G STAR RAM

On 12/03/2024 at 12:29, ossieram said:

It maybe a bit harsh, but I get sick and tired of reading posts criticising our fans and asking for arrests or bans from people who have either never done anything wrong or are hypocrites.

I often read or hear people going on about the lack of atmosphere or comparing it to the intimidating atmosphere at the Baseball Ground,  yet they expect the people creating that atmosphere to be choirboys and not the lads who have been in the pub for a few hours who are the ones who really get the singing going.

I'm in D block and have dodged broken seats and bottles and am in no way calling for a return to the old days and have no problem with people being punished for breaking and throwing seats,  but it seems like we have some oversensitive souls who want people banned for bad language and not behaving in a proper manner.

There's a difference between creating an atmosphere and being a knob.  Unfortunately we have a lot of fans who fail to know the difference. 

8 hours ago, Rambam said:

Reading fans accusing Conor of diving. Yiadom here clearly is NOT upset with Hourihane. So he did catch him. 
Never a booking though. 

Not just Reading fans but alot of Derby fans too.

The guy was nowhere near him, it was a blatant dive.

Peterborough defender with blatant handball in area, no penalty given. 5 minutes later Peterborough go down the other end and get a penalty which they duly convert.

Carlsberg don't do midweeks...

21 minutes ago, Dryhorce said:

Best Derby team was full of Scots back in the day and when our club declined so did the Scotland team when all the terrible foreign players came and okay some good foreign.players did to but so did a lot of bad ones

Decline of Derby and Scottish football isn't a coincidence but it isn't like that anymore if Seria A teams in Italy shop in the Scottish market,then so should the traditional English clubs that got success with there players like we once did

Bob Malcolm and Conor Sammon?

16 minutes ago, YorkshireRam said:

Won't lie, i've started checking in on this thread just to see how this whole saga pans out 😂

The way I see it, there will never be the need for another Independence Referendum because every Scottish person will have moved to Derby.

11 minutes ago, DavesaRam said:

It was great getting home last night having watched 90 minutes of football instead of a few minutes of footy and the rest of "kick and rush" percentages play!"

Didn't the penalty come from a long ball into the channels? 

I thought we went long far too often after they went down to ten men actually.

It's amazing how results can change people's perception of the game!

5 minutes ago, DRBee said:

Did you criticise Jason Knight when he was falling about all over the pitch to get us a free kick , or more distantly Chris Martins antics? Don't think you can say that diving is a feature of Hourihane's game and  doubt he couldn't have foreseen that a sending off would result   ( if it had been in the penalty area perhaps).

There is a big total of fouls against us this season when opposition players have dropped to the floor after zero or minimal contact.

Yes I did, and Jamie Ward too. Cheating is cheating no matter who is doing it.

I wouldn't really say its a feature of Hourinhane's game either but on this occasion he dived to win and free kick and as a result their player was sent off.

I don't care if people want to condone and say its part of the game, as long as the same people aren't then complaining when it happens to us.

Personally, for me, it spoils the game.

3 minutes ago, LazloW said:

Quite enjoyed last night. If we got a bit of luck for once then so what? They had one attempt on goal all night and scored from it; their keeper made a couple of good saves, we hit the post and generally looked the better side. A win was thoroughly deserved.  My only negative was making so many changes straight after the goal which killed the momentum and then we did our usual trick of sitting back for the last 10 which bugs me.

In real time (without the benefit of millions of replays from all angles) both the sending off and penalty looked fair enough to me - but obviously I’m going to be viewing each incident from a Derby perspective. I hope the lad’s second booking was for his stupid over the top reaction as much as the foul. He stormed up to the ref behaving like a petulant child; he deserved a yellow for that. Refs should to be giving cards for this. Not sure why some of our fans want to focus on the ‘negative’ of questionable decisions, rather than the positives of playing pretty well for most of the game. Funny lot who want to say “yeah, we won… but…”.  Always looking for the ‘but’. Odd.

Other observations - agree entirely with the comments about players all going for a drink and team talk when a player goes down injured. Refs shouldn’t be allowing that. At least one occasion last night game was delayed unacceptably waiting for all Reading players to get back in position (why - if they aren’t ready to restart, sod them and just get on with it). Also, keeper going down injured conveniently at a point when we were all over them. Kill time, kill momentum. If you need that much attention, get off the pitch and get a sub on. Glad to see a foul throw given for once. Still about 50% of throw ins are foul throws which aren’t picked up, but that was so much of a foul throw it couldn’t be ignored. 

 

Don't think we really sat back in the last 10, best game management we've seen all season I'd say.

8 minutes ago, Crewton said:

I understand why you both might think it's hypocritical that a tiny minority our fans should chant that after what we went through but, as the extract from the match preview below taken from one of their fans forums shows, they aren't exactly contrite about how they behaved towards us in those dark days despite the knowledge that their own club was "cheating" every bit as much. 

It's really no justification though. Guess all it does it's highlights that all fanbases have their own idiots.

The only people worthy of such vitriol are the people that played a part in or actively tried to destroy our club, namely Mel Morris, Steve Gibson, the ambulance chaser from Wycombe and any employee of the EFL. 

2 minutes ago, abertawe_ram said:

Haven't read through the thread to see if this was mentioned anywhere, apologies if it's been raised here or elsewhere.

Was anyone else really disappointed with our fans singing the "we're all having a party" chant. Hoped we might be more sympathetic given recent history. Back when blackpool had issues with their owners I remember us showing some solidarity with their fans, yet last night our loud minority seemed to want to act like d********. During our rough period, there was a lot of posts by fans slating the likes of birmingham, cardiff and other fans who chanted about our club dying. Yet last night the exact same shitty song was used by our fans against another team. 

Maybe its because I have some family in reading a close friend who supports them but it all left a bad taste for me. I was a bit embarrassed by those chants...

Yeah bit cringeworthy given we know what it is like.

Also don't particularly like 'Derby are massive everywhere we go'.

1 minute ago, angieram said:

I think the subs were made with Saturday in mind.

He did say post match that he wanted to make them earlier.

I think there were a few players looking tired out there which was no surprise given the intensity of the game and how much Reading invited us to press them high up the pitch.

5 hours ago, Carl Sagan said:

Surprised people are talking so much about the decisions. They all seem justifiable. 

Nah let's call things out for what they are. Hourihane cheated by diving to get his opponent sent off.

If we are going to be critical of officials all the time, let's also be critical of the players who are making their job even harder by trying to con them.

That said, these things do even themselves out over a season and I think we've still got some in the bank.

7 hours ago, sage said:

I thought the 4 subs were odd straight after the penalty. Left us with an Iver attacking team when a goal up with 15 to go.

Isn't one of the usual criticisms of Warne that we sit back when we take the lead?

Appears he can't win...

Doesn't mention the size of his manhood so can't see this being a hit with the South Stand.

2 minutes ago, Steveb52a said:

A massive problem that needs addressing by the EFL is these clubs (I'm talking about you Middlesborough and Stoke and Bristol City and presumably many others) that seem to be able to just write off loans from the owners! How's that financial fair play!?

Don't think this affects the limits on how much they are allowed to put in.

It's just struck me that alot of their fans seriously thought they may be competing in Europe next season and its now looking more likely that they will only be competing for The Brian Clough Trophy. 

7 hours ago, rammieib said:

But what are the running costs of the stadium which go through the accounts of the stadium?

I bet rates and utilities are close to £1m each year - suggesting I bet the rent covers the costs and DC is getting nothing back.

However the P&L on the stadium will not be shown in full accounts given the T/O is very low.

The club will incur all the costs of running the stadium.

1 hour ago, jimtastic56 said:

If we are paying David Clowes rent of 872 k per annum on PP. Which he bought for £25 mill - that’s similar to DC getting 4-5% p an  interest on his investment . That seems fairly normal in the current financial climate.

Yeah but our football finance expert friend thinks it's more appropriate to calculate the yield on what someone else paid for it 6 years ago...

4 hours ago, RoyMac5 said:

This bit cheered me up:

"Principal risks and uncertainties

Due to the principal activities of the company, the revenues of the business are susceptible to the on-pitch performance of the football team.

This is mitigated by maintaining top class training facilities, in order to attract the best talent, having competitive wage budgets and operating a category one academy to ensure there is an appropriate player pathway to the first team and to build value for the future.

The company's credit risk is relatively low and is primarily attributable to its trade debtors. Credit risk is managed by running credit checks on new customers and by monitoring payments against contractual agreements.

The company is financed by cash injections and the revenue that is raised through its business activities. The objective is to ensure a mix of funding methods offering flexibility and cost effectiveness to match the needs of the Company; however the Directors note that such dependency on parent company support is critical to remaining a going concern."

Hopefully meaning funds would be available if we went up?

Pretty standard wording for a company that is technically insolvency and you would find the same pledges in the accounts that MM signed off on (not that I am comparing DC to MM)

7 hours ago, Tamworthram said:

Am I being dumb (again)? 
 

Why would there be a tax (corporation tax) bill if we made a loss? 

7 hours ago, Tamworthram said:

Am I being dumb (again)? 
 

Why would there be a tax (corporation tax) bill if we made a loss? 

There is no corporation tax bill.

8 hours ago, Crewton said:

Well here's an example of what I'm referring to:

"Derby paying rent of £872k a year for Pride Park. Low yield compare to the £80m stadium sold for to an MM company a few years ago."

Do you know anyone else who works out the yield on an investment based on an obsolete valuation rather than what they paid for the asset? 

To me, it just looks like he's taking an opportunity to mention a contentious valuation that he disagreed with.

Spot on. 

43 minutes ago, Gaspode said:

I've posted this before, but worth repeating:

I was working in Norwich while Earnshaw was playing for them and for a while he was at the same hotel I used to stay at - a more arrogant and unpleasant character you'd be hard pressed to find....

He had a huge Humvee which he used to either park on the double-yellow lines directly outside the entrance (which got in pretty much everybody's way) or else he'd park it across two of the disabled spaces - never in the (huge) main carpark. He also used to march about as if he owned the place and expected the staff to treat him as some sort of royalty - conversations I had with a number of the reception staff suggested he wasn't well liked. If his behaviour there was an indication of his 'normal' character then I'd not be surprised if he fell out with a number of folk at PP....

Weren't there rumours that he also liked a drink?

7 hours ago, Will the Ram said:

Howard wasn't good enough for the PL but Villa was a terrible buy. We’d have been better keeping Howard imo. He proved that he could still do a job in the championship with Leicester even a couple of years after he left us.

Everyone knew we were going down (it was obvious even in mid August after we were thrashed by Tottenham). Jewell wasted money that we didn’t need to spend. We should’ve learnt after Billy spent the PL money making the team worse in the January of the promotion season (with the exception of Jones & Mears who were decent).

Earnshaw is an interesting one. Maybe something was going on behind the scenes (I heard rumours but I don’t know if they were true).

 

From memory, Tottenham was our 3rd league game after a draw against Pompey and narrow defeat against Man City.

We have a win and a draw in September, sandwiched by heavy defeats to Liverpool and Arsenal.

I don't think it was until the stuffing from West Ham that it became apparent how bad we were. 

3 hours ago, Comrade 86 said:

Holy moly. I actually grasp that statistical analysis of sports has its uses, but f*** am I bored of the pointless to and fro between those who do and don't, especially you @ap04 Does everything you post have to be A) xG related and B) patronising AF? For pity's sake, just give it a rest, why don't you! 

That's a bit harsh.

He does mention his Lucky Database too.