FlyBritishMidland

We're OK to share this - full minutes on Monday now.. 
* There are 3 interested bidders that Quantuma are still negotiating with. Each bid is complicated and each is taking time for Quantuma to fully evaluate based on different elements in them.
* Negotiations with HMRC have been extremely positive, but no deal is ever agreed with HMRC until the final proposal is on the table.
* There are verbal agreements with Mel Morris and MSD Capital with regard to the ground.
* Discussions with regard to transfers and contract extensions are being had, but no decisions will be made until the preferred bidder is announced to allow them to make their own decisions.

I never once felt personally privileged, and I know for sure @Boycie never, in fact they became that much of a pain in the arse to the point he wouldn't even go and I had to make a 6 hour round trip.
Having to deal with comments like this just grinds you down and why I quit, what's the point, why bother?
These are fans giving up their free time to provide a communication link between club and fans, all they get is crap for it. 
Being called out for alienating other fans, claimed they are frightened to talk, just shows a real lack of understanding and appreciation for what these groups do for us all.
If it wasn't for them it's unlikely any information would come out other than through the media. You can't expect the club to open the floor to the entire fanbase to ask questions that are then answered on the website, even if they did it would take a lot longer than the 48hrs you're already unwilling to wait for.

The point is that what is said in meetings with the Administrators must be accurately reported, and commercially sensitive information may have to be excluded. 
Sorry if you don't accept or believe this, but that's reality. 

And even more important to make sure they are all consistent and accurate when they’re being published on organisations websites, etc for anyone to read.

And even more important to make sure they are all consistent and accurate when they’re being published on organisations websites, etc for anyone to read.

Quite - It's entirely normal that the minutes would need to be agreed, I find it strange that people would think otherwise. Even in a run of the mill business meeting I may check with some of the attendees that I capture things correctly.
Imagine the scenario where 4 groups released minutes and they were all slightly different in their understanding, there would be a meltdown!

It could be to ensure the minutes accurately reflect what was actually said. It is standard practice for minutes to be approved before being published in most walks of life.

With negotiations with many different parties presumably at a delicate stage, I assume that the Administrators are simply being very, very careful that something isn't published that puts any of those negotiations in jeopardy. 
Fans need to recognise that transparency in commercial negotiations, with potential legal implications, isn't without risks. The level of impatience being shown by some fans on SM is bordering on the infantile. 

Rooney has managed for more games than everybody else below/around him. Obviously that record leads to a sacking generally...not saying he deserves that right now but some of the praise for him is OTT at times.

I believe that Wigan went through 4 preferred bidders before finally exiting administration. The advantage we have though, is Appleby and Gadsby have both taken control of the club before, so history suggests they're not time wasters. Kirchner could be, but he's been very visible and is a prominent businessman. He's also got Cook and Rooney's agent on board, which suggests a high degree of credibility. 
I don't want to count any chickens, but things are looking a lot less bleak imo.

"Asked about the ongoing takeover at his pre-match press conference, Rooney said: "It is very encouraging. The administrators spoke to all the staff yesterday. There are three bids gone in from three separate groups. The preferred bidder should be announced by Christmas, is the message we all got told. That is very encouraging.
"Hopefully that's the case and whoever that preferred bidder is I can obviously have dialogue with and start planning and see what I can do in January."

We don’t need the minutes to come out, Wazza has told everyone what’s happening on the takeover in his press conference. Three bids in and preferred bidder announced by Christmas. DET follow up with they believe one of the bids is Kirchner. 
 
All sounds rather encouraging if you ask me.
 
 

Lies, damn lies and statistics.  Context is all - are Arthur and Jim really only our 11th and 12th best managers?  I think most of us, even those not alive in those days, would have both in our top 4, for what they achieved over a long period of time.
Whatever else our Wayne has done or not done I cannot recall a single Derby manager having to face all the on and off field issues that he has had to face, and not over a short period of time either.  That he has done so with some success (and I include staying up last season as success), with a commitment that I didn't believe he would show and a drive and determination that all of our younger players would do well to note and apply during their own careers and I have him way up the list.  Add some onfield success and he will be in the top 5.

This season has been very difficult but he certainly should have done better last season…..

I welcome this, its not about you, its the people you potentially infect, the elderly and vulnerable including your relatives.  People are still laughing at masks and not trusting vaccines, that fine, you have a choice, but so does DCFC and they have a duty of care to their fans!!!  Just as you have a right not to be vaccinated or want to wear a mask, DCFCs has a right to refuse you entry! 
At least we are not at the point of compulsory vaccination like some countries in the EU.  You 'still' have a choice, life is full of choices, but, you need to accept your choices sometimes have consequences.  I've personally had 3 jabs and the flu jab, why to keep myself and my relative safe.
Its simple if you want entry get jabbed, if your not exempt and don't want to get jabbed, you have to accept the consequences of not being allowed in, its a choice....
An anti-vaxer and campaigner who attended lots of C19 anti-vaccination rallies who lived in Willington, is no longer with us, sadly, he endured a terrible fate on a ventilator which lasted for about 10 weeks and ultimately died. 
Lets all stay as safe ae we can, be it by taking the vaccination or by respecting the rules by not attending the game, we all have a choice!   

The point being those players should have been there as emergency backup in their positions. Sort of like the roles Wes Brown, O'Shea, etc had at Man Utd. Capable of filling in, but not good enoigh as a regular starter - as evidenced when they eventually moved on.
In 15/16, we had Pearce, Shotton and Buxton as 4th, 5th and 6th choice CBs, playing for a total of 261 minutes in the league. Rawson could easily have stepped in as 4th choice instead, and showed he was capable enough based on his loan out to Rotherham. Hanson didn't look out of place in the team yet hardly featured again in following seasons.
16/17, Blackman, Camara and Weimann 4th, 5th and 6th choice wingers played for less than a combined 1000 minutes. Those should have been given to Bennett (who only played for 23). Lowe was exceptional when he came into the side in 16/17, including a memorable man of the match display vs Wolves. But, he had Forsyth and Olsson on senior player wages so shived down the pecking order.
17/18, Shackell 0 minutes, Butterfield 157, Palmer 426 and Anya 302. Are you telling me Rawson, Hanson and Elsnik couldn't have played those roles and not been just as good? We owned Vydra, Martin, Jerome, Nugent and Bent plus Winnall on loan. We only needed 2 of them, with Jacobsen as backup.

Interesting that Morris seems to be calling for more regulations now, when he spent much of his tenure using loopholes to avoid many of the regulations that were already in place and indeed received a 9 point deduction for this. I have trouble believing he would have any more respect for any new authority and their rules than he did for the ones already in place. Tried to be too clever, it didn’t work, I’m sure we’d be in the same place no matter the regulatory body or the regulations themselves.
The other 12 points is solely down to him not wanting to play with the toys he bought anymore. 

But he hasn’t said that.  Some random journalist (who’s based in Paris according to LinkedIn) has written an entire article based on a nine word tweet.  And he spelt ‘precedent’ as ‘president’!!

It is a fair point.
Mel keeping the stadium has put a lot of people's backs up, but it could have been a clever move. Had that been part of the club, liquidation could have been the easier option, as the stadium gets sold off to pay debts.
The only saving grace at the minute is, liquidation doesn't really generate that much to pay everyone off, 15 million max for the players, in the event of liquidation we would probably get half that if lucky.
I suppose it is in everyone's interests the club keeps going and a payment plan set up.

Not well-versed in finance, but Derby have been in financial problems before (we seem twinned, I am always losing money to bet365). Perhaps we need to make an agreement with the HMRC to pay the entire sum in full, but that half of it is received at once & the remainder is paid in instalments (staggered) over a set/agreed time period between both parties, as well as an agreement in principle that more will be paid in the event of a successful sale of a player for a good fee, a particularly good cup run (you never know/wishful thinking) - just like loans can be repaid early.
This might offer prospective purchasers a bit more wiggle room. It is still a lot of money to find during a season but @Ravabeerbelly's posts were interesting & chastening reading*, but if we/the administrators show that we are committed to paying the debt in full (painful as that is), then they may begin to show a bit more flexibility regarding scheduling of repayments over a period of say, 4 years (5 at most if possible) with the proviso that the club doesn't want such an albatross hanging around its neck indefinitely either. In the meantime, any new incoming owner might actually attract others to join him or invest, just like we had the LoG, or GSE attempted to attract investors. This investment could see money reassigned elsewhere to paying debts/the HMRC.
The HMRC may be playing hard-ball if we are appearing to ask for a reduction in what is a test case. In the end, none of us want Derby to get liquidated and in a worse case scenario, a re-founded club would emerge, but if we are seen to be accepting of the full amount owed and simply asking for a bit of common-sense in terms of how it is paid, then perhaps they may be more accommodating.
Much mockery of our 11pts was made, but half of our PL revenue was assigned to pay off the long-standing debt of £53m+ rather than on signings. It was probably the only plus of that dreadful season & a sensible, if pragmatic decision. Perhaps this could be used as evidence to show that the club has made good on pay outstanding debts when in a financial position to do so.
* He was basically telling the lay-person like myself, or consoling our bitter disappointment at seeing our best players picked off in a January fire-sale with the fact that it is the club which is the going concern, along & its fan-base

This isn't to say that the hyopthetical other manager is guaranteed to fare any better, but...
Would another manager play Jason Knight at left wing, nullifying any attacking threat he may possess? Would another manager keep choosing a right hand sifde of Byrne & Ebosele when they're clearly not suited to playing together? Would another manager take a Polish international winger, give him a defensive / covering role in the team before discarding him because of defensive lapses, never actually allowing him to play in the role he was signed for?
Would a different manager have managed Sibley in a way that he seems so frustrated every time he appears (out of position) that he now looks like an also-ran in our U23s? Would another manager be so worried about a CM picking up too many bookings that he plays 3 CMs who possess practically zero goal threat?
Would another manager fight to bring in a 3rd CB as cover but hardly ever sub him on even when we need to hold onto a point (or 3)? 
These aren't decisions dictated by our 'situation', they're managerial choices. We don't have loads of options, we don't always have good options, but we do have options!
Again, we have no way of knowing for sure what would have happened had different choices been made but it doesn't mean that what he does do is beyond question.
I'd just hate for us to get to this point next season in League One and still see most of the same or similar issues keep popping up and costing us points, having buried my head in the sand for 2 years and put any and all shortcomings down to 'the situation'.
It may make it seem like I'm being unnecessarily harsh on Rooney, but I don't mean it that way. I just can't compartmentalise and lock away my doubts like some other seem to be able to.
Ideally it will be totally different next season, the lessons Rooney should be learning from this season (and last, even though some don't seem to want to acknowledge it) may all come together and he leads us back to The Championship with relative ease.

Yes, it seems there's lots of conjecture based on very little evidence.

I believe he is legally prevented from doing so. When placing your company into liquidation, you hand over all control to the administrators- and the club is not your business any longer. As a result, I can’t see any way that Mel Morris could pay HMRC now and them accept that as settlement of the debt. For instance, if any of us called up HMRC today and offered to pay £10 towards Derby’s debt, I don’t think they could accept it (not that I’m about to try and test that!). Now Mel Morris has walked away from the club, he’s treated no differently to us in that regard.
The same goes for all the other creditors- we can’t clear the debts on behalf of Mel or the club. But the St Johns Ambulance fundraiser was outstanding, a touch of class from the fans.
Also, the basis for placing a business in administration is that you can’t pay your debts. So if Mel paid off his debts a couple of months after filing for administration, I suspect that Companies House/HMRC/other creditors/the fraud police (?!) might have some questions about that!
Finally, if Mel had cleared all or part of the HMRC debt before administration, surely we would have failed P&S by an eye-watering amount. To spend c.£28m without corresponding income makes it impossible to limit losses to £13m per year on average.
I am not defending Mel, really I’m not. He should have run this club much smarter, and he sanctioned costs that we’re unsustainable-putting us where we are now. I’m just pointing out that this is a web he spun over a matter of 5 or 6 years, and there’s no easy unravelling of the mess he made.
And there is no excuse for not clearing the St John Ambulance debt and some other amounts owed to local businesses before he left. What damage would £50k or so have done to the DCFC balance sheet? Nothing, relatively speaking. But it might have been crucial income for the charities and local businesses who now stand to receive very little.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens if Kitchener and his agent don’t get preferred bidder status

Exactly this, which is why I would have liked a middle option.
I feel like Rooney needs to be braver, but so do his players. 
Off the field, he has been a star.