Alty_Ram

This would seem to be a very strange move for both parties given the problematic history. I certainly think he has been perfectly entitled to view some Derby fans with contempt after the abuse and particularly the subject matter of that abuse. Personally I have never joined in with any of it but significant numbers still do which is really disappointing. I don't think he covered himself with glory with his Wrexham mardiness but I suspect that he is a fairly prickly character and gets himself involved in these sorts of confrontations.

Would he score goals ? I'm sure he would but I doubt that he'd be a guaranteed starter and would he want to be an impact sub ? Seems unlikely. I would also worry that he would be to blame for every duff result. We could lose 3-0 and in the eyes of some, the loss would probably be because Sharp missed a chance or 'wasn't trying cos he hates us' not because we shipped 3 soft goals. We occasionally have a player who can't do wrong for doing right and at a time where we are trying to establish a sort of 'one club' sense of supporters and clubs together, I'd hate to see one of our players cupping his hand to his ear to throw any abuse or criticism back at the fans.

I just think this is a bit too toxic and not what we need now as a group. We need everyone pulling in the same direction and fans and players to have each others backs. On that basis I just can't see this being a thing and is likely just social media noise.

4 hours ago, Ram a lamb a ding dong said:

Every vlogger has us top.

This says to me that Rams fans are overly pessimistic

Or it could just be lazy work. We did pretty well last year and just missed out on playoffs and word has it that we have had restrictions lifted = obviously higher finish than last year. I'm just not seeing a team that looks noticeably better though, not as a whole. We had improved some areas and gone backwards in others IMHO. Totally get us not wanting to over rely on one striker but I'm not seeing where the goalscoring slack will be taken up. Happy to be wrong but I'm just not seeing this side anywhere close to automatics. Playoffs at best for me.

We need another striking option, whoever that ends up as. What we've got will be run ragged and running on empty if we are not careful and a 17 year old backup is a real gamble and frankly a bit of a bonus if it works out. Even if he has a storming start, players of that age usually need pulling out the line of fire for their own good at some stage as their performances inevitably dip.

We either get a Waghorn character in on a free who will work hard, put himself about and do the things that Warne seems to like, or we go for a younger up and coming loan. Not giving us another forward option doesn't really seem like any kind of plan and we can't seem to get the players we want on such a small transfer fee budget. It's a long season and we are one injury away from bare bones so we need options to allow us to rotate and rest. Waghorn may not be much of a finisher but he can play the role that we need in Warne's system and allow us to freshen it up. I appreciate that it is all wild speculation at this stage but we could do worse as long as the wages are sensible.

Yup, I'm afraid that I switched off and walked away after maybe 20 laps. It's a shame as there are occasionally some fairly interesting battles behind Verstappen but yet again it was just a procession from the front and tight battles for 10th place are just not holding my attention. Other than mechanical failure which seems unlikely, or someone taking him out then I just can't see anything other than Verstappen winning every race that's left by a country mile. Even him being taken out seems unlikely because he's usually at the front and pulling away by the first corner. At least we had a first corner challenge this time but then Max hits the front and that's game over.

It's not his fault the whole Championship 'race' is as dull as dishwater but that is the reality at the moment. It's just embarrassingly easy.

On 02/07/2023 at 18:01, The Last Post said:

In future goalkeepers must behave when a penalty is taken 🙄 a better idea would be for the penalty taker just shoot into an empty net 😁

https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/derby-county-goalkeepers-penalty-rule-8568887

I'd have less of a problem with this if they'd also stopped penalty takers fannying about and doing stupid stuttery run ups to try to get the keeper to commit. Just run up and take the thing in one single motion FFS. It's gamesmanship every bit as much as any goalkeeper shenanigans. Ban all of the dicking about or none of it.

Wow, just wow.. completely bonkers money and situation. Wonder what that'll do to already insane premier league fees and wages.

In fairness, I don't think even his harshest critics have accused him of being lazy.

12 minutes ago, sage said:

Really can't see it, really don't want it

Hasn't scored more than 7 in a season for in the last 7 seasons. 

It's all part of a cunning new tactic to offer no obvious goal threat from anybody so nobody can mark our lone goal threat out the game like they tried with Didzy. It's genius 😉

I can see what Warne is trying to do but as it stands I think we'll come up short again as I just don't think we'll score nearly enough goals. Even last year we suffered from failing to put games to bed and we look less this time out. I'm not sure where the spread of goals from the rest of the team is going to appear from either. The likes of Hourihane and NML will no doubt chip in but not sure about the rest. McGoldrick's goals were a huge boost but his all round craft and touch was a joy to watch at times. I just worry that we don;t have the craft and guile to unlock well organised defences. In contrast to McGoldrick, Collin's seemed to have trampoline shins and despite being quite a unit he always seemed to get outmuscled and doesn't hold the ball nearly as well, so I don't see the ball sticking up top.

A shame but pretty much inevitable ☹️ Always looked like it meant a lot to him to pull on the Rams shirt. A good lad who always gave his all for us. He gave us an extra year to see if we could bounce back but he's at a key stage of his career and a move is understandable. Good luck Jason and all the very best for the future, wherever you end up. I'm sure many of us will be following your career with interest.

I really don't have a problem at all with the idea of not relying on a 25 goal a season striker and wanting more goals from around the team because otherwise with a small squad you are heavily reliant on that goal scorer not getting injured. The problem is that we seem to have balanced one side of the equation with the departure of McGoldrick but we seem just as unlikely to score goals from around the rest of the team as last year.

I understand that there is plenty of time yet (and it is just my assessment of the situation) but it seems that we are either wholly reliant on departures to fund these forward options or we simply have not been able to land our preferred targets (possibly caveated by a 'yet') due to competition from other clubs.

From what relatively little I know about them I'm OK with what we've signed so far, but are we better off overall than last year ? Not yet IMHO. I just can't see where the goals are coming from and McGoldrick's quality and touch is going to be sorely missed I reckon. If we wanted someone to just run around a lot and put a good shift in then we'd just play Collins. There is surely a reason why we and Warne decided that probably isn't going to work this year. We really need some cutting edge as well as the huff and puff.

Well seem to have the full range of shirt-based emotions from having a private moment to projectile vomiting 😁

I like our home shirts to be fairly simple and I was a bit worried that it may be really flashy or gaudy but I actually rather like it. A few little details to add some interest but basically a fairly classic white shirt with a proper Ram badge on it, not some new gimmick badge set in a circle with a coat of arms or some nonsense.

The sponsor logo is quite large but since they have gone with black for the majority of the sponsor logo, I think it actually benefits from the small hints of subtle pastel colours, otherwise it might be a bit bland.

A solid 7.5/8 for me.

5 hours ago, Wolfie said:

Knees.

Although I have a sedentary desk job, I'm fairly active: Average 12k steps per day. Go to the gym 3 times a week and 10 mile bike rides in between, if the weather is fine.

I've always had one dodgy knee that lets me walk/cycle/crosstrain with no problem, but frequently and painfully gives way on me if I'm just shifting weight from one leg to the other (while cooking/washing up etc).

On a bike ride yesterday and my other knee started being painful when I was trying to put some power into that leg. It's not what I imagine an arthritis ache pain to be. More like my knee telling me "do that once more and I'm going to fall to bits". Painfully unstable is the best way I can describe it. I got home OK but had to make sure to use my other leg more for power.

Using it normally at home and it was fine again.

Ideas?

Hard to say for sure but it's possible that you have some cartilage issues. Your knee has two cartilage cups in it (sort of like washers) which act as a buffer between the bones of your upper and lower leg. I had a stumble on some uneven stairs in a castle a few years back and on top of hurting like hell, I then found that the knee felt really unstable, like it might fold back the wrong way when fully straightened. It was your comment about it being 'unstable' that got my attention.

To cut a long story short it happening again a couple of weeks later and I ended up going for x-ray and an MRI and apparently I had a tear in one of these cups (called a meniscus). This meant that the joint could sort of wander a bit and that's not great because it take it out of the range of expected movement and can damage other things. Sometimes it is a small tear that isn't a big issue most of the time except perhaps when you are performing an action that affects the area of the tear. I still get grief form it if I put my full weight on the knee at a particular angle of bend.

Apparently you can over time just wear these things down, not just from some big impact.

I certainly wouldn't say that I am concerned yet or 'twitching' but I do think that we have a lot to do to be competitive at the sharp end of the table still. We've bought some players in and people can debate their individual merits but these are (finally) Warne's picks so lets see how they go. We also lost a lot of players since the close of last season though so we haven't really taken any great strides forward, just replaced some of what we lost and are seriously lacking the goalscoring department, some thing that was a bit of an issue last year in spite of McGoldrick's ourstanding efforts.

So yes, plenty to do still. I'd be very disappointed if there were not quite a few more incoming. The 21s also need a major rebuild.

7 minutes ago, Mr Tibbs said:

If they took the ignorance and utter brainless approach out of Bazball it would be fine. You can be aggressive without taking on a stupid amount of risk. I didn't think there was anything wrong with the way Crawley and Duckett built our innings with a run rate of 5. What came after was kamikaze. 

The best teams have to be adaptable regardless of how they want to play and what we've seen has been far from that. We were in such a good position, Aussie bowlers not looking threatening and then we turned it into one-dimensional cack. For how bad Sibley, Burns and co. were they didn't get spanked at home in an Ashes series - something which is now on the cards. 

However positively you play it, Test Match Cricket has always had an element of knowing when to put the hammer down and when to slowly grind the fight out of the opposition. It was a great start, positive, but not suicidal and we just needed more of the same to be right in it but they totally folded.

It's not helped by the fact that several players seem to be well below par and you know that you can't be anything but your best against the Aussies. This is set for a crushing defeat. Aussies have a 200 lead with 9 wickets in hand. They can pretty much pick their declaration target and I imagine that it'll look like batting on a minefield by time time England get out there again.

Really, really disappointing stuff.

That was a great day out. Still surprised that stand survived though !

I wouldn't go spending your winnings in advance on our account 😉

2 minutes ago, SK47 said:

Looking forward to seeing him take up their physio table all year, they have a crap season and then when we face them next year, we absolutely humiliate them.

 

But no hard feelings, obviously.

And it's a gamble for them for sure. He's one heavy tackle away from a long layoff and on his wages we just needed him gone. Having a fully fit and firing Bielik in this side would be a huge deal, but with current ownership we are choosing to cut our cloth according to our situation and the Bieliks of this world just don't fit into that plan. It's just too much resource tied up in one player who would just leave for nothing next summer anyway. This was always going to happen and it was just a case of when and where. So, good... one loose end tied up.

As for the message itself, well I'm not sure what some fans expect him to say. If he says nothing then he looks like an ungrateful arse and if he is too gushing and badge kissy then he just looks insincere. I think he's ticked the 'respectful enough' box and there we go, job done. No problem, both parties move on.

1 hour ago, Tamworthram said:

OK, so the relationship didn’t work out as well as you’d hoped. You feel let down, possibly even betrayed. The other person in the relationship didn’t show the same commitment as you did but they’ve tried to end it with an element of good grace and now moved onto a new partner. Isn’t it time to stop being quite so bitter and in the words of Elsa - let it go? 😀

Nah, exactly. We often have unrealistic expectations of loyalty as fans because the club is something fundamental in our psyche. It's no great surprise that he doesn't exactly bleed black and white though is it ? He is a modern footballer from another country who played for DCFC for a bit and has now moved on because he had a more attractive offer and his National Manager has strongly hinted that he wanted to see him play at a higher level than the 3rd tier in England. 

He's been ravaged by injury and despite that has been given a 3 year contract by a club in a higher division so obviously he is going to take that. Good luck to him. No hard feelings or much in the way of feelings either way really. We'll always have the 96th minute..

31 minutes ago, Srg said:

Still baffling they're allowed to sign players. I secretly hoped we might be in for Knibbs.

Its is almost certainly just my ignorance but I really don't understand the rules and precedents with this stuff. Signing a manager and players while copping for points deductions and teetering on the brink of a major financial default that may end up with organisations taking a huge hit on defaulted debt. After everything that we experienced and the level of interference, how is that OK ? I presume the argument is that the EFL is not doing anything because Reading are not in administration yet. This just seems like they are walking to court to accept bankruptcy while handing out i.o.u's for a slap up meal at Greggs and a nice new pair of designer shades and some swanky trainers.

1 hour ago, Tamworthram said:

There are, of course some poor teams in this division but I really don’t think it should be “automatics or else” for PW. Do you not think it’s reasonable to consider Barnsley and Bolton as serious contenders? There will be other teams that are also expecting an improvement on last year (Portsmouth?) as well as a potential surprise package or two.

For me it has to be: automatics is the target (as it should be for half at least dozen other teams) and reaching the playoffs is minimum expectation. The consequences of achieving anything less is of course dependent on circumstances. If we finish 7th on goal difference having lost some key players due to injury then we dust ourselves down and start again. If we finish in the bottom half of the table with no mitigating circumstances then DC may have a serious decision to make.
 

Completely agree with this. After a 7th place finish last year and less restrictions this time out, I think it is perfectly reasonable to expect us to build a team that can achieve playoffs as a minimum goal, but I just don't think you can insist on top 2 as a minimum requirement or it is a 'failure'. Sheffield Wednesday didn't get into automatic places but I bet they don't give a rats ass right now. By any reckoning, a Top 2 finish is going to need a relentless run of point gathering. Wednesday lost just 6 games from 46 and still missed out on automatics. Even a slightly sluggish start with a largely new team that is still getting to know each others game would leave you needing a special season.

I'm afraid that there is zero chance of anything even remotely like the numbers that you are quoting/wishing for B4.

Can he play at a higher level ? yes. Are multiple clubs chasing his signature ? Possibly, but that will just add a few hundred thousand to the price, not 10 million. Fundamentally, at the moment he is just a good hard working league 1 midfielder in the last year of his contract. There is a natural limit to what teams will pay in that situation and the fees being offered are not far of the mark.

We may not be desperate to sell these days but we DO need to get money for him if he moves on. We just can't let his contract run down and see him walk away. If Warne wants him and has a role and he's prepared to sign then fine but otherwise we have to secure what people are prepared to pay, and the rumoured offers that we are seeing are reflecting that value.

Like any commodity where the buyer has a choice as to whether to buy or not, it is worth what people are prepared to pay for it, and teams are just not prepared to shell out that much for a player like Knight in his current contractual situation.

1 minute ago, S8TY said:

anyone got any more rumours? I wonder who the attacking players are we’re interested in? I suspect this is where the money will be spent fees wise as we look very light up top especially with Didzy gone 

Maybe we're waiting to see what happens (or not) with Bielik and Knight and what potential fees we might get as that'll presumably have a big bearing on what route we go down. We have to do something, clearly, and lots of teams are on the hunt for reliable goal scorers. 

Hopefully Warne hasn't convinced himself that with a few more crosses than last year that Collins will become a goal machine !

37 minutes ago, JakeDCFC said:

really think we can start the first 10 with 7+ wins and from there hopefully ride the momentum as we get better and better

It would be really nice for once to get off to a flyer and be the pace-setters ! So often we seem to be playing catchup and we need a burst of title winning form to get back in the mix.

26 minutes ago, Gee SCREAMER !! said:

https://londonroad.net/Forum/

derby are splashing the cash.

They also seem to be under the impression that we have an ancient squad. Someone's not been paying attention have they.. "a squad that has an average age of about 94".. apparently.