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Ambitious

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Everything posted by Ambitious

  1. I expected their wages to be north of £160m, so not at all surprised it’s thereabouts. It’s considerably more than a lot of teams in a similar boat in the Premier League, though (Brighton: £110m for ref) and the liabilities (both player performance and financial) are massive. The fact they’re so heavily indebted to other clubs and financing instalments on player sales at relative high interest have to be huge concerns - that’s not even me taking the piss. Relegation, along with the Greek losing interest, doing a Mel, they would die because of the huge payments classed as football debt. Relegation would ultimately lead to heavy point deductions in the Championship regardless of the Greek’s penchant to fund an unsustainable business. It’s a dangerous game. It’s a top 10 wage bill, more than the likes of West Ham, etc
  2. Any one know of any players north of the border, untapped resource I’ve heard…
  3. I noticed Keilen Robinson started for the England U19s yesterday - usually League One sides would be clamouring for England U19 players on loan, yet this kid has barely been mentioned. I didn't even realise we had anyone in the Eng U19 set up.
  4. Peterborough in second with 89 points. Derby in third with 88 points and Bolton in fourth with 87 points. Derby knocked out in the playoff semi finals to eventual winners Lincoln City.
  5. Davis was playing against Torres, Anelka, Rooney, etc. Bradley is playing against Sam Hoskins, Ethan Chislett, Kane Hemings, etc. It’s fair to say that Bradley hasn’t had as good of a career as ‘Clod’ who was just completely out of his depth, playing in a terrible team against elite strikers most weeks.
  6. Clowes actually seems to acknowledge this is a loss-making industry, otherwise his best chance to make Derby sustainable would be to scrap the academy all together and continue signing players in free agency for the foreseeable. We know our first team staff cost £7.4m in 22/23, but overall wages were £17m. I believe has been increased to between £9-10m for first team costs so will be roughly running, as a club, similar wages to Preston. Albeit, they aren’t footing the cost of a Category One academy. The fact Clowes is happy to fund the academy isn’t a vanity project, he seems to acknowledge that it’s a risk/reward investment and is happy to foot the cost. Investment in the first team works in the same way, if you get it right.
  7. Agreed, but it will still be competitive against the non-parachute clubs I would wager. We spend £17m as a club on wages now: Bristol City are at £26m, Cardiff City £22m, Blackburn £24m, Hull City £23m, Preston £20m, Middlesbrough £29m, Swansea £26m, QPR £22m, Stoke £28m.
  8. At the same time, I’m not employed by the club in a full time role to vet players before they’re signed on million pound deals. I have access to the website, look at a players CV and make a judgment. Up until this season, to my knowledge, I had never seen Bradley play a 90 minute game. I’d hope there was more to it than that for actual decision-makers of the club.
  9. This the sort of ‘right character’ Warne insisted we needed at the club. A marquee summer signing that’s struggled to hold down a place, been more detrimental than positive when he has played and is in all likelihood probably the highest paid defender in the league. A true leader knowing we’re down to our last three centre backs, in a huge promotion run-in, slaps his daft head on another player because of his own inadequacies. Any chance we can get out from under his contract his summer needs to be explored.
  10. There absolutely is and with Nelson and Cashin we have an opportunity to keep it nil in any game, at this level, but without NML we lose a lot going forward. CBT has an opportunity. I just hated what I saw from Derby yesterday, as I said in the matchday chat, the first 30mins was like a bad Sunday league game. Mansfield and Colchester were on Sky before our game started and it was night and day between what both Northampton and Derby produced. My problem under Warne is that there has never been any control to what we’re doing. It’s all forced, erratic football. He made the point that the championship is easier to manage in because it’s all coached, League One throws up different challenges. My opinion would be to at least try and offer some controlled possession to our play and not always play the percentages.
  11. If it was me, I’d try and get Dej back from his loan and start him in this game. He comes in with a bit of form, energy and excitement then it may rub off on others - god knows the other strikers available to us aren’t going to do that. Wildsmith Nelson Cashin Elder Ward Smith Adams Thompson Sibley Brown CBT
  12. Blackpool will come and pass us off the park, my only hope is that we can pack the defence, midfield and hope for a lucky 1-0 win. My expectation is that this will lead to a significant home loss that will turn 30,000 supporters into executioners.
  13. I was able to jump on the betfair exchange and lay (bet against) Derby getting promoted £133 returns £240 profit. I bet against Derby every game anyway, but I lost £80 on the Bolton game alone so this just seems like a more stable way of monetising my depression.
  14. I doubt we would, there’d be no reason to spend £6-8m on a category one academy if the plan was to short change the first team.
  15. He’s dropped off massively since the start of the season, think he’s come to terms with retirement at the end of the season but also lost his hunger for the game. He’s going through the motions. I can’t blame him, honestly I’d imagine 95% of players in the same boat would do the same, but Warne needs to leave him out for the good of the team.
  16. At least Davis was up against the likes of Anelka and Torres. Bradley is up against.. Sam Hoskins.
  17. Mendez-Laing potentially done for the season too? outstanding.
  18. I struggle to remember a time I’ve been so incensed by a performance or a result. I feel absolutely conned for finally allowing myself to believe in Derby County in their current form. I felt physically sick at the performance from the first 30 minutes that I just wanted to remove myself from watching the game. It was a disgusting display. A horrible game. I watched the Mansfield and Colchester game before hand and both of them were MILES ahead of what I had to endure in that first half. Warne fell upon a system with Gayle upfront and it all started to click, when you see the performance today it’s apparent that he knows what he wants to achieve but doesn’t have a plan on how to achieve it. Gayle was an easy solution at the time, I’m sure all things being well that he wouldn’t have signed him. Today really played out all my worst fears - I’m just glad that I was able to monetise us not winning promotion whilst we sat in our best situation. I have absolutely no faith in this team and less so in the manager to find a solution. I like him as a person, I even find his management and coaching not without merit, but why waste the best part of £10m on keeping an category one academy when you have such a short-sighted approach in the first team. It makes no sense to me. If we fail this season, there is absolutely not way he can remain as the Derby County manager for the next rebuild. Get him gone.
  19. 10 years, wow. One of my favourite games and one where you just saw a very highly capable team absolutely purring and putting in one of the best performances I’ve seen live.
  20. I've also seen they're missing almost every full-back at the club too, so will be down to playing back-up centre backs out of position. You would have to think that Warne & Co are aware, because this could be a perfect platform for CBT to come into the team and have an impact and a platform for the following 6 games. NML will be a problem for Northampton on Saturday - if you want a 'first goalscorer' bet.
  21. How do you force limited companies to share revenues with other limited companies? It's another voice at the table, ultimately a powerful one, but there is going to be a long-drawn out war before anything is decided. For what it's worth, I can see why we would want to upgrade the goalkeeper position ahead of next season. Wildsmith has been good for us, often very good, but Vickers is clearly the number two in mind and had the number one shirt prior to his injury. It's not uncommon for teams, especially after promotion to League One, to upgrade their goalkeeper. Ipswich did it last season, where Christian Walton was outstanding - 23 clean sheets, 35 goals conceded in 46 games.... he hasn't started a league game this season. Wildsmith was beyond excellent in our biggest game of the season, he deserves all the credit, but he's not been faultless this season.
  22. 'hear the fallout' - doesn't actually mean hear about a fall out.. it just means hear about the points raised/discussed from the fan forum lol.
  23. I understand that we were in for him at the same time as Bolton, in fairness it sounds like we were in the right ball park for players in January but couldn’t get them over the line. Lang has been a difference-maker for Portsmouth too.
  24. Yeah, Rowett will make sure Birmingham are safe. All said and done, he's a good manager - at the very least he can organise a side and make them compete as a unit. I'd like to see Stoke relegated anyway (providing we're promoted).
  25. I'd say a coincidence, but I'm just playing devil's advocate. As technically good of a player as Bird is, I do wonder how much he moves the needle (so to speak) in terms of our performances. In terms of impact on our team, performances, etc. If you offered me Bird to play in all seven remaining games, but it meant we had Adams in three of the remaining seven OR you said Bird wouldn't play in any of the remaining seven games but we could ensure the latter available then I'd 100% take the second option as I imagine 90% of supporters would.
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