have been Jason Knight's proper breakthrough season ended up as pretty much a damp squib. Had he excelled a Premier League move would have still been on the cards. As it is, I think we're looking at the Championship. Is Bristol City the best he can do?