Caerphilly Ram

2 minutes ago, TheTinMan said:

Would it not be fair to say most 30+ year olds out of contract we're likely linked with are in that position because they are knackered physically (injuries)? Those examples above are world class players not run of the mill Championship/League 1 and with the exception of de bruyne they've stayed injury free. 

To answer your question plainly (and in my opinion) no it’s not fair to say, it’s an assumption, who have we been credibly linked with for a start?

Players leave clubs on free transfers for all manner of reasons, it’s not automatically a sign they’re on a rapid decline or are injury ravaged.

Who were our key performers last season? 30 year old Curtis Nelson? 32 year old Nathaniel Mendez-Laing? 33 year old James Collins? Alongside Cashin and a couple of the younger pros. I think it’s about balance, some experience alongside a core of peak age players and some youth. We have no idea who we’re going to sign, I’m happy to wait and see who actually joins and how they contribute to the club before I come to any conclusions.

19 minutes ago, WarCatDCFC said:

Players back then could play football no matter what age even into their 40s but players these days after 30 they fall apart on the pitch they don't put in the work but the kind of players back then could run circles around our team today 

 

Real Madrid won the champions league yesterday with 34 year old Toni Kroos and 38 year old Luka Modric both playing in the match.

Man City won the premier league with 34 year old Kyle Walker and 32 year old Kevin De Bruyne being key players.

Leicester won the championship with 37 year old Jamie Vardy playing up front.

Portsmouth won league one with 33 year old Marlon Pack playing a key role in midfield.

Those are just some examples for you. It’s an inaccurate generalisation that players over 30 in the modern game can’t play at a good level, especially given the sports science, conditioning, diets and squad depth involved.

For me there's no issue with us signing or having players over 30, the key will be having a balanced squad with some younger players around them. 

33 minutes ago, Ram-Alf said:

I'm aware of all the above, Some posters last season were intimating Sibley was one of our higher wage earners some claiming £20k a week 🤷‍♂️, I doubt very much that DCFC were considering getting that close.

But if Rotherham are in the frame according to BT and Rotherham are prepared to pay what could be close to what Sibley wants then my post still stands.

 

 

Apologies Alf, I took the wording and tone of your initial post as implying we were somehow being financially outmuscled by Rotherham, I was just looking to suggest it may be down to choice on our part rather than spending power. 
 

EDIT - taking your car auction analogy, we’re both looking at the same car, I bid £1000 as that’s what I believe it is worth but could go higher if I wanted to, you bid £1100 and I think “it’s not fair value so I’ll take my money elsewhere”, not that I couldn’t bid further but I chose not to.

1 minute ago, Ram-Alf said:

Not doubting you...if we're being out bid on wages by Rotherham who will be playing in the league below us in front of 7k fans at Rotherham and managed by a champion pie eater then all I can say is...JESUS H CHRIST 🙄

There’s a difference between “being outbid” and choosing to pay up to a certain amount that the club believes the player is worth. Not saying I agree with it, but there’s every chance the club has made what it believes is a fair offer and Sibley feels he’s worth more so is looking elsewhere, rather than that Rotherham are able to pay more than we can.
IF he is leaving it’s a massive shame either way.

10 minutes ago, Srg said:

 

that tracks with this. This guy has been right numerous times. 

He’s the barber that “announced” the Cashin and NML contract extensions in Jan right? Been for a hair cut today @Big Trav ? 😉 

37 minutes ago, Bris Vegas said:

Moving the goal posts? Nah, it was clear that I meant we haven’t had any international stars, the sort of players where supporters look out for their results, since the days of Stimac, Strupar and Wanchope yet you seem to want to debate the tiny details to try and prove a point. 

You can go on believing Derby are a big club. I respect your opinion. The constant personal jibes on this forum Is poor etiquette. 

 

What point am I trying to prove? I’ve already said I agree with you that Villarreal and West Ham are currently bigger clubs than Derby. I provided evidence contradicting a statement that said we’ve had no international players since Stimac and Wanchope. I’m also not the only person who did so which suggests it wasn’t clear that you meant international stars who attract their own fans until the point you added those comments, ergo “moving the goalposts”.

If I’ve caused offence then I apologise. To explain my point further I simply don’t ever see you discussing your points with consideration of other factors, there is always a “it’s this or that” stance to your “hot takes”. Such as we’re “flat track bullies”, “Warne won’t succeed in the championship”, “Derby aren’t a big club”, in fact you rarely seem to be constructive in what you say about the club unless I’m missing something 🤔 

So on the point of if Derby are a big club or not, you’ve discounted our history (ancient and recent), attendances, and wider fan base, without the context of where we have spent the last 2 years post admin. Prior to admin we were managed by some big names in world football in Rooney, Lampard and Cocu….where we a big club then? We were covered by Sky Sports as “Frank Lampard’s Derby County”, did that qualify us as a big club? If we sign a Japanese international this summer will that make us a big club? We were consistently pushing towards the top of the championship a few years ago, if we get back to that are we a big club? It’s more complex than that, it’s dependent on a number of factors.

West Ham and Villarreal (to quote two of the examples you’ve used to belittle Derby) are at present larger clubs than Derby, playing at a higher level of competition and with wider media exposure as a result. They have larger social media followings than Derby. They have higher profile international players. Currently. IF Derby were to be promoted in the next couple of years through and play in the PL for a couple of seasons gaining stability and kicking on from there, our profile would grow, our social media following would grow, the likelihood of us having higher profile international players and coaches increases. AND we’d still have a consistently high level of attendance alongside the club’s history. 

So in summary, are we as big a club as we were? No we’re not. Are we a club with the potential to progress and succeed with the right recruitment, ownership, investment, coaching? Yes we are.
If we got to the PL and established ourselves in that league we’d be bigger than your Bournemouth’s, Brighton’s, Fulham’s etc. Would it be good to see that as a Derby County fan, absolutely it would. How we get there will take a combination of factors to fall in to place, it may or may not ever happen, but rather than dismiss it I’m happy to consider the possibility at least.
To get back onto the OP’s point, for us to “punch above our weight” we’ll need to recruit well, play effective football for the league (what that is is open for debate), gel as a squad, back the team from the stands, and ideally win more than we lose.

9 hours ago, Bris Vegas said:

How many of these are international stars who would attract a following?

How many of these are regulars for a club playing European football?

I love how much you’ll move the goalposts to die on any particular hill you created for yourself.
You said we’ve had no international players since Stimac and Wanchope, that’s the statement you made, you didn’t qualify it further with any additional conditions around those stars having a “following”.

I still agree with you that Villarreal and West Ham are currently bigger clubs than Derby, I just think the way you’re qualifying your opinion on it is questionable and smacks once more of you parading your opinion as superior to anyone else

1 hour ago, Comrade 86 said:

Fornah - Sierra Leone
Hourihane - Rep. of Ireland
Elder - Australia
Forsyth - Scotland
Collins - Rep. of Ireland
Adams - Gambia
Mendez-Laing - Guatemala
Nyambe - Namibia

There's probably more that I've missed, but how could a self-professed football expert not know that on occasions as recently as a few months back, more than half of our starting 11 were current, or ex-internationals?

I know Mexico has its issues, but surely a 25 year internet outage isn't one of them!

Off the top of my head over the last few years we’ve also had;

Jason Knight - Republic of Ireland

Richard Keogh - Republic of Ireland

Alex Pearce - Republic of Ireland

Kamil Jozwiak - Poland

Kristian Bielik - Poland

Tom Lawrence - Wales

Joe Ledley - Wales

Harry Wilson - Wales (when on loan)

Mason Mount - England (when on loan)

Conor Washington - Northern Ireland

but yeah….no international players since Stimac and Wanchope in the mid to late 90s 🙄 

EDIT - just thought, Rasiak was a Poland international too wasn’t he? 

43 minutes ago, Bris Vegas said:

I respect your opinion, and the size of clubs is subjective to how one perceives it.

Matchday revenue only takes you so far. I’d agree if we are talking a difference of 45k to 20k, but we are talking a matter or 5k here or there which for our level doesn’t impact our potential.

I don’t deny Derby vs Forest would attract a bigger audience than Palace vs Brighton if in the same league.

I just don’t think that really matters. A player isn’t going to choose Derby over Brighton because we get an extra 5k through the door, nor would it make much of a difference in terms of budgets at the top table when the overall PL commercial deal is ultimately the biggest revenue stream.

In 25 years if following Derby I’ve seen us compete in the PL for about 20% of that. I’ve seen how getting an extra 5k through the door has accounted for diddly squat when teams like Palace, Fulham, Brighton, Brentford, Leicester etc. have outperformed us during that time.

I’ve seen Derby lose their manager to Stoke, their better players to Palace and teams with lesser attendances and trophyless cabinets go on to play in Europe. 

We may have been a bigger club once. Not anymore.

It’s all relative/circumstantial surely? The clubs you listed as “outperforming” us have done so because of the money they have through being in the premier league at varying points and external investment, with Brentford and maybe Brighton being the exceptions initially due to their recruitment models.

IF we were in the PL then we’d be on a level playing field, so your example of someone choosing Brighton over Derby is a moot point until such a stage as we’re in the same league. It would be then that other factors come into it, realistically we can’t currently compete with any PL side for signings as the relative wealth and status offered by being a PL side gives them an advantage. That’s when other factors come into consideration (for me) as to what constitutes being a “big club”. As an example Bournemouth are not a bigger club than Derby, they are currently in a more advantageous position than Derby due to spending a number of years in the PL, BUT, hypothetically, if they were relegated without parachute money and competing “fairly” with us then our larger stadium, revenue from attendances, history, facilities, academy etc suddenly make us an appealing option to players. 

I never understand these binary arguments you offer without consideration of context and variable contributing factors. It often comes across as though you are intentionally being contrary.

In my opinion simply being in the PL does not automatically qualify one club as being larger than another.
Leeds failed to win promotion today, and as much as it pains me to say it they are a bigger club than Brentford, Brighton, Burnley, Palace, Bournemouth, Fulham etc despite only spending something like 3 of the last 20 years in the PL. That’s due to things like fan base, attendances, history etc. I believe there’s more to it than just where that club is currently in the pyramid when determining what qualifies club’s size. 
We are a big club at this level, we were a big club in league one, we’re never going to trouble the “big 6” but it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that we could one day be established back in the PL competing as one of the also rans, or should that be also Rams 🤔 

42 minutes ago, Bris Vegas said:

We are a similar size club to Birmingham and Stoke.

A few trophies 50 years ago doesn’t change that. We all have the same potential so we’re all similar sized clubs.

Attendance figures, whether it’s 28k or 22k doesn’t matter. It’s extra income in the matchday revenue but it’s not that much difference.

We get higher attendances than Villarreal. We’re not a bigger club. 

Given we’re in a group of about 20-30 similar sized clubs, odds are we will spend more time at second tier level as opposed to the top tier.

How do you establish what a club’s size is then? It’s surely derived from more than “potential”.

So far you’ve discounted attendances, trophies and history, so what other tangible factors is it measured by? 
 

EDIT - for what it’s worth I agree we’re not a bigger club than Villarreal who have competed towards the top end of Spanish football for years and played in European competitions. Probably agree with West Ham being a bigger club than us also, they’re established in the premier league, recently won a European trophy and sold an England International for £100m. Just interested what the substance is behind your argument this time.

7 minutes ago, angieram said:

Who did that "shrewd recruiting"? 

Because GSE were very hands-off, who was scouting and signing those players? 

Sam Rush and Tom Ince’s mum? 

I was just adding the context as I understood it from@FlyBritishMidland’s point about ownership, in that we came close to promotion under GSE without throwing lots of money around.

8 minutes ago, Reggie Greenwood said:

We never got remotely close to promotion under Nigel ? 

I think the point being made was about the GSE ownership, not Clough. As in GSE ran the club prudently for a period with Clough in charge, slowly building a side with some shrewd recruiting north of the border and the odd Barker type fee, then Steve McClaren took the bulk of that side and turned it into a top team in the champ who narrowly missed out on promotion against qpr at Wembley in 2014.
GSE’s slower burn model for running the club proved almost as successful as throwing loads of cash at it did under Morris.
Ultimately neither worked so it’ll be interesting to see how we approach things now. 

1 hour ago, Van der MoodHoover said:

Are there any actual rumors anywhere, or are the journos still following the playoffs?

Nixon suggested we’re interested in Herbie Kane following his release from Barnsley;

Also the local Sheffield papers dropped our name into alleged interest in Josh Windass;

In theory they are more reputable rumours as the people sharing them are at least journalists employed by news outlets, BUT there’s also every chance they’re just driving traffic to their own sites by using the name of our club knowing the size of the fan base. All other rumours so far have come from fairly questionable social media accounts as @JuanFloEvraTheCocu'sNesta said.

Going by our other signings under Warne (other than CBT) the news of who we’re actually signing probably won’t break until the deals are pretty much signed. There’s more to the multiple people on here saying about Iversen than some of the other rumours for me, seems news of people being shown round Moor Farm spotted by an employee and passed on to a mate is more likely than journalists knowing what’s happening.

Wednesday 24th July, 7:30pm kick off, no ticket info yet.

6 minutes ago, Eoghan1884 said:

Here’s all the players we’ve been linked to so far (reputable or not)

Ebou Adams

Bosun Lawal

Jamal Lowe 

Sorba Thomas 

Viktor Johansson -Gone to Stoke

Josh Windass

Thierry Small

Josh Murphy 

Herbie Kane 

And Daniel Iversen from several posters on here 

39 minutes ago, JfR said:

Interesting twist in this one. Thought I'd post it here, as a few have mentioned him.

 

I believe it was his bar some of the lads were drinking in on the Sunday after promotion, the video of Rooney singing wonderwall that did the rounds was in there….i think… maybe the lads were able to put in the odd slurred word for the club…

10 minutes ago, Srg said:

Don't make @Caerphilly Ramlist the massive debunking of this nonsense again, because he will

I won’t, I can’t be bothered with it anymore.

3 minutes ago, Wolfie20 said:

It matters (to a few) if it means they're able to continue their constant sniping of the manager.

I have my suspicions on this point, the fact some people on here, and elsewhere online, will push this “we only sign players from Rotherham or South Yorkshire” angle when the evidence shows otherwise. However I was hoping to hear a more expanded rationale to maybe help me understand it a bit more, perhaps I’ve misunderstood the facts.

The way I see it is we’re linked with a Goalkeeper who has plenty of Championship experience and a handful of premier league appearances to his name also, a player who is a good age at 26, who is probably based locally so won’t have massive upheaval domestically if he joins us, and may settle sooner thanks to a pre-existing relationship with the coaching staff. 

1 hour ago, valakari said:

Ahh..the ex Rotherham loanee...surprise

What does it matter? Provided they come in and do a job for the Rams who cares where they’ve played previously.

1 minute ago, Srg said:

I like it like that. Means everyone is pulling in the same direction when nothing is getting out there on our side. 

Agreed. I like silly season, love a good rumour, but would much rather the club actually go about business quietly and the news break once we’re close to announcing it. Such as the Adams deal in January, he mentioned talks had taken place before the African Nations Cup and it wasn’t until 31/01 that that Pete O’Rourke broke the story and he signed that day.

23 minutes ago, Abu Derby said:

Are there any legitimate bits in a paper yet?

Depends on what you qualify as legitimate. Nixon (Sun football writer) linked us to Herbie Kane the day Barnsley announced he was leaving on a free. Darren Witcoop (The Mirror) has tweeted this evening that Rotherham are allegedly interested in Sibley. Local press in Derby and Cardiff regurgitated the same story this week that we’re still interested in signing Ebou Adams…. Then there’s loads of nonsense links from social media accounts. And some people on here with some alleged inside info suggesting we’re interested in signing Daniel Iversen the Leicester goalie (they and their sources/info may or may not be legitimate so there’s no real way of knowing).

Our transfer business under Warne has been mostly been kept quiet until the deals are nearly done so personally I’ve accepted there’s gonna be loads of speculation, of which most of it will probably be untrue, and we’ll see who we’re signing pretty much within hours of the deals being officially announced.

Mentioned by @Eoghan1884 in the retained list thread, the Mirror fella on X saying Rovrum are interested in Sibley. Suspect it’s the same as me being interested in Keira Knightley, she’s not necessarily going to reciprocate that desire…..but there’s a slim chance, isn’t there?! 😭 

28 minutes ago, nogbad van 50 said:

He's not out of contract until June 2025 but Lucas Jensen ,the GK of Lincoln is Danish

I know he’s not, I didn’t say he was out of contract. We could be in for a keeper and willing to pay a fee as we’re no longer under restrictions.

There have been a number of posters on here saying we’re signing (or at least interested in) Iversen, so I was just looking to clarify if this was likely more of the same rumour or something different. 

7 minutes ago, Animal is a Ram said:

I have a bit of an ITK - for the first time ever. We're apparently signing a 'keeper from Denmark. I don't know any more than that.

I'll leave it to @Ghost of Clough to do better research as to who it could be...

As in a ‘keeper currently playing their football in Denmark, or a ‘keeper of Danish heritage (which matches the other ITK rumours that we’re getting Daniel Iversen from Leicester)? 

😢 in the end he was a surprisingly good addition to the club. There’s a sense of closure in a way that a number of those who joined after admin to help rebuild the club are heading off with a sort of “mission accomplished”.