Chesterfield_Ram

I hope that Portsmouth game gives us a glimpse of what to expect next season. This season I’ve found myself frustrated with the way we’ve played, but I could really see what the team was trying to do in that game. All being well it will be more effective next season with teams trying to beat us, as opposed to holding on.

I hope we get a dedicated reporter again. It would probably be enough for me to subscribe again. It would be really good if Ryan Conway covered us again, as I was a big fan of his journalism. It was really good how he got involved with the club and I always tuned into his livestreams.

These are some of my targets: CB: J. Williams - 24 - Barnsley - E.O.C - Good defensive statistics, averaged marginally more tackles per game than Cashin (Derby's leader in this stat), marginally behind the first 3 cbs we have in interceptions and clearances, good age profile, improvement on Bradley in defensive stats apart from aerial ability, however he would only be 4th/5th choice cb CB: R. Santos - 28 - Bolton - Transfer - This would be dependent on Bolton not going up, proven to be a really good defender in L1 and we could offer him the chance to take the next step in his career, defensive stats are similar to the likes are Cashin, Nelson and Forysth, wins more duels than any player we currently have, powerful, 68% pass accuracy is a better passing accuracy in the opposition half than are best cb this season (Cashin 58%) LB: H. Burrows - 22 - Peterborough - E.O.C - averaged 2 tackles per game, 1 interception per game, 55% successful dribbles. Joint most big chances created in L1 this season with NML, These are all an improvement on what we had at LB/LWB and his crossing ability is on par with we we have. I'd see this as an improvement defensively and with his age we could potentially sell him on in the future. CM: H. Kane - 25 - Barnsley - E.O.C. - Improvement of Hourihane defensively bettering him in tackles, interceptions, clearances etc, his passing ability is similar to Hourihane with Kane being better in the oppositions half, he's also younger and has time before he starts to decline physically, I presume he'd be more mobile than Hourihane is currently CM: S. Carey - 23 - Blackpool - E.O.C. - Passing stats are very similar to Bird, majority of passes come in opponents half and they are pretty accurate (70%), more creative player than the likes of Bird, Hourihane, Adams, decent dribbling stats, lacking in goals and assists though CM: E. Adams - 28 - Cardiff - Transfer - Sign him up. Simple as that really. CM: P. Maghoma - 22 - Brentford - Loan - 12 g+a, excellent passing stats (83% with 77% in opponents half) which are an improvement on what we have, excellent dribbling stats, and wins more duels than he loses, good move for him to take the next step in his development after being in l1 with bolton this year I'm not sure who we should go for as the type of striker we all would like would be out of our price range, but these are a few names who we could develop somewhat ST: W. Evans - 26 - Newport - Transfer - 21 goals last season with a 21% conversion rate ST: I. Olaofe - 24 - Stockport - Transfer - 20 goals last season with a 29% conversion rate, conversion rate in previous seasons is just under 20%, which is a bit low ST: M. Langstaff - 27 - Notts County - Transfer - 28 goals last season with a 16% conversion rate, scored 40 odd the season before, wouldn't be surprised if he did go for a quite a bit but you never know ST: L. Shankland - 28 - Hearts - Transfer - 21, 24, 8, 8, 24, 24, 26 goals over the last 7 seasons, he's out on contract at the end of next season which may bring his value down, however he could be a bit pricy at best he may be £1.5 million (which is still out of our budget probably)

Since Saturday I've been looking at some of the statistics from the players this year and some of CBT look quite impressive over the course of the season (including the first half before joining us. While he's shown the occasional glimpse of what he could do, I think it's fair to say he hasn't performed to the levels we (and probably himself) expected. This may well be down to joining while injured and taking time to settle in. Anyway onto the statistics I was on about. I noticed that he actually did better than NML in a lot of statistics relating to attacking players. One of these being successful dribbles, where CBT averaged 60% of dribbles being successful. NML was marginally behind averaging 47% being successful. His accuracy of passing is what stood out to me 81% ending up with a teammate, which was the best out of all the players to have been involved with us in L1 this season. He was also second in the team with his passing accuracy in the opponents half, with 73% of passes being successful, being behind Nyambe. His crossing was also quite good with a third of crosses being won by teammates. This was only bettered by Barkhuizen, Fornah? and Korey Smith?. While most of this potentially came from his time with Charlton, it at least gives an indication of what he could potentially do once he's had a full pre-season with us and hopefully settled in.

Didn't Stephen Pearce say the playing sides wage bill is around £7.5 million in his radio derby interview a couple of months ago.

While I’m disappointed he’s left, it was a fantastic ending to his time as a Derby player. Opening the scoring, getting the appreciation from the crowd when he went off, then winning promotion back to the lowest level where we should be.

I think there is, as in a recent interview with the chesterfield owner he spoke about how the EFL have been supporting the club in submitting their business plan for next season. Then again it did sound a bit more like a financial forecast,than a business plan that we’ve been under, when their owner was talking about it.

I think we should be thinking about recruitment as an ‘evolution’, rather than a ‘rebuild’. If we do go up next year, I see us having a tough time maybe even being sucked into a relegation battle. I’d say we have more chance by adding a few players of higher quality than we already have in certain positions, instead of having a rebuild and having 8 or 9 new starters next season. The players seem to have gelled really well this season and apart from a number of players, who are no where near championship standard and potentially holding us back, I think we should look to improve out current squad.

Must be the case, as I’ve never heard of this particular rule before. However, I do know that teams have to prove they can follow the rules of the league, which is why they have to apply to join when coming in from the national league. From the Price of football podcast I recall them talking about how teams have to provide business plans to join the league 2 after promotion when the national league to show they can meet ffp rules. Also, my local team Chesterfield have been talking about how they have had to upgrade their floodlights to meet the minimum standard the EFL sets out. I just presume the application process, where Gateshead were rejected, was used to prevent teams not being ready to at the season.

I’m not sure on the exact details, but going by the EFL’s rules they are imposing here surely a number of teams who sold their ground to the owner or didn’t own their ground would have failed to meet this rule. Aston Villa, Coventry, us, Reading, Wednesday. I can’t ever remember MM saying that we had an agreement for x amount of years, not that I’m complaining that we weren’t kicked out of the EFL, but this doesn’t seem fair to me. Also, it’s not like Coventry who moved around when they didn’t have their own ground; Gateshead have been tenants at the venue since 1977.

I believe NUFC reserves do play at Gateshead. I’ve seen them on tv playing there in the youth champions league. Having a look it seems they’re a bit nomadic, also playing at st James park and Kingston park (Newcastle Falcons rugby ground).

If the timeline from what I've heard about designing kits is right, those in charge at the club will be finalising the 2025/26 kits in several months time.

For the away or third kit, I'd like us to try something different and include a map of Derby in the design of the shirt. It could be done so that Pride Park is located within the club's logo, seen as the logo is an outline of a ram. For extra points they could utilise the colour scheme featured in the modern remake kit that @loweman2 posted a few posts ago. Here's a few attempts at it with other clubs over the past few seasons. I especially like the green Hibernian one from 2021/22.

For aa away or third kit, I'd quite like to see a design featuring the light blue, amber and chocolate brown colours that the club originally wore and more recently the cricket team in the early 2010s.

Don't fanatics run our shop, not the club anymore? Looking through their website they don't seem to sell shirts off for £10 at the end of the season like teams did 10 years or so ago.

Yeah I understand about not having the budget that could bring in lots of top players. But my point is that I think we should focus on 1 or 2 higher quality players, than 5 or 6 average players. Essentially, instead of paying 6 players 5 grand a week, pay 2 players 15 grand as an example. I wonder whether this way could get us better players than it would if we looking for half a dozen or more new players.

To be honest, I worded my original post poorly. When I referred to us underperforming I meant it terms of the performances we have put in should have led to us gaining more points than we currently have. Simply put, our points total is less than what our performances deserve. The formula simply takes into account what happens on the pitch and is well used in other sports to evaluate team performance. As for meeting the cost of a 20 goal striker or a solid defender, I was simply meaning that we should focus on signing a gamechanger as opposed to fringe/bench players. By adding 15 goals or taking away 10 goals from our projected total would put us in a play off place if teams pick up points at a similar rate to they have this season in the championship.

Bit of a nerdy one from me here. Using the Pythagorean Winning Percentage formula, we should have finished this season with 36 wins, which can't happen now. This suggests that the team has underperformed this season. If we are to go up this season, by applying the performance moderations from teams going up into the championship in their first season up, we should hypothetically win 20 games with the squad we have. Looking at recruitment from a purely statistical point of view, we would be better off recruiting pure starters. For example, a 20 goal a season striker, a 10/15 assist a season playmaker or an 8/10 a game defender or goalkeeper.

I didn't say they will all be starters, just that I would have them in my squad. In my opinion we have more chance of staying up if we get into the championship by keeping the players I named and utilising them as fringe players (while focusing on recruiting 1st team starter quality), rather than having a complete rebuild. If we spend time looking at a back up players; we may well lose out on players who would be regular starters.

Wycombe 1-2 Derby Car Park: Not sold out

I see what you mean, I was just going on the fact that the club have been calling it a bespoke kit. On the website for the current seasons shirt it says: “The Spireites’ new bespoke kits for the 2023/24 season are now available to purchase at the Club Superstore. This is the first time there has been a bespoke kit design for the Spireites since the 2009/10 season.”

From what I’ve read in leagues 1 and 2, where most teams have template kits, teams could make around 40% of the net cost of a shirt. Hypothetically, if our current deal is along these lines the club would make £17.60 from the sale of an adult shirt (40% of £55 minus tax). However, in the premier league, where most teams have bespoke kits they receive 7% of the net sale from shirts. Therefore the club would receive £3.08 from the sale of a shirt if their deal is in line with the average. The big difference I presume would be that there would be a larger amount paid upfront, as opposed to only getting money from sales. I believe our deal would be different though, as I’m sure MM sold the rights for derby merchandise to Fanatics in a 10 year deal if I’m not mistaken. Regarding Chesterfield though, I noticed there two shirts are priced differently. The bespoke kit is available for pre order at £55, while the template kit is available for £39. I’d infer from this that the club would make a lower % from the sale of a bespoke shirt, than they would for a template shirt.

There is an element of that in the decision making process of manufacturers. Mentioning this person might upset a few people on here, but Kieran Maguire has explained it quite well on his podcast. Basically, it is less profitable for the manufacturers to create shirts with a custom template if they aren't producing many. Therefore, for 'bigger' teams where they will be producing tens of thousands and even millions its alright, whereas for 'smaller' teams it is cheaper to get a template then stick a badge on. However, there are a number of small teams who have had bespoke kits in recent years. For example, Chesterfield had a bespoke home and away kit this season and revealed a bespoke home shirt for next season (I think their away one is a template). Puma seem to design some decent bespoke kits, even for league and non league teams. This years Chesterfield shirt had the crooked spire on the design, while York City's kit last season had the York minster cathedral built into the design. It would be really good to have a kit inspired by something related to the city of Derby.

I'd go with these for the championship: Wildsmith - I'd give him a chance given how well he's played in L1, but he'd need to cut out his unenforced errors Wilson - looked good this season, so hopefully it will be less of a jump up in quality into the championship for him than last time Forsyth - been solid this season, but we'll need to start looking at a replacement for him for future seasons Cashin - not much needs to be said here Collins - key player for us this season, but id like to see a consistent goalscorer alongside him NML - one of the players of this season Smith - handy fringe player Thompson - handy back up with room for development Sibley - handy fringe player and could potentially up his value if we are to sell him Ward - doing alright atm Nyambe - solid rb Gayle - potential goalscorer CBT - were starting to see why we signed him now Adams - just what we need in cm Nelson - solid at the back

Don’t jinx it!!! Being the pessimist I am, I’m expecting a 3-2 Portsmouth win.