kevinhectoring

1 hour ago, Loughborough Ram said:

I think he does some things well but he doesn't offer the team a consistent contribution in any other position than left wing back in my opinion.

And I know we'll get the argument that he's never been given a run of games in any position, but it's a chicken and egg situation. He needs to grab the opportunities he has been given and make himself undroppable, and I'd argue that the only time he's done that is when he plays at left wing back.

I know. I think the question of whether and how to use Sibley - if at all - is one of the hardest conundrums facing our manager. End of last season his starts ultimately proved a mistake (but I think playing close to Didzy is probably hard unless telepathy is your thing).
 

Tbh Warne has used him more frequently than I thought he would, I was thinking he might be sold cheaply in Jan. There are players who read a game and find their best was to impose themselves.  I don’t think he does that well at all so he’s often underwhelming esp when in midfield 

4 hours ago, Comrade 86 said:

Only a suggested as a starter by two posters yesterday. You weren't either of them. Of those who did pick him in their suggested line ups before the game, at least one of them (yours truly), did so only because Nyambe is injured.

Two questions; do you suppose that Nyambe's form might also have had something to do with Joe's limited starts? And in regards to your 'we've paid the price' comment, what is this 'price/ you claim we've paid?

Don’t blame you for not reading my posts ( I should thank you for not having me on ignore.) But if you’d seen my posts you’d see I’ve been saying for ages Ward should be used more (including after the two dropped bollicks). Most recent was a recent reply to ghostofclough who was saying the same thing in the Charlton match day thread.  
 

I like Nyambe and yes team selection is difficult because we’ve got a good squad now.  But that’s exacerbated by the flip flop approach to formation which imo is difficult for the players.
 

The price we’ve paid is that we’re not going into the last stretch with an established set up and the ability to play consistently good football. And possibly we’ve paid in points as well but who knows. 
 

I fear team selection rests too much on issues of personality and not enough on good analysis of football- based criteria. Indeed Warne has in the past boasted that his recruitment follows the same approach 
 

1 hour ago, Crewton said:

Naughty step?? A freak injury kept him out for a long time and since he recovered from that, he's been left out of precisely 3 matchday squads, the last two due to a groin injury. When he did get back in the team, his performances were patchy. Two clumsy challenges that gave away costly (and harsh imv) penalties got the crowd on his back at PP and on here. He's made 12 appearances in the 20 games he's been available for selection since that nasty heel injury, but it's only in his last couple of starts that he really seems to have got up to speed again. It's a welcome development which doesn't warrant the thinly-veiled criticism of Warne on a premise that you appear to have imagined.

there was nothing veiled about my criticism of Warne. IMO, if we want to watch decent effective football, Ward should be in or close to the starting XI.  And his defensive frailties need not be exposed if he is given the right role, especially now we have Adams. Been saying it for many weeks. 

11 minutes ago, kash_a_ram_a_ding_dong said:

For giving away two needless penalties in 2 games...

He's redeemed himself and we remain in 2nd place..

Great to have him back

Paul Warne  £5 please 

3 hours ago, Loughborough Ram said:

I think that he's the best left wing back at the club. I don't think that he's in the top two in any other position. 

In front of goal he’s got poise and killer instinct   

3 hours ago, DavesaRam said:

 

Today could be the making of Joe Ward as a Derby County player.

 

You only need to look at the guy on the ball to see his quality, and that’s not new. But he’s been on the naughty step and we’ve paid the price 

I think there are better ways to make the fans believe their voices are heard. 
 

On a related point, it’d be interesting if DC were to devise a scheme for transfer of 49% of the club to supporters who want to invest. Would be complicated but now’s the time to do it (rather than when the club is in crisis)

On 29/02/2024 at 08:13, Sparkle said:

remember he has 3 promotions from this league so it must have been just as poor on a least 3 occasions before.

For various reasons I think Warne is more likely to get 100% buy in and effort from a Rotherham dressing room than from ours   

On 28/02/2024 at 16:27, Ellafella said:

Don’t forget, to quote Warney, “there’s very little difference between the sides in this division “. 

Having described our bench 6 games ago as the strongest the division has seen in its history 

On 29/02/2024 at 15:04, sage said:

Their manager used tactics

 

Cheating 

On 29/02/2024 at 11:11, duncanjwitham said:

Best I could tell, we started in a back 4, went to a back 3 when Sibley came on (at left wingback), then went back to a 4 when CBT came on (Sibley went into midfield and Cashin went back to left back).

Drawing pretty pictures on an overhead projector is one thing. It’s quite another to ask players frequently to adjust to different roles in different systems whilst there are players coming on and off, the oppo is throwing everything at you and you’re  knackered. We’re good enough to win most of the time in this hapless div by playing the system that most suits us and one the players are accustomed to 

Was surprised to hear Warne say in his post match interview that it wasn’t a tactical game in any sense. I thought all games had a tactical element 

23 hours ago, Ghost of Clough said:

We have Ward amd Fornah who are seemingly being frozen out of the squad. Thompson impressed in pre-season but was reluctantly put into midfield at the start of the season "because there wasn't anyone else", and appears to be back in the same situation now. Sibley still needs to make an impact in back to back games to stay in the team, and now isn't even fancied at LB over a CB. Barkhuizen likewise- only 1 start all month, despite scoring 4 and assisting 3 in 8 ganes when given a consistent run of starts in December and January.

Exactly. NML being run into the ground and no sign of Barks or Ward. It’s not intelligent selection   And yes, we probably get best value out of Sibley at LB. 

30 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

You've forgotten how decent he looked there last season, involved in our long unbeaten run? I would have had to say what a good choice it would have been, but I didn't need to! 😄

NML gets knackered and loses his touch and control if he’s overplayed. Which he has been. He should be coming off at 70 mins regularly. Next thing is he’ll get injured. Just as happened to Fozzy when he was required to do teenage sprints up and down the left touchline week in week out. 
I think Warne, as a trim little fellow who keeps himself in annoyingly good shape, has no idea what impact old FatherTime has on the soft tissues of normal sized men

3 hours ago, Curtains said:

Does Wildsmith even care ! 
 
Didn’t look upset at all .

Drop him and put anyone in goal other than him 

He’s our best keeper when at his best.  but his head is in completely the wrong place.  He clearly won’t be with us much longer  

We have a habit of losing our best players 

15 hours ago, Tamworthram said:

Failure” is a powerful word. If we don’t get promoted then PW will have “failed” against his personal hopes and expectations, so he’d obviously be disappointed, but he may not have “failed” against his chairman’s medium term expectations or the expectations laid out to him upon appointment.

In assessing the manager there is one question and only one: is he getting the players at his disposal performing to their potential ?
A different question is: if he doesn’t, will the chairman sack him ? 
 

I don’t think he gets the best out of this team. And I don’t think he’ll be sacked any time soon 

2 hours ago, Ghost of Clough said:

There was nothing to stop other clubs adopting the same approach, so it was as if it was an 'unlevel playing field'. In fact, further down the line it would have put us at a disadvantage before evening out.

Every other club adopted the same approach tho’. And given the mess we got ourselves into, only a lunatic club would now change its policy. So the effect of the ‘policy’ decision was likely to ensure a common approach going forward. (I know that by its terms the LAP decision allows different approaches, but the effect of the decision and surrounding circumstances is to discourage anyone from changing)

2 hours ago, Ghost of Clough said:

The club could have called upon 'The big 4', but the audit file had been reviewed by the ICAEW and approved as compliant. The IDC also stated "[evidence] was consistent with the Club having been able to determine the pattern of its consumption of future economic benefits from its ownership of player registrations ‘reliably’"

You’ll know better than I do, but I’m thinking ICAEW review certainly does not constitute their sign off on every technical point that underpins an audit. Or indeed on any technical point … 
I like ‘having been able to determine’.  The IDC knows that on appeal, evidence is not reconsidered so comments like that are included to reduce the likelihood their judgement is successfully appealed. (No one likes being overturned.) Did we put forward evidence we had in fact carried out the determination in a consistent manner? 

2 hours ago, Ghost of Clough said:

You also must have misremembered that about our expert witness. "The Club did not serve a report from or call evidence from an expert accountant... It took the decision not to call any such expert evidence having seen the factual evidence served by the EFL". When the EFL wanted to submit a late report, the Club weere given another option to call upon a witness.

‘also’ !

It’s true I may have misremembered. But make no mistake, our legal team are the only people who know why we called no expert. If our expert was wobbling, for example , we would hardly put that forward as a reason for not calling him 

41 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

I was meaning I don't think the club benefited from the cash following the sale, think it merely covered cash MM had previously injected into the club.

The stadium was let at an undervalue for a start. And I’d think that at the very least the ongoing stadium rental payable by the club would have been set off against the deferred purchase price.

If you look at 202’s balance sheet before the sale to DC the payable to the club will indicate how much of the £82 m was actually paid over.  

25 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

The gave a range of £77.4-89.5m (£83.45m mid range). The IDC had the power to go with this figure ratehr than the one stated in our accounts, but felt that it was fair to stick with our recorded figure as it sat within the acceptable range.

The EFL's 'expert' not only based the value agaisnt Morecambe's ground, but also stated we would only need a 28k seater replacement as that's what our recent average was (20% less than actual capacity)

 

Refering back to the amortisation charge:
1. The IDC dismissed all particulars, excluding the failure to adequately disclose the change in policy. Importantly, the IDC dismissed the 'experts' evidence.

2. The LAP (appeal) felt the opinion of the EFL's expert should have been taken more seriously - he felt the policy wasn't FRS102 compliant, esentially becuase we couldn't reliably estimate values. Despite the IDC panel containing Chartered accountants, their own opinion shouldn't have been used in favour of the non-practicing 'expert'. The club failed to provide their own expert, but if they had, his opinions would have been enough to change the outcome of the LAP's verdict.

Prof Pope felt "no serious acccountant would deem is to be an acceptable amortisation approach based on the consumption of economic benefits". This is at odds with all of the Chartered Accountants involved in the case - the club, auditors, IDC, etc...

The LAP themselves pointed out "there is no accountant on our panel (ii) we are differing from a DC which included and was required to include an accountant member" and "However, the DC was faced with expert evidence from a distinguished academic accountant, and this was the only expert evidence which was led before them". Hence, why the LAP felt the evidence of the academic 'expert' should have stood.

The example given by the club suggested a straight amortisation to the start of the final year, then the remaining value amortised to zero. What some people with a lack of attention to the real details assumed (and I imagine this is what @Leeds Ram's BiL also assumed) was that a non-linear amortisation approach was used (ie values made up each year to suit our P&S budget). It was also not possible to uplift values (as a large number of people believed). Impairment could still be used (to drop the book value to a fairer value if deemed approriate) which is used in common amortisationn policies anyway.

3. The 2nd IDC (which contained Chartered Accountants) couldn't argue agaisnt the LAP's findings. The decision was to task the club with creating a new policy which could be proven to be reliable - this didn't have to be drastically different from the one we had been using.

4. The club then went into administration. The administrators didn't have the time or funds to argue the case of a new policy so accepted the EFL's charges.

It was a ‘policy’ decision. And probably one that overall reflected the thrust of the EFL rules. No doubt the LAP members concerned will have continued doing lucrative work in cases involving EFL 
 

Part of the problem was we claimed there was not a single document that we could produce which related to our estimation of player values. This led the LAP to believe we were engaged in manipulation of the numbers (regardless of the straight line approach you mention). The other big problem was the issue raised by MacGuire that kicked the whole thing off, namely that the rules are aimed at creating a level playing field for 72 clubs and that all except us used the same approach. We should have seen the risk and we certainly should have taken a ‘big 4’ technical opinion before stealthily adopting the policy. The problem is, a supporting big 4 opinion would probably have required a rigorous approach to player valuation. 

These are precisely the sorts of points on which a strong CEO would have challenged MM. 

(It seems very odd we didn’t put forward our own expert and it’d be interesting to know what lay behind that. I half recall we had one lined up and pulled him at the last minute. That’s not a good look)

1 hour ago, YorkshireRam said:

Meanwhile trust can't even be started being rebuilt because he can't or won't do anything to alleviate the inherently logical mistrust hanging over him... That's how I see it. 

I think it’s a bit weird that he’s still around.
 

Word has it he was remorseful when Q was appointed, feeling he should have ‘stood up’ to MM (as his duties required). He then worked his balls off to help Q and this - as well has his expertise - would have been readily apparent to DC as the sale negotiations were ongoing. I’d also assume he was not going to be employed by any other club on the planet after the debacle, so the detailed terms of his ongoing role would have been largely dictated by DC and his team. Perhaps the initial intention was to keep him short term, and it then seemed to make sense for him to stay…? 

But given the intent to ‘reset’ the culture and business of the club, and for that to be seen to be the case … yeah it’s pretty weird he’s still around. 

47 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

From the findings of the IDC it was valued even higher than that but the EFL asked us to reduce the valuation, which we duly did only to then be charged with using the EFLs recommended valuation.

Are these really findings of the IDC   ?

8 hours ago, Caerphilly Ram said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0hdf286?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

Pre-match presser with the bbc above, my main takeaways from it;

- Gayle deal was delayed by the EFL scrutinising the deal due to our recent situation.

- Gayle has trained since Monday and is fit to play on Sat but he did downplay his readiness a little bit, maybe fit to start, maybe fit for 60 mins. 

- CBT back in training with the team, Warne said he seems to be over his injury but needs more time in training to be up to speed (I assume with how the team plays).

- Waghorn back in training with the team, Saturday might be too soon for him to play. 

- Fozzy is back on the grass but 2 weeks away from being involved with the squad 

- Washington struggling with a knee injury. Warne mentioned the summer so it’s seemingly the injury he had before joining us rather than linked to the ankle injury done on international duty.

- Warne said if you asked Collins he’d say he’s fit to play on Saturday but the medical team say he’s not.

- Vickers back soon. 

You forgot the hilarious comments about tea, bobble hats Etc

’you’re only as good as your keeper and your no 9’ was an interesting one. Revealing -  we have lost too many times this season and last to strong midfields …  

1 hour ago, ram59 said:

The trouble is, that system is also flawed. That great team under SM1 played great football sweeping all before them, or so we'd like to remember. What actually happened, was that we'd come up against a manager who set his team up to play against us and would snuff out our attacking force and SM1 didn't have a plan B. Although we won a majority of our games, it wasn't enough to beat the 2 teams who finished above us.

But this time we’re in div1. I’d hope that these players playing consistently well will indeed sweep all before them. Granted, we need Adams to stay fit … 

Want to see us playing our preferred  system regardless of what we think the oppo will do. Give players the same job to do game after game and most will do much better than when they get new instructions each week. We’ve got a strong enough squad to play our own way. 3 at the back please and make it decent to watch . Give Ward and Wilson a start. Give Bradley the chance to keep improving. If Sibley is to be our super sub, give him time enough

play it fast and short with lots of movement. nil something. 

3 hours ago, Mucker1884 said:

herefore, Bolton can outdo us, regardless of how we do... which equates to it being not in our own hands just yet.

It’s in our hands if we make top 6