Ambitious

I guess it frees up 4 positions, but with the stipulations around those 4 positions then I can't imagine it's going to be easy to decide. I would go for Jagielka, who has a more reliable injury history than Davies. Mengi on loan. Wisdom, who can cover CB and RB. The last position you would realistically want to go for a striker. 

I like Davies, but as a team with not much room to maneuver and limited cover, we simply can't go for a 36 year old who is coming off a season where he spent 90% of it in the treatment room when the maximum number of CBs we realistically have will be 2, with others that can cover. 

£25 a month would be good value for a competitive team, however as a side that could go into the history books as one of the worst to ever grace the second division then I think I’ll give it a miss.

8 hours ago, IslandExile said:

Do we start playing the kids at centre back in case we cannot register any of the old timers?

I think we have to at this point. The only thing worse than chucking two kids in at the deep end is chucking two kids in at the deep end who haven’t played much football together.

We’re a few weeks away from the season starting with about 5 sanctions over our head. It’s not going to get resolved, so we have to start facing facts. It’s probably best we don’t waste these lads who are looking for a new club’s time either. 

9 minutes ago, Tamworthram said:

The benefits of hindsight ?

Saw this on Twitter:

If Mel Morris had bought 5 million pounds worth of Bitcoin instead of Jacob Butterfield in 2016 we’d now have a transfer kitty of 220 million pounds for this season…

For a man who has racked a fortune of 100s of millions in the Cyber world, it would be interesting to see if he had any investments into Crypto!

Equally, I wonder what the P&S regulations would be if he was to buy crypto as Derby County? If we had bought £5m of crypto instead of Butterfield and as that investment seemingly increases year-on-year despite a lot of fluctuation then wouldn't we always be posting an additional profit? 

Not sure about the ins and outs, but something for consideration! 

Is there an embargo test and trace app? 

Can we not just delete the app and get on with our day! 

Am I right in thinking that we aren’t able to sign any of the trialist from this game because of the Chorley game from last year when we heavily subsided our first team with academy players? 

Rooney said after the game that we won’t be able to play a CB in the first game due to the embargo - frees and loans are beyond our reach, never mind transfer fees. 

It will be an interesting few weeks, but should we get to the Huddersfield without being able to field a CB then perhaps we should look (as a fan base) to get the game called off. We will be handed a loss, but could be our best chance to raise awareness and make our point that the EFL aren’t only hurting the investment of Mel Morris, but also the emotional investment for so many fans who will have to sit and watch an underprepared, underaged squad of young lads struggle as they try and make their way in the game. 

I doubt it will reap much, but it would garner attention of the national media. 

As we can’t buy anyone, I’d imagine it would be implausible that we actually sell anyone, if the embargo is lifted then that’s another story. 

2 minutes ago, SouthernRam said:

Years spent clearing out the dead wood only to pile it back on again later.

Aluko, 32. Baldock, 32. Stearman, 33. Davies, 36. Jagielka, 38.

I would say they’re all past it, but I’m not sure some of them ever even had it. We really need this takeover to go through ASAP.

I doubt we would be even entertaining them if a takeover was due. We’re literally scrambling around for bodies to put on the pitch. 

We can’t pay transfer fees, loan fees or even agent fees. This is very much where we are for at least this summer, most likely season, where we have a very real chance of being the worst team in the league. The players who are on the end of their careers who’re desperate to stick at this level is where we will be. I’d imagine there is very few Championship teams less appealing than ourselves to players. 

Fair play to him. He deserves to play in a side that can realistically win promotion next year. I’m not sure he will ever play for Brighton in the Premier League, but he’s a very good player at this level. 

yeah, I bet..

29 minutes ago, MK-Ram said:

If this is where we are going then you genuinely need to ask whether we should just play Cashin etc.  

Something needs to happen fast, but at the moment we have Bolton written all over us

Funny you should say Bolton. Jagielka asked to train with them: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/sport/american-football/update-on-phil-jagielka-bolton-rumours-as-veteran-defender-asks-to-train-with-wanderers/ar-AALzTdu 

Richard Stearman, who in his last game, was subbed off at half time because Huddersfield were 5-0 down. Phil Jagielka, certainly seems the better of the two, but he's not going to be playing every game any more. Good character to have, but we have that in Davies. 

Not exactly a problem position for us, considering the enormity of other problem positions. 

With or without a points deduction, we would do seriously well to stay up. We managed it by a point (and a number of goals) last year despite no points deduction and most certainly go into this season in a much worse and unprepared state. 

I guess it allows us to focus the mind, but we just need to make sure we're the 4th worst team in the league at the very worst. If we get a points deduction, depending on the severity, we may as well focus our attempts to disrupt the EFL as much as possible. 

10 minutes ago, hintonsboots said:

I think we need to submit our latest accounts before the embargo is lifted.

Also, I think we need to submit our accounts for the last two years that we haven't previously done to get out of ANY embargo at all. 

I know half the league are currently working under a 'soft embargo' due to utilising the governments schemes during COVID. It's all a bit of a mess. 

I would work on the premise that we're signing loan players and out of contract players ONLY at the moment to save disappointment. 

2 hours ago, Indy said:

I was going to ask the forum what people thought about this guys credibility. He says a lot of things that I’m liking - which is an obvious red flag!

When it comes to Derby that is the golden rule to live by, I've learnt. 

Just now, RoyMac5 said:

How do the DET know that?

I suspect they confirmed it with the club, amidst the confusion of our situation. 

Quote

Derby are still operating under a transfer embargo as part of their long-running dispute with the EFL. The Rams are able to sign players on a free transfer or on loan with the approval of the EFL as long as wages fall within the embargo-compliant limit. Clubs have to operate under a squad size, believed to be 23 established players which does not include Academy players under 21. Clubs under embargo are allowed to add to the squad where they have less than 23 established players.

In an update they mentioned the club are in talks with the EFL to find a resolution regarding the embargo and our inability to sign players. It's due to us not posting our accounts, nevermind the ones we have to repost. All a bit of a mess! 

1 hour ago, DarkFruitsRam7 said:

No chance.

The hard bits of the World Cup are just the Euros with Brazil, Argentina and a few other good teams chucked in.

I think it really does matter where the tournament is being held. Brazil won their first in Sweden in 1958, however haven't won a world cup in Europe since. The rest have been in America or lastly Japan. 

Incidentally, Brazil were the last non-European side to win a world cup in Europe. Equally, when the World Cup has been held in America then there has always been one South American team in the final. 

I think winning the world cup is much harder, whoever wins it in Qatar is going to have to really earn it - especially considering it will be mid-season. 

1 hour ago, RoyMac5 said:

How do you know that? The LAP report says during the 'soft embargo' we signed two players. So why not again?

I don't think we're under a soft embargo currently, at least from my understanding. The DET seemed to confirm we can only sign players out of contract or on loan through very specific terms. 

We need 10 players, really. 

Ignoring the younger players on the periphery for the moment, like Stretton, Watson, etc, focusing purely on what we have going into the next season. 

We currently have: 

GK - Marshall & Roos.
DF - Buchanan, Forsyth, Byrne.
MF - Shinnie, Bielik, Jozwiak, Bird, Lawrence, Sibley & Knight.
ST - Kazim-Richards. 

 I would say even from a numbers point of view, without losing anyone, we would need at least 5 defenders, a couple of midfielders and a few strikers. 

Almost an impossible job. 

I think young centre backs tend to take a while to develop, but then quickly make huge leaps. We saw it with Tomori. Michael Keane came here and was frighteningly bad, however it wasn't too much longer after he was with us that he developed into an established Championship centre back. 

You can take numerous examples, in fairness, so hopefully Mengi is the next to do so. I mean, we need him to do so, but ultimately he will need to be afforded time to develop and make mistakes. 

I just went back in time and wanted to see how our spending stood up against other teams in the league. Surprisingly, in three of our last four posted accounts, the wage bill of Derby County was HALF of the team spending the most in the league. We have only ever been in the top 6 spending clubs in the division once - 15/16. 

Not bad for a club RUINING football with their reckless overspending, eh?

2014-15: Wage Bill - £21.8m - 33.5% of the wage bill of the highest spending team in the Championship
2015-16: Wage Bill - £32m - 78.04% of the wage bill of the highest spending team in the Championship (most competitive year, 5th highest in the league). 
2016-17: Wage Bill - £34.6m - 30.83% of the wage bill of the highest spending team in the Championship
2017-18: Wage Bill - £40.5m - 42.63% of the wage bill of the highest spending team in the Championship

The most concerning part of all of this really does come down to the IQ of the average football fan. I've seen no end of people, and by no end I mean at least 90%, not able to understand WHY we were even in court against the EFL. 

In fact, I would say at least 80% believe it was the EFL that has let us off lightly. It's quite concerning how quickly people will jump on something without even reading any of the actual story. Wycombe fans were demanding their owner to sue the EFL and Derby for letting us off. I mean, you would think Wycombe with their investment in this case would at least read the story (some did, and were quick to point it out) but the large majority didn't. 

It's honestly baffled me and made me wonder exactly what things do we hear, where we don't have this level of investment and do similar things? For the Forest and Leeds fans, I just assumed they can't read. It was at least 98% of their comments which still believe we're up against the EFL for the stadium. I'm surprised the daft twits can even conjure the intelligence to open their eyes in the morning. 

All the best to Waghorn, who came up big in the last game of the season. However, my view for the majority of last season was that he was one of the key figures in our demise. Arguably, he was our worst performer IMO - in terms of game time offered and production. 

Nevertheless, the last game means he can leave on a high. It will be interesting if he can have a bounce back season with Coventry or not.