Ravabeerbelly

There's unfair and there's unethical. Jettisoning academy players because of the circumstances we face would fall squarely into the latter, it's a non-starter.

How would that look to the families of young players entering our academy at X years old? How would it look to prospective signings, or just our reputation in general? 
Would be an utterly ridiculous and irresponsible thing to do. Those players stepped up admirably in an almost impossible situation through no fault of their own. It isn’t their fault, it isn’t even Derby’s fault. Something like this is fairly understandably not in the rule books because it’s relatively unprecedented but luckily it seems like common sense is taking hold. 

I think you may find players contracts may be a little more water tight than that not to mention the ethics and reputation of the club going forwards if it is to continue in the future to be a club players want to join…..and players afterall will determine the clubs future. 
 
You should also consider one or two other things…..
To terminate a contract both parties need to agree to it and in this climate most players / agents / lawyers will push for the maximum possible financial returns. This will include wages obviously but also, loss of income from potential bonuses, damage to career based on loss of appearances as well as accommodation and relocation costs.
For arguments sake even if you assume a player to be earning £1000 a week terminating a contract of a player of this standing with a year to run will be looking at £52k wages plus in the region of £50k rent for his accommodation allowance and all potential bonuses. 
If you want to offload three players of this standing that’s in the region of £400-600k. Now consider that you want to replace them with three senior players….those players are likely to command 3 maybe 4 times the wages that the three you’ve just let go….let’s say £6-8k a week is £1.2 million in wages alone!!!
Now….let’s suppose the staff look at the playing staff and (simply on the back of Sunday) say, well Liam Thompson can do what Max Bird does….Isaac Hutchinson can do what Louie Sibley does…..Kornell McDonald can do what Byrne can do…..
Now what do you do? Tear up the contracts of those three players to the tune of £600k or do you look to sell Byrne, Sibley and Bird and make £8-12 million profit?
Ive said it before….in times like this you don’t lose the players who are in a fans eyes surplus you lose the ones that other clubs have their eyes on in a fire sale…

Maybe most people who went felt they were medically exempt, which would mean no one was flouting the rules at all? Remember medically exempt can be anything physical or psychological.
Personally I class myself as exempt on the basis of it causing me distress wearing something over my nose and face preventing me from breathing clean air with no evidence to suggest it’s beneficial. 
What was impressive was the amount of hand sanitiser stations dotted around which is as far as I can gather the far more beneficial procedure for stemming the spread of a virus but one that seemed to be forgotten in favour of the visual statement that masks make. 
As far as I’m concerned masks are the equivalent of a babies dummy, in being a false pacifier and share the same weening off problems!
Anyway, just my opinion, back to the game!

That's me knackered then. Was at Trent Bridge on Friday for England 20 20 game sure was close to a sell out - didn't see many gaps at all in the crowd.
What have I gambled on? Have already turned off my track and trace app. 

Maybe most people who went felt they were medically exempt, which would mean no one was flouting the rules at all? Remember medically exempt can be anything physical or psychological.
Personally I class myself as exempt on the basis of it causing me distress wearing something over my nose and face preventing me from breathing clean air with no evidence to suggest it’s beneficial. 
What was impressive was the amount of hand sanitiser stations dotted around which is as far as I can gather the far more beneficial procedure for stemming the spread of a virus but one that seemed to be forgotten in favour of the visual statement that masks make. 
As far as I’m concerned masks are the equivalent of a babies dummy, in being a false pacifier and share the same weening off problems!
Anyway, just my opinion, back to the game!

Maybe most people who went felt they were medically exempt, which would mean no one was flouting the rules at all? Remember medically exempt can be anything physical or psychological.
Personally I class myself as exempt on the basis of it causing me distress wearing something over my nose and face preventing me from breathing clean air with no evidence to suggest it’s beneficial. 
What was impressive was the amount of hand sanitiser stations dotted around which is as far as I can gather the far more beneficial procedure for stemming the spread of a virus but one that seemed to be forgotten in favour of the visual statement that masks make. 
As far as I’m concerned masks are the equivalent of a babies dummy, in being a false pacifier and share the same weening off problems!
Anyway, just my opinion, back to the game!

The problem with that is that that game brought in approx £100,000 in prize money and TV money that we wouldn’t have received had we pulled out. I don’t know just how important that sum of money was / is but at the time players weren’t being paid Decembers wages……

We have a coronavirus thread in the Jim Smith Room. Please keep discussion regarding that there and this about football. 

The problem with that is that that game brought in approx £100,000 in prize money and TV money that we wouldn’t have received had we pulled out. I don’t know just how important that sum of money was / is but at the time players weren’t being paid Decembers wages……

It was just a joke mate….id be shocked if he did.

Clearly WR reads this ??

I only suggested it was odd, for a variety of different reasons.
Taylor Crossdale is nothing like JHI. He’s older than when JHI joined for a start. He’s a ‘99 born and therefore the same age as Cam Cresswell who was 23s top scorer and been here since he was 8(?) and was released at the end of last season. Taking Taylor-Crossdale on trial for the same group, who plays in the same position makes no sense. Add that to the fact he’s had recent trials at two Cat 2 academies and not been taken, using your logic for Hutchinson, means he must struggle at Cat 1? His last recorded goals were u18s three seasons ago! He’ll be 22 before xmas.
Duncan, I never felt is close to first team and have stated several times he needs games and goals for the 23s this season to stake a claim. It was odd, IMO, to have included him with 1st team the first week back and then to send him back to the 23s a few days later. Not sure how that makes a player feel?
Hutchinson, whichever way you want to slice it has a lot of first team experience in the EFL for his age. He’d racked up 40 games (30 league games in league 1) while still a teenager, shortly before we took him having lost half a season through Covid and another 12 in league 2. That’s over 50 first team games in since he was 18 despite losing half a season to Covid and half a season with our 23s. Add to that another 23 as an unused sub (transfer market). Impact player or squad player, that’s a substantial amount of first team experience - even if only around the squad all week training - for a young player to have, which makes it odd to me that at 21 (same year group as Cresswell) and with a threadbare squad that we aren’t at least seeing him at training?
Im not suggesting for a second that he’s a first team player or would make match day squads but at a time when we are ‘looking at’ so many young players from the 23s it’s odd that he’s not one of them.

As for the struggling on loan, that doesn’t wash with me or tell me too much without knowing the nuances of the situation. Judging a young technically based player on his success in league 2 is, as the saying goes, akin to judging a fish on its ability to climb a tree! 

We have a number of young players currently training with the first team, none of which have had a loan spell or experienced adults football other than the Chorely game which highlighted just how difficult that can be and they were two leagues below league 2!
Of McDonald, Ebosele, Watson, JBrown and Stretton, only Stretton has experienced any loan time, sadly cut short by injury but even despite scoring 2 goals he only averaged 30 mins a game and only started once? That’s not to criticise him at all, he has a big future and I’m a huge fan, but that was in the Conference and at his age they only really saw him as an impact player which is understandable, by the same age Hutchinson had made 30 league 1 appearances. 
Of the others, there’s a number of reasons why the others haven’t been on loan….Watson could be argued that he was a regular on the bench and so was needed to stay here, but if he was to be dropped into league 2 right now he’d be lost without trace. Physically he’d be eaten alive and his technical attributes would be wasted as he watches the ball getting smashed around 40 feet in the air for 90 mins!
Festy much the same (and also had injuries of course) but size wise he’d find lower leagues a struggle especially if played as a defender.
I really like Jordan Brown but he’s 20 and not played any real adults football. He should probably experience a loan this season. The problem I’d imagine will be finding a club that could assure reasonable game time for an untried academy player. 
Of the others, Solomon, Cashin, Bardell, Williams, Dixon, Wilson, Duncan and Plange all of them currently training with the first team (except Duncan now), I don’t see any of them being capable of going into league 1 or 2 and being able to get many minutes, let alone establish themselves with regular football. It’s brutal! 
 Like I say, I just find those three players current situation odd. That’s not me saying they should or any of them should be a first team player at all.
Sorry to waffle….I hope that’s not seen as argumentative….I enjoy your posts and knowledge of the 23s and 18s is fantastic and insightful, I’m just saying what I see given the current situation and player shortage….I’d be taking a look at as many options as possible. 

I agree and if Bobby Duncan is as good as his publicity, he will soon be bossing the under 23 games and pushing for a call to join the first team squad.
Credit to the young man for working hard to get fully fit over the close season. If that is all that was holding him back we will soon find out.

No ones giving the kid a hard time. But SOME are rightly pointing out that that this lad came in on a three year deal and SOME people got way ahead of themselves in thinking he was going to come in and score goals in the championship.
Hes 20 years old and not played a single minute of EFL football. We have players similar age who have over 2000 minutes under their belts who are thought to not be close to first team football!
The fact of the matter is, he has barely broken into our U23s. He’s yet to score a goal for Derby County at any level and at the moment he’d be behind Stretton who not only scored goals for 23s, went out and tested himself in men’s football in the conference and scored goals there too. 
If anyone wants to give Bobby a break I’d suggest stop making wild claims about how he could break into the first team based on the fact he’s doing as much if not less than 90% of other young footballers in the summer, in trying to go back in tip top shape by training ahead of the return.
 

You’d be naive to think he was the only player in his off season doing extra sessions.
Most players I know turn up for pre season fitter than they ended the previous one!
I have seen some sessions of real intensity that would put these promos to shame….
Being the only one filming it doesn’t by any means he’s the only one putting in the extras 

Genuine observation, that most if not all have completely ignored Isaac Hutchinson coming back off loan.
It doesn’t look like his loan was particularly successful in terms of minutes played (maybe picked up some niggling injuries that disrupted his time there) but I’m sure being around a successful side and a first team environment was beneficial and he impressed more than most in the Chorely game.
He now has 50 EFL appearances under his belt….mainly in league 1 and at 21 he should be pushing surely? If we do go down he could be out most experienced player for that division ?

More like just forgotten. Preseason training will tell where he's at I suppose.

In a cracked cup, an' all

Oh, we never had a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper

The best we could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth

But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.
Not as poor as DCFC though.

Was he? I wasn’t under the impression that anyone had suggested he was supposedly the most talented player on the pitch! Arguably there were several who could’ve laid claim to that as well as Bobby. In my eyes he was just another young player as far as I could see.
No he wasn’t. He was a young player put into an incredibly difficult position with very little preparation and severely lacking game time leading up to that game. No one was absolutely hopeless - some were better than others and some were certainly more prepared than others - but no one was hopeless. He then had a very difficult role being a lone front man feeding off very little service in a game dominated by Chorleys physicality. 
None of us have any proof whatsoever of a supposedly bad attitude only rumour and supposition based off social media!!
Let him start the season on a level playing field and judge on what he does with his boots on. Good or bad.

With a cup of cold tea….
with no milk..
or sugar….
or Tea!

In and amongst all the chatter about prospective first team performance perhaps we ought to spare a thought for those under 23s that aren't having their contracts renewed.  Whenever I've watched them play a feature of the 23s has been their commitment to themselves, the club and their teammates. It's a tough world the football game and being very publicly told that 'you're not good enough' at the age of 20 odd must be very hard, especially at a time when hundreds of others are being told the same thing, when all you've dreamt of being is a footballer. This retained list is the public affirmation of something they've probably known for a while.  I guess it can't be easy for Darren Wassall (particularly given the decision about Ethan) and his team either.
It also adds to the feeling that having an artificial age limit makes it even more ruthless.  Why 23?  Some may not develop as people and footballers until they're 25.  At least with the old reserve team football you could allow someone to 'make it' that little bit later

I go to football matches for a form of entertainment and a release from everyday concerns - I do not go to be leactured about other people’s opinions on life and how to live whatever they are. I have never booed at a football match and I never will but I would not be turning up to a football match if clubs, footballers, politicians or organisations try to repeatedly tell me what my opinion is.

I get that mate. As a white fella I really find it hard to give an an informed  opinion, as I've never walked in your shoes, so I'll go with taking on board what you and the players are saying. I certainly wouldnt boo. 
CKR has done an interview in the athletic last week, his opinion is the symbol of - 'taking the knee' he feels is derogatory in itself and suggests a submissive meaning. Says he's told all lads of colour at the club this too and why he does the black power salute. And why the team now don't take the knee but stand together. 
Opinions.... 

Wasn't step 4 of the roadmap the lifting of ALL remaining restrictions?
If people want to continue wearing masks, fine.
If people want to continue to socially distance, fine.
Time to let everyone else get on with their lives though.
Not sure what difference an extra 2 weeks will make, other than boosting the number of vaccinations in the age groups of people that dont particularly need them anyway.