vonwright

1 hour ago, BathRam72 said:

Stats!!!!  That might just mean that we were playing such negative football or we didn't know how or weren't good enough to move forward that the only option was to pass back to the goalkeeper.

In our case, that's exactly what they mean. When you watch us "play out from the back" it very often means GK to CD to FB, who looks up, sees nothing, and passes it back to the GK (only this time under pressure).  

2 minutes ago, BucksRam said:

Well this is amusing considering what we went through

Behind a paywall though. 

I guess sooner or later a case like this is inevitable. There are many millions at stake and clubs are basically just flouting the rules.

Not sure how the authorities can prevent member clubs from suing each other - they can put it in their rules, but then those rules could be subject to legal challenge too.

In our case my main objection was that there was no talk about suing us until after we'd gone into administration, and even then it wasn't formal legal action but simply a claim that they were creditors who might take formal legal action if they didn't get satisfaction from the EFL. It was basically a way of holding a stricken club to ransom by preventing a quick sale. And the EFL went along with it.

It would be very hard to prove damages in a court case, of course, but it feels like we will end up with one at some point and if nothing else that might give clarity, and/or force proper restructuring, oversight and enforcement of the rules.  

1 hour ago, TuffLuff said:

It’s probably worth remembering how CR worded her original statement. As it doesn’t actually accuse RV directly. So I think it’ll be hard to prove libel like it’s hard to prove who leaked the stories when the all important mobile phone went overboard. 

The court ruled earlier (late in 2020) that "It's Rebekah Vardy's account" basically meant that Rebekah Vardy was personally responsible, in terms of libel law. The idea being, I think, that a normal person, reading it in a normal way, would assume it meant Vardy was personally responsible. So the reputational damage to Vardy is done and Rooney has to prove, on balance of probability, that Vardy was aware of/involved in any leaking (ie that she "deserved" the reputational damage).

3 hours ago, i-Ram said:

If I remember correctly the COVID Loan that was available was £8.3m. The debt to MSD when he threw his keys on the table was £20m, and to HMRC some £25m plus, plus other debt of some £25m to football clubs, solicitors, charities, shopkeepers, and forum owners.

Mel Morris completely mismanaged our club, and it’s finances, and has never once put his had up and admitted his mistakes. He bought the club with a stadium, and it’s sale should go through with the stadium back in the club’s ownership. He should do the right thing, but after 8 years of failing miserably I won’t hold my breath.

Plus it was... a loan. Much like the loan we ended up getting from MSD. Which is now causing such headaches. And didn't stop us going into administration.

I think only 14 of the 24 Championship clubs took the Covid loan. And yet we are still the only club in any division to go into administration since Bury in 2020. We sold ourselves our own stadium for £80million or whatever and still racked up enormous losses, season after season.

If the EFL didn't want to loan us money because they thought we were a financial basket case, heading for the rocks, they were right.

Morris shouldn't have taken any additional loans from MSD unless a) he knew he'd be able to repay them, or b) any guarantees he offered were either not tied to the club, or not tied to the club in a way that would make the loan somehow exempt from the administration process.

He didn't. He should have settled his debts and walked away; having failed to do this, he should have put the club into administration without tying it into a ridiculous debt that couldn't be dealt with under the normal administration process. But he failed to do that, too.

I do think the EFL could (and should) have dealt with the Boro and Wycombe claims much quicker, by telling them that since they had not commenced action at the point we entered administration, let alone won any kind of settlement, they could not be classed as football debtors or even "potential football debtors". That certainly delayed things and has been a major issue. But the EFL are not to blame for the initial mess, or the insane situation regarding that stadium. That's all on Morris.

1 hour ago, Ramos said:

I think as he is a 34 year old - engaging via Twitter is probably something we will start to see from business owners of coming generations. Tech is just what we and the generations to come are now used to.
 

I see to an extent why people feel communicating over Twitter is odd and not ‘professional’ but it’s clear he wants to control the information being put out and has witnessed throughout his bid to buy a club in England how the narrative is spun if those actually involved don’t speak out. Since he’s been active since Friday on Twitter it’s been almost impossible for journalists to make up stories for the sun and the daily Mail. 

We will definitely see more of this in future. One of the reasons Tesla spends so little on advertising is that Elon Musk is so active in (self-)promotion. Doing social media well is surprisingly difficult and the ones who do best are the ones to whom it comes naturally. 

Anyway I AM NOT SAYING CK IS ELON MUSK

1 hour ago, Jimbo Ram said:

It's actually nothing to do with the awful tweets, it's just an underwhelming gut feeling I have about him. I am not convinced he has the funds. I really hope that I am wrong.

This bothers me too, much more than the tweets. I hope he'll prove to have funds, and a plan. But I can't claim to be enormously confident. 

3 minutes ago, StarterForTen said:

See, I read their third Tweet as...

"This process will allow us to understand what hurdles may still need to be PUT IN PLACE before matters can move forward......"

There's such a weird "why do you make me hurt you, I only do it because I love you so much" tone to their tweets.

They seem obsessed with putting up further financial conditions and obstacles. That doesn't make any sense. It makes sense to punish Mel (which they can't), and it makes sense to give us a points deduction if we breach whatever the relevant financial rules might be.

But it doesn't really make sense to impose strict conditions on the new owners. They are new owners: why do they get tarred with the brush meant for Mel? 

10 minutes ago, Curtains said:

Talksport just said Ashley has just said he’s still interested.

Make if that what you want .

Talksport thought that was good news for Derby 

I think at this point it's safer just to assume Ashley's "interest" is roughly equivalent to my interest in  learning to speak Mandarin. 

It technically exists, but nothing is ever going to come of it.

16 minutes ago, Unlucky Alf said:

So all is forgiven then, Does he still hold those thoughts when he posted them?, Were they quotes from songs and films?, It maters not a jot to me if CK, MA or AA become the new owners, What would concern me would be the very negative comments from the media who have the sole purpose to make hay while social media shines, There's plenty of historical posts from those in the spotlight that have come back to haunt them.

What was initially good news for some is now turning inwards, No doubt there's more digging to come

As I said I'd expect him to completely dissociate himself from these remarks, apologise, say they were stupid and thoughtless and he understands how offensive they are. That he's grown and learned and improved. 

In which case - unless there's any evidence he has said anything like that more recently - then yes, I do think he should be forgiven. 

6 minutes ago, Unlucky Alf said:

He's 34, 34-11 =23

Okay, he was 23. It was still 11 years ago. 

45 minutes ago, ollycutts1982 said:

I don't see an issue with historic tweets and it does rather annoy me. I am sure at some point we have all done or said something we aren't proud of, it doesn't define who we are. There was a furore about a potential Chelsea owner. It is ridiculous to dig them up. I am sure we are all different people to who we were 10+ years ago, times change as do people. Lets move on and hope this god awful mess is sorted sooner rather than later.

I agree with you (and would hope he'd come out and say how much he is horrified by these tweets), while finding some of outrage a bit over the top. This was 11 years ago and he was a teenager. You can get jailed for four years and after seven, your conviction is considered spent. These were (admittedly pretty awful) tweets. Isn't society supposed to help us grow and improve? Isn't it important to forgive? 

15 minutes ago, VulcanRam said:

I feel underwhelmed but I don't know why - after two years of this horrendous limbo and sanctions and edging ever closer to oblivion we have someone who appears to want to, and be able to, rescue us. Logic suggests we should be shouting from the rooftops.

Yet I feel underwhelmed. Maybe it's just battle-weariness.

 

 

Partly that but also if and when our future is secured, you start looking properly at what the future is going to hold. League One, 15 points down before we start, no squad to speak of, strict rules on what we can spend (assuming Kirchner actually has money to spend, which is far from clear). I guess its a bit like a life-saving operation which comes with some life-altering side effects: obviously you're amazingly happy to have had the op, but once it's done, and you are still alive, the side-effects do matter. 

I'd actually be fairly happy dropping down a division and having a reset, if we'd have been able to keep our young players. It might have been fun watching them have a go at storming League One. Watching our best prospects get picked off one by has been (and will likely continue to be) one of the most depressing aspects of this whole snipshow. 

22 minutes ago, ilkleyram said:

We are, in short, one helluva opportunity for a purchaser with some seed money, with ambition, imagination and a willingness to achieve a lot in a short space of time. 

Sadly while I'd dearly love to believe this, the fact is not a single investor anywhere in the world seems to agree. (At least, not at the price we need them to pay.)

From an owner's point of view football is a pretty terrible investment unless you have good prospects of getting to the Premier League, or you are a benevolent local rich person/fan who is happy to lose money hand over fist.

If I'm an investor from outside Derby I'm looking at the initial outlay, rebuilding the squad, overcoming a likely 15pt penalty and further EFL restrictions in League One... getting anywhere near the Premier League looks mighty expensive and a very long way off.

47 minutes ago, Stive Pesley said:

Absolutely - and Ashley/Appleby are business men with zero sentiment for the Rams. They will walk away if the figures don't add up, and they won't shed a tear. The fact Mel does have some sentiment is  their gambit I believe

 

It's hardly even a gambit: they are looking at the club and saying it just isn't worth anything like £30m-£35m if they then have to pay an extra £20m for the stadium. It feels from the Q statement that they may be struggling to get a formal bid above the level needed to keep our golden ticket, let alone avoid the 15 point penalty. 

Mel Morris needs to understand that he isn't playing poker here, and this isn't a tough business negotiation. This is a rescue mission. Unless he gifts the stadium and settles his debts with MSD himself, it seems very likely a viable sale won't be possible. Derby will be liquidated.

If he genuinely can't afford that, we are in very deep trouble. If he can - but doesn't do it - then he should at least be aware that he will be remembered by a city as the man who killed their football club. And no, this is not a request for charity. It is a request that he settles his bill before he leaves the table.

1 hour ago, EtoileSportiveDeDerby said:

And as a result, is lowering the price of a) the club and b) the stadium. Don't forget the man has years of experience in the cut throat business of retail and made himself a billionaire where most people have gone bankrupt. My previous employer supplied services to one of his businesses, they will try their very best not to pay a penny more than is needed.

Is the price coming down though - and faster than the assets walking out of the door? Bottom line is there's a minimum amount HMRC will accept, and a minimum amount the EFL demand we pay unsecured creditors. And the problem seems to be getting any of the bids above the latter (and who knows, maybe the former as well). Mel either blinks on the stadium and the £20million MSD debt or he doesn't - but he hasn't so far. 

On 19/12/2021 at 15:15, Crewton said:

Cloughie Sr. would have loved Will Hughes. He certainly wouldn't have had him playing as a defensive midfielder. He'd have put someone alongside him to win the ball and then tell that player to give it to Will.

Even after his ACL injury, he'd have been the first name on the team-sheet for me. I'm not sure how it was possible to "over-rate" him as a Derby player. The fact that every opposition supporter hated him and every opposition team tried to kick him off the park told its own story. I loved watching him play, and I loved the fact that he came through our own ranks. 

I don't think signing for Watford, with their revolving-door policy for managers, did him any favours. He's only 26 and I'm hoping that his best years lie ahead of him. 

Watford also played him out of position most of the time - usually out wide. Such a shame he didn't go somewhere that consistently played him in the right place and let him develop his game. Watching him now you can feel that lost development - he just doesn't seem able to dictate games as much as his skill set should allow. Maybe that would have happened anyway (he's not the biggest or fastest) but it's a shame we may never know how good he could have been if he'd have spent his early 20s somewhere else.

If the club was "worth" £50million we wouldn't be in this mess. The administrators wouldn't be squeezing the small number of interested parties for every penny, and we wouldn't all be pleading with Morris to do the right thing and soak up a £20million loss.

How much other clubs have sold for isn't really relevant: different circumstances, different short and long term prospects, different reasons for buyers having an interest, different assets.

Read the market: we aren't worth £50million. The consensus seems to be we are worth about £30million - and that's if you include a stadium which we were assured was worth upwards of £80million.

Morris needs to understand this isn't a negotiation - it's a request for him to cough up a very large sum in order to gift the stadium and stop the club he claims to love slipping into oblivion, because of his own recklessness. 

Perhaps he won't (or can't) do that, but let's at least have some honesty. If the club goes bust no one is going to pat him on the back for his tough negotiating skills and tell him "You were right to walk away, the club was worth so much more than bidders were offering!" They'll be no club, devastated fans, and he'll still owe MSD £20million.

35 minutes ago, Brailsford Ram said:

No it's not a good deal. For me the Daily Mail article seems that it may well be a pretty accurate account of where the final stage of negotiations with the bidders now sit. The key line for me in the article is that Sunderland was recently valued at £30m and Hull exchanged hands for £25m. Given the level of debt at DCFC the valuation has to be somewhere near to those two clubs and in Division One the valuation falls. So £50m as a package for DCFC and the stadium is excessive.

The only true valuation of any property or entity is the amount that the highest bidder is prepared to pay. That currently may well be nearer £30m than £50m. Mel and Mel alone got us into this mess and it is morally incumbent upon him at this late stage to do the decent thing for once and do what he can to open the door to the club's revival. If he has to take a bigger hit on the stadium so be it. He is holding all of the right cards, only he can play them.

A few months ago this very question was put to Mel by a supporter at a private function local to where they both live. In an extremely polite and amiable conversation Mel offered the assurance of "Don't worry, there will be a future for the club. If I have to give the stadium away, so be it."

The time may be nearing where we will find out if his actions speak louder than his words for once.

Agree, and it also perhaps shows why he found it so hard to get a buyer before we went into administration. If he's honestly suggesting that the reason bidders aren't prepared to stump up £20million for the stadium is that they are "playing hardball" - and if he honestly thinks he just needs to wait for them to crack - then he's being completely unrealistic. 

I understand he doesn't want to settle the loan himself - who knows how easy it would be for him to absorb a £20million loss - but let's not pretend this is a clever negotiating tactic, or in any way in the interests of the club.

Feels like a version of the sunk costs fallacy: he just can't believe now, and couldn't when he tried to sell before, that the club he's driven into the ground (at great personal cost) could be worth so little. But it is.

I think some of the criticism here is a bit harsh. He showed every indication he'd have stayed with us if the club had been in a position to keep him on. He's delayed signing a contract elsewhere in case things suddenly got sorted. They haven't. His contract is up and his choices are to sign for one of a number of clubs, including a top-flight club in Italy, or... what? Hang around to see if the club he's currently with can avoid liquidation and offer him some sort of terms in League One? 

It would have been nice if he was so committed to the club that he wanted to do that, but that would be incredibly unusual and I don't think it's something fans can reasonably expect. I can completely understand why's he chosen the path he has and wish him well. 

Just now, Ghost of Clough said:

Definitely disagree on Ince. If you can't call him a success then only freebies can be. Since for a fee worth about £6m in the end, top performer whilst at the club, then sold for a reasonable profit. Yet you want to include Vydra as the "stand-out" signing despite being awful in the first of his two seasons at the club?

You may be right on both counts. I forget how long Vydra was here!

It will be interesting to see how far some of our young players go, and look back on the team we might have had if we'd have been able to keep the whole group together.

Have to admit there are a couple of our players that I think have a lower ceiling than other fans believe. I don't see Knight getting much better (his game relies so much on his 'engine'); Bird just doesn't seem likely to develop physically in a way which will enable him to influence top-level games. Feels like Sibley should have room for improvement but I've not seen much evidence recently.

Ebosele's an interesting one - I can certainly see him playing, and having an impact, at a higher level but I also wonder how he'll fare against better defences.

Of the players we've had to let go, I'm not 100pc what Chelsea saw in Williams and Plange shows glimpses but also disappears from games. What's happened to Morgan Whittaker? Doesn't seem to be tearing up trees.

If I had to put money on any of them it would probably be Ebiowei, who just seems to have a bit more to his game.

Overall if I put together all the young/U21 players who have played for us over the last couple of seasons, and imagine them as a team playing together in 4/5 years, I'm not sure what their level would be, but I suspect it's (upper) Championship.

59 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

Yes: Carson, Christie, Wisdom, Pearce, Evans, Thorne, Huddlestone, Ledley, Butterfield, Johnson, Holmes, Ince, Weimann, Dawkins, Vydra, Jerome, Nugent, Bent, Waghorn, Marriott

No: Weale, Baird, Shotton, te Wierik, Whitbread, Albentosa, Malone, Warnock, Olsson, Camara, Blackman, Anya, Jozefzoon

It's amazing just how few of our signings can be called an unqualified success.

Even some of the better performers - Christie maybe, Wisdom, Ince, Waghorn - weren't exactly great.

Vydra's a stand-out name for me but even he didn't have a great start.

Thorne is the exception (an unqualified success) and it's a huge shame that ended as it did.

We really did waste an awful lot of money.

Ebiowei is some player 

Completely switched off. We are going to lose this at this rate 

Losing a bit of control here, need to get back on the front foot