Malty

Has anyone else noticed that the BBC “rams daily” podcast has been running for around a week and already there hasn’t been one for three or four days?

My assumption was that he was being rested?

So we had Yankee Doodle Derby and Abu Derby, what is the thread name for Mike Ashley/sports direct Derby?

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2021/10/01/arsenal-owed-8m-Derby-krystian-bielik-club-step-search-new-owner/amp/

So I’m now hearing that we still owe Arsenal 8 mill for bielik and lech Poznań 2 mill for jozwiak.

I don’t know how I could feel leaving a club owing so much to so many … and leaving people to lose their livelihoods on the process in order to pay for my own mistakes.

I really really want to have sympathy for Mel. I really do, but this week and these revelations are starting to really get to me. It was Mel that made those commitments … and other people that have to pay for it. I’d love to ask him about this and understand his point of view, because from the outside it’s beginning to really stink.

I think we need him back on radio Derby answering questions from the fans.

Rams to win.

2/1

first scorer could be anyone. Let’s go for stretton!!

Ah. The dream is over.

£5m needed in the bank.

I’m out. 
?

Derby to win 2/1. FRGS… Lawrence.

I hadn’t realised he was actually doing anything. Was he at games or training?

I haven’t seen any photos or video content. If he was at DCFC on a full time basis surely we could have actually used him for what he was good at … coaching.

2 minutes ago, LincsRam said:

Think sibbers & lawrence could do with an early bath today

Not one of their one-good-games-in-five then?

1 minute ago, Quagga said:

Yes if you are an Overseas Subscriber, and presumably showing up as being outside the UK.
It's 0830 here in Mexico City, and working for me

I’m in the U.K. 

Can we get the game today on rams tv?

Mel Morris is getting such a hard time at the moment from everyone in the press and around the club. Maybe they are right to be blaming Mel for many of our sins, but I’m just not 100% convinced that it’s justified.

What is he guilty of exactly….

So he spent £200m trying to get DCFC to the premier league (tell me if you had that much money that you wouldn’t - even for a second think about doing that for Derby)

He spent a fortune on players some of which have not been particularly successful (as many many chairman have across the leagues)

He supported our academy, growing young players that have gone on to be sold or are playing in or around our first team - with more on their heels.

He gambled again by bringing a premier league legend in as manager and nearly made it, only losing in the play off final.

He stretched every rule he could whether that’s accounting wise by pushing expenditure into the academy rather than the football team, playing with agents fees, playing with amortisation, arranging a real with a betting company and selling the stadium to himself. He did those things to try and defeat financial fair play. If others around him were stronger, perhaps they would have convinced him otherwise. I have worked for chief execs like this and you have to be strong to challenge. With any rules people will try and find loopholes and many accountants make a career and a huge amount of money out of doing just that. I’m not saying it’s right, I’m just saying that if there is not enough challenge then people will bend the rules … and Mel did it with the aim of competing with other clubs and getting DCFC to the prem … and how many fans were complaining at the time?

Once he’d blown his millions naturally he looked for a buyer to take over … in the process cutting the wage bill drastically over a period of 2-3 years to make the club more sustainable and more appealing to a buyer (“its a clean slate your starting with”). He nearly did this twice and unfortunately covid got in the way. Tell me anyone, anywhere in business that even brought covid into their business plans three years ago. No one could have predicted it and guess what? It cost me Morris apparently £1.25m a month, another £15m then. 

DCFC reportedly has multiple potential buyers now … where were they before? Well I would hazard a guess that they were just waiting for Mel to do exactly this … and Mel may well have thought that the best thing for the club would be to swallow the pill, get the deductions and start again with fresh, wealthy owners. Whether that’s in the championship or league one.

I’m fact I would even suggest that they were putting pressure on Mel to go into administration so that they could buy DCFC at an even cheaper price.

Look, Mel did a huge amount wrong, with the Keogh debacle, Sam Rush, believing fake sheikhs and Eric alonso, poor communication, being too bullish, supporting dodgy signings, firing managers, even the final option of administration was another error in my view … I just couldn’t justify myself plunging the good employees of DCFC into financial difficulties, wage cuts job losses etc if I could genuinely afford to keep the club afloat (Rhys just my view, clearly not Mels). But I honestly think the vast majority of what he did was in his view in the interests of DCFC.

Perhaps I’ll be proved to be completely wrong. Perhaps he’s one of the worst crooks known to mankind, I just think right now he’s the fall guy, he’s getting a huge amount of stick and he’s suffering because of his poor communication and his failure to properly say sorry.

I just wonder, I really do if he did this because it was the only option left on the table that would ultimately secure DCFC a strong and prosperous future, potentially, eventually back in the premier league where we belong.

I really hope the above doesn’t offend anyone. I really wouldn’t have taken the drastic step myself and I can’t support Mel on doing that, I’m just saying that in his head perhaps  he genuinely thought he was doing what he thought was right for DCFC.

We win this one of course.

rams 3 blades 1 

ravel to score first for us.

I don’t get all this about a new buyer paying all the debts …. Maguire said 60m

- Mel more than likely won’t want his money immediately, I’m sure an arrangement can be made 

- if we negotiate with Hmrc we should be able to pay by instalments there too

- likewise with the efl of other clubs have a payback agreement with hmrc, why can’t we?

- in any takeover there is bound to be a re-financing of debt. It’s not unusual for a club to have debt secured against future revenue. People might not like it, but it does happen

- The reality is that Derby is much more appealing than people like Maguire is making out.

32 minutes ago, Crewton said:

I could've sworn we had a squad of 23? 

I was kidding about a dozen. The point being there isn’t many.

We only have about a dozen players. This ain’t exactly going to save a fortune. If it can be agreed with the efl without a points deduction, then that’s ok. As long as the players do get their money pretty soon afterwards.

The trouble is the administrators’ priority is not to keep the team in the league, it’s to play out the fixtures this year. So they won’t be too worried about points deductions.

Why not stay?

It Wouldn’t look good if he left.

Nothing to lose of he stay. 

4/1 to Stoke.

jagielka for Derby

Trouble is the impact on morale before Saturdays home game.

Thanks for the updates. I’ve been refreshing for the last 20 minutes!!

Such a relief!!

COYR!!

Please keep taking the mickey out of baldock. I have him for FRGS.

1/0 to Derby. Ravel for the rams.

Our second halves have been rubbish. But Rooney has looked into it and sorted it out. So we’re all good. We’ve got this now!!

Is eight more players part of the bluff?

“If it wasn’t for the embargo, we’d have signed another 8 players”.

With t this in mind and perhaps the fact that the accounts do comply with all relevant accounting policies after all than actually the sanction should be a credit of somewhere between +3 and +9 points. Perhaps the efl are trying to negotiate this down and that’s why we haven’t heard anything yet?