vonwright

Glad the DET confirmed it, I couldn't just believe Haydon himself.

It was flogging Oakley and Jones that told me he didn't have the foggiest. Oakley had probably been out best player and had proven Prem quality, and Jones could be frustrating but had a real touch of class about him. We spent the cash on a headless chicken who the fans openly (and rightly) despised. Clueless.

Ah, come on. Davies was the last manager to get us promoted to the Premier League, and when he got there found out a) he didn't have the squad or the tactics to compete and b) there wasn't any money to buy better players.
Yes we were awful that year, and yes Davies didn't exactly cover himself in glory with some of the things he said when he left.
But he isn't a worse Derby manager than Nigel Pearson.
 

Porter was a Clough one.  Proper unit with 2 on his debut.  Good signing but needed a double hip replacement to play after a month like most of our more promising signings.  It's the Derby way.

Ah, come on. Davies was the last manager to get us promoted to the Premier League, and when he got there found out a) he didn't have the squad or the tactics to compete and b) there wasn't any money to buy better players.
Yes we were awful that year, and yes Davies didn't exactly cover himself in glory with some of the things he said when he left.
But he isn't a worse Derby manager than Nigel Pearson.
 

He has always said the players that got bought were not the ones he wanted. That because Gadsby was looking to sell the club they didn't want to spend the kind of money we needed to spend to have a chance of staying up.
Davies barely played Earnshaw and do you really think he went into pre-season meetings demanding Eddie Lewis?
It was something of a miracle we went up with the squad we had - players like Leacock and McEverley started the play-off final. We needed massive investment to have any sort of a chance and it didn't happen. 
Davies is not a likeable man and he didn't handle that season well. His limitations as a tactician and man manager were clear for all to see. But it's ridiculous to put all the blame for that season - and those signings - on him, while apparently giving him no credit for getting us promoted in the first place.

Agree with this, in a wierd way I quite like the thought of actually get a player for a pittance and then a year or two later being astounded (in a good way) at the players value.

Ah, come on. Davies was the last manager to get us promoted to the Premier League, and when he got there found out a) he didn't have the squad or the tactics to compete and b) there wasn't any money to buy better players.
Yes we were awful that year, and yes Davies didn't exactly cover himself in glory with some of the things he said when he left.
But he isn't a worse Derby manager than Nigel Pearson.
 

We really didn't spend that much money getting up, compared to other teams who have been promoted before or since. And when we got up, we spend very little. I liked Gadsby but he was, at heart, a cautious businessman. Davies demanded money to get us promoted, the money was spent, we finished third, we got promoted. At that point we needed to gamble again: we didn't have the squad to have a chance of staying up. Gadsby either didn't want to do this, or couldn't. Again: fair enough, his choice, but it made relegation a near-certainty.
Gadsby was prepared to gamble on us getting promoted. But at that point he basically decided to cash in his chips. He wasn't prepared to gamble again on trying to stay in the Premier League. We had won the prize, and he was happy to cash out. He didn't have access to a lot of money. He wanted to sell up.
Personally I can understand why fans (and Davies) were disappointed by that. Did Davies handle it well? Clearly not. But the reason there would have been a 'fan backlash' is because a lot of fans would have agreed with him. 
Gadsby might have been right, he might have been wrong. The fact he now thinks he should have sacked Davies is neither here nor there.
None of this makes Billy Davies one of Derby's worst managers. He wasn't. 

Yes. Jewell's spending in January wasn't transfer fees but was terrible and expensive loans. Robert was probably the worst example. He was awful. Mills wasn't much better. 
He also sold Steve Howard who wasn't up to the Premier League but might have been useful in the Championship. 
He then wasted what money was available back in the Championship on a load or terrible free transfers who proved a) not good and b) hard to get rid of, plus decent sized fees for Dickinson (remember him?) and Porter. 

You make it sound like the £11m we spent under Davies was a lot of money. Let's look at the teams promoted with us. Sunderland (who had a much better squad to start with) spent £11m just on a goalkeeper. They spent a total of £50m to £60m and stayed up.
Birmingham also had a much better squad than us. They spent about £30m and were relegated, one place above us. 
We needed to spend a lot more than we did to have any chance of staying up. Davies was tactically limited, a seemingly unpleasant/arrogant man, and terrible at the politics of football. But the board hung him out to dry that season and no one would have kept us up with £11m to spend.

Ah, come on. Davies was the last manager to get us promoted to the Premier League, and when he got there found out a) he didn't have the squad or the tactics to compete and b) there wasn't any money to buy better players.
Yes we were awful that year, and yes Davies didn't exactly cover himself in glory with some of the things he said when he left.
But he isn't a worse Derby manager than Nigel Pearson.
 

We really didn't spend that much money getting up, compared to other teams who have been promoted before or since. And when we got up, we spend very little. I liked Gadsby but he was, at heart, a cautious businessman. Davies demanded money to get us promoted, the money was spent, we finished third, we got promoted. At that point we needed to gamble again: we didn't have the squad to have a chance of staying up. Gadsby either didn't want to do this, or couldn't. Again: fair enough, his choice, but it made relegation a near-certainty.
Gadsby was prepared to gamble on us getting promoted. But at that point he basically decided to cash in his chips. He wasn't prepared to gamble again on trying to stay in the Premier League. We had won the prize, and he was happy to cash out. He didn't have access to a lot of money. He wanted to sell up.
Personally I can understand why fans (and Davies) were disappointed by that. Did Davies handle it well? Clearly not. But the reason there would have been a 'fan backlash' is because a lot of fans would have agreed with him. 
Gadsby might have been right, he might have been wrong. The fact he now thinks he should have sacked Davies is neither here nor there.
None of this makes Billy Davies one of Derby's worst managers. He wasn't. 

Yes. Jewell's spending in January wasn't transfer fees but was terrible and expensive loans. Robert was probably the worst example. He was awful. Mills wasn't much better. 
He also sold Steve Howard who wasn't up to the Premier League but might have been useful in the Championship. 
He then wasted what money was available back in the Championship on a load or terrible free transfers who proved a) not good and b) hard to get rid of, plus decent sized fees for Dickinson (remember him?) and Porter. 

You make it sound like the £11m we spent under Davies was a lot of money. Let's look at the teams promoted with us. Sunderland (who had a much better squad to start with) spent £11m just on a goalkeeper. They spent a total of £50m to £60m and stayed up.
Birmingham also had a much better squad than us. They spent about £30m and were relegated, one place above us. 
We needed to spend a lot more than we did to have any chance of staying up. Davies was tactically limited, a seemingly unpleasant/arrogant man, and terrible at the politics of football. But the board hung him out to dry that season and no one would have kept us up with £11m to spend.

Yes. Jewell's spending in January wasn't transfer fees but was terrible and expensive loans. Robert was probably the worst example. He was awful. Mills wasn't much better. 
He also sold Steve Howard who wasn't up to the Premier League but might have been useful in the Championship. 
He then wasted what money was available back in the Championship on a load or terrible free transfers who proved a) not good and b) hard to get rid of, plus decent sized fees for Dickinson (remember him?) and Porter. 

We really didn't spend that much money getting up, compared to other teams who have been promoted before or since. And when we got up, we spend very little. I liked Gadsby but he was, at heart, a cautious businessman. Davies demanded money to get us promoted, the money was spent, we finished third, we got promoted. At that point we needed to gamble again: we didn't have the squad to have a chance of staying up. Gadsby either didn't want to do this, or couldn't. Again: fair enough, his choice, but it made relegation a near-certainty.
Gadsby was prepared to gamble on us getting promoted. But at that point he basically decided to cash in his chips. He wasn't prepared to gamble again on trying to stay in the Premier League. We had won the prize, and he was happy to cash out. He didn't have access to a lot of money. He wanted to sell up.
Personally I can understand why fans (and Davies) were disappointed by that. Did Davies handle it well? Clearly not. But the reason there would have been a 'fan backlash' is because a lot of fans would have agreed with him. 
Gadsby might have been right, he might have been wrong. The fact he now thinks he should have sacked Davies is neither here nor there.
None of this makes Billy Davies one of Derby's worst managers. He wasn't. 

Yes. Jewell's spending in January wasn't transfer fees but was terrible and expensive loans. Robert was probably the worst example. He was awful. Mills wasn't much better. 
He also sold Steve Howard who wasn't up to the Premier League but might have been useful in the Championship. 
He then wasted what money was available back in the Championship on a load or terrible free transfers who proved a) not good and b) hard to get rid of, plus decent sized fees for Dickinson (remember him?) and Porter. 

Meh, that was my argument for not selling Howard as well, at the time. I think I actually preferred Hulse though. He did it in a bad Derby side. Howard did it in a good one.

Ah, come on. Davies was the last manager to get us promoted to the Premier League, and when he got there found out a) he didn't have the squad or the tactics to compete and b) there wasn't any money to buy better players.
Yes we were awful that year, and yes Davies didn't exactly cover himself in glory with some of the things he said when he left.
But he isn't a worse Derby manager than Nigel Pearson.
 

It was the summer after that was so draining......

Jewell bought in all those duff loans in the 2nd half of that season. Laurent Robert, Danny Mills the chap from Spurs......
Basically didn't he spaff a load of cash, frighten the new investors GSE and cause them to batten down the financial hatches?
We then were forced to get excited about the arrivals of Paul Green and Paul Connolly among others in the summer.....

In my time actually following Derby so more or less post 2000:
Paul Jewell. By an absolute mile. Incomparable. Inexcusable that he wasn't given the metaphorical two bullets in the back of the head the second that season had concluded. No, they let him be just as bad in the championship until january just because we hadn't suffered enough.
Then a big old gap
Then Phil "none more orange" Brown - whilst I'll give him extenuating circumstances for what he had to work with from above, he was still very bad at beign our manager.
Nigel Pearson - I've softened on him since his brief time as Derby manager, but, he took a team that was just short of being a promotion team and made them into hopeless relegation fighters and his main belief appeared to be it was because they just weren't runnig around like ehadless chickens enough. I was over the moon he got papped.
John Gregory - had quite a good reputation when he came over from Villa. Was not very good. I think his inspriring team talks included "you got us into this you get us out of it <and huffing offf>"
Phillip Cocu - I almost feel bad about putting him on the list, I liked him but what he was trying to do wasn't going to work with the players he had or was likely to be able to work with and the football was usually pretty dull. Managed to arrive just as Mel's money ran out....
 

Ah, come on. Davies was the last manager to get us promoted to the Premier League, and when he got there found out a) he didn't have the squad or the tactics to compete and b) there wasn't any money to buy better players.
Yes we were awful that year, and yes Davies didn't exactly cover himself in glory with some of the things he said when he left.
But he isn't a worse Derby manager than Nigel Pearson.
 

Ah, come on. Davies was the last manager to get us promoted to the Premier League, and when he got there found out a) he didn't have the squad or the tactics to compete and b) there wasn't any money to buy better players.
Yes we were awful that year, and yes Davies didn't exactly cover himself in glory with some of the things he said when he left.
But he isn't a worse Derby manager than Nigel Pearson.