alram

1 hour ago, Returning ram said:

2 hours ago, Jourdan said:

The Dembele link is probably the most exciting one we’ve had all summer.

He looks full of pace and trickery and has the ability to unsettle defences but also to pick a pass.

I think that’s the key signing. Getting someone in the mould of Dembele / Azeez / Randall / Maghoma is much needed.

We need more creativity and more technical prowess, especially with Bird and Hourihane having left.

Agree completely will be very happy with him 

On 12/06/2024 at 13:28, nottingram said:

Must say it is enjoyable watching Forest fans on Twitter try and work out what loopholes they can exploit in place of selling players before the end of June.

I’m sure they were sympathetic to Derby’s plight a couple of years ago. 

let’s not pretend they arent already using loopholes and are still in a s*** position

olympiscos anyone?

On 12/06/2024 at 15:48, Day said:

Given the 4pt deduction last time, I’d be more tempted to stick two fingers up again, puts them in an unfair selling position that all clubs will know about.

With Everton the panel said because it’s the 2nd year they will get less of a punishment and only ended up with 2 points. It made no sense to me (surely if you continue to breach the punishment should be higher) but Forest will surely bare that in mind if I was Forest I would risk it and just take the hit

why would any of the “top 6” clubs buy luiz from villa for example knowing if they just wait until after July 1 their rival could potentially get a points deduction?

the English game should be following spains model and just make it so when clubs go over the limit they can’t register new players until they are under it again, it is a far better system and stops the madness of points deduction and this low balling which just suits high revenue teams. The date of a sale shouldn’t matter , what difference will it have on the season if a players sold on June 30 or July 1?

On 10/06/2024 at 18:22, Crewton said:

Of the 18 players with the most squad appearances for Ipswich last season, only 5 were in that age range (and one was Chelseas loanee, Omari Hutchinson, whop was the only player under 23). 8 were 26-29 and 5 were 30 or over. They had balance. That's what we need.

what about the other teams?

25 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

That's an odd age range you've come up with. Only 4 Championship squads had an average age below 25 last season.

Peak years are 24-29, so this should be the core squad, and will be the age range for the majority of our signings. We already have 7 players in this range. 

You build squads with a core of 21-25 year olds. I’m not talking about average age, look at most promoted teams from this league they will have that core of key players that’s around that age

if a player is in their peak at 29 playing for a championship club with a small budget the chances are they are not going to take us where we want to go, we need players that can improve here and have their peak ahead of them

we have to build a squad that is capable of competing against parachute payment teams , we aren’t gonna do it signing 29 year olds “in their peak”

46 minutes ago, Jimbo Ram said:

Need to respect other poster’s opinions on possible player signings CR 👍 There is a credible argument in questioning his lack of goals and assists. He has hardly set the world on fire with any of his clubs has he? Sheff Utd have decided he’s not required for them in the Championship. All about opinions 😊

its also not writing players off before they have signed which he claims 

i just dont think hes a very good player if we sign him i of course will judge everything by what he does in a derby shirt. it doesnt mean that i cant have reservations before hand

see mckenna is a player i would make an exception for if we are signing players that wont have much sell on value.

i will be massively surprised if he rocks up here, not only was he on huge money but he will surely have loads of takers. he won player of the season the year forest went up

2 hours ago, Wolfie20 said:

Tom Huddlestone's played nearly 600 games and opinion is split as to what his best position was - didn’t make him a poor player. 

of course huddlestone wasnt a poor player, he played the majority of his career in the top flight, osborns spent two seasons there in two seasons that were absolute disasters and he wasnt even a starter

18 hours ago, Ghost of Clough said:

We have 6 players who are 30+. Three of them will be backups (Forsyth, Barkhuizen, Washington), and only two of them are likely to start more often than not (Nelson and Mendez-Laing).

The other is Bradley, who was recently linked with a move to Charlton.

how many between 21-25? which is the age of the squad that should be our core

19 hours ago, Kernow said:

This post is a bit contradictory, isn’t it? 350 senior appearances should be a worry? How?

He’s 29, never played below the Championship and had 3 seasons as a fairly regular PL player, albeit for a poor PL side.

For a side coming up from League One, he would be an excellent signing. Experienced at this level without being too old, versatile to cover at least 2 positions that we need to strengthen. If he’s willing to come, it’s a no-brainer for me.

my point was hes played 350 games and nobody knows his best position. the only game hes ever impacted was when we played them and he scored that late winner for forest

i just dont think hes a very good player

3 hours ago, BramcoteRam84 said:

Just listened to the TalkSport interview. As you would expect he came over really well. I don’t think there are many managers that have his level of emotional intelligence. It’s clear there is lots of thought and planning behind everything, Paul and his team clearly live and breathe and put the hours in. Really interesting there’s two systems he’ll focus on in preseason and basically the players need to know everything about it so have to do their homework and be prepared to talk about it. 

Also it’s clear that he sees good dressing room environment as a potential differentiator and focuses on it heavily,  Personally I think this is why we beat Bolton  automatic, when we weren’t playing well the squad togetherness got us through. Most successful underdogs have strong dressing rooms and togetherness. Look at Luton Cov those sorts of teams. It can bridge some of the gap in quality where teams have bigger budgets. Interesting the whole Warne being appointed was basically Stephen Pearce liking Warne’s interviews, listening to his podcast and basically concluding this is the type of manager we want running our club. Human first and foremost. 

I also found it interesting when Matterface was asking him on Derbys budget last season trying to infer maybe Derby didn’t have the biggest budget and overachieved last season, Warne genuinely didn’t know if we had the biggest budget he saw the team as top 4, not necessarily top 2 which is how I saw it. However more interesting he said that in his 3 Rotherham promotions not once did he have a top 6 budget. I think we need to put some more respect on just what he achieved there. 

This season is his acid test, he will be battling expectancy, but he’s here as he wants to push Derby towards the premier league and go beyond  where he’s been as a manager before so he has the hunger, he creates a positive environment for people to be at their best and has demonstrated throughout his career thus far he can overachieve his budget, something we will need to do if we are to ever get back to the premier as there won’t ever be a scenario until we’re promoted that we have a top 3 or even top 6 budget. He’s definitely the right man for now and I really hope he proves to everyone this season just how good he is.

lets think about pushing derby to being a stable championship team before thinking about the premier league. if people go into next season thinking we can challenge for promotion then its going to be a miserable season

warne has achieved his goals so far but i think he has done the bare minimum required so far. lets see if he can get us to overachieve as the bare minimum next season will be staying up

i could totally see it happening but i dont think hes ever been a good player

hes a small player that isnt strong, isnt quick and doesnt have a nailed down position & hes got over 350 senior appreances, that should be a worry 

On 02/06/2024 at 18:50, jono said:

Now you see that’s interesting as a statement, I think you’re wrong. I agree, I would not be comfortable paying big fees for 30+ players but, would be very happy to get the odd quality 32 year old on a FREE. Everyone needs and earns wages. Their age is unimportant if their ability is useful. The difficult bit is the capital outlay. If it’s a free then the equation is very simple. Is player X at 32 worth his  pay cheque ?. .. it’s a whole different game if the statement is .. is he worth his paycheque and the 500 grand that we will never recoup because he isn’t going to improve and have zero resale due to that and a shortish contract length. Nothing wrong with older players. It’s the balance of cost and contract length. Youth and experience it’s all about the blend/mix/balance/cost. 

agree completely youth and experience are vital. but we have experience. we need youth.

that is my issue about this whole thing. not that we are signing the odd 30+ year old, its that we have a squad full of them already and the game is so athletic nowadays. 

you are right they are FREE but they will also leave for free. i would rather pay more and invest in a player for 3-4 years that has the ability to grow with the club or earn the club good money.

Speaking from watching it happen here everton look like they are walking into a Mel Morris situation

my worry is less now but for the future. i do worry about the younger generation as with leicester and forest having good runs in the premier league we have the potential to be left behind by that generation. my grandson goes to school in the borderlands and there are fewer and fewer derby fans and forest seem keen on a new stadium on the border

1 hour ago, Crewton said:

I think he simply cycles to and from work, rather than "around all day" but I may be wrong. When I was on Twitter, I saw quite a few of the incidents he posted about and most of them were indeed drivers driving carelessly, selfishly or sometimes recklessly. I'm not the greatest fan of cyclists in London but, having worked with a very talented woman who later lost her life after being crushed by a lorry, I am a big fan of people being pulled up for reckless driving, riding or even jaywalking.

Vine may be pompous and self-regarding, but at least he's not a pathetic misogynist and cod-intellectual like 'Dick' Barton.

I watch a lot of his videos and he goes looking for situations like he will see a van turning left and he will speed up so he can moan at him for cutting him up, opposed to a normal person who will see the hazard and just slow down regardless whether they are in the wrong or not.

I agree regarding Barton by the way but I think vine gives cyclists a terrible name

joey barton is vile but has anyone seen jeremy vines twitter feed? he is embarrassing. he cycles around all day trying to find incidents to post onto twitter, he gives cyclists a bad name. ive been cycling for about 40 years and have never had an incident that he seems to run into every day which probably says more about the way he rides bikes

8 minutes ago, CapeTownRams said:

Having said all of that…: watching this game- and the semis…. really shows how far we off being a top 6 (let alone top2) Championship side.

We have a LOT of ground to make up- on the playing and managerial levels.

and the thing is i dont think either of these teams will be putting a dent on premier league teams either. both teams play lots of 5 yard passes but are so easy to cut open, premier league teams must be licking their lips at the thought of playing against either of these all season

3 hours ago, cannable said:

We aren’t as good as people think we are.

Left-back and that third centre-mid are a massive problem with no obvious solution. 

The ‘keeper and centre-halves are good, not great.

 i think we really overrated the team we have. if you made a best XI on paper of the whole euros how many england players would get into it? 

i would argue maybe foden, walker and kane. but even kane is debatable with the likes of mbappe & dont rule ronaldo out pulling something out the bag for portugal.

we have loads of attacking midfielders and not much else

I just dont think you can expect any more than being out of the relegation battle

staying up will be a success

staying out of the scrap will be a good season

anything else will be a bonus, lets temper our expectations and be realistic. there is a big jump between league one and the championship and we werent that convincing this season despite being able to grind out results. the worry at the moment is our managers track record at this level.

Leicester will have a points deduction & will have to sell to avoid another one for two in one season. Ipswich will probably try to survive on momentum which could work but hasn’t been successful in recent years. I think Southampton are the best equipped to give it a go. I wouldnt be surprised if the 3 up go down again, I think the gap is getting bigger every year. 
 

I agree above I think Forest and Brentford could struggle, when you look at their recruitment they seem incapable of improving on their current squad which is the same one that was in the championship 

you know how they say there has been a small increase in correct decisions does anyone actually believe it? because you watch the exact same decisions given for one team and not given a week later and howard webb comes out and say both are correct decisions.

i think its a load of rubbish to justify the var. my biggest issue is the referee has lost all authority and it is not right that some faceless overlord overrules him when he feels like it from nowhere near the ground. i think its wrong.

4 hours ago, Rich3478 said:

I also find this new fascination with 22-28 year olds a bit strange.

is never going to be as simple as we won’t sign anyone outside that age bracket. Of course everyone wants young players that will improve and have huge sell on value. So does every other club in the league.

Just want to see what side we put together to start the season, will have a budget from clowes and let’s see where we get. Loans will be a big part of that, as will experienced players, and hopefully we get some players that improve in value too.

think we all need to stop being accountants at some point and just trust that the club will be well ran

Because it’s how you progress as a club now, the modern game is about athleticism and intensity and you pay for recruitment with player trading unless you’ve got a sugar daddy. 
 

look at the top 6 in the championship, they all play a similar style and recruit in that age bracket. Now look at the bottom 3 and they are the polar opposite. 
 

I have zero interest in us signing 30 year olds on frees because it’s obvious what will happen. It should only be done as a worst case scenario, certainly not at the start of the summer.

8 hours ago, Chopper said:

A couple of Toton Reds fans I know would take 17th every season, seems a bit of a tragic existence (supporter wise) actively desiring your team lose in the cups at the first available opportunity in order to concentrate on the league, all whilst scraping your way to be 4th in the most Shhh...ockingly bad teams list.

Next season they'll be hoping Ipswich have gone too far too soon, and ironically Leicester get some deductions. They'll be begging Leeds to not win (agree there to be honest), as the other Premier teams have developed (see the points gap to 5th bottom) and unless there is something under the radar none seem so 'basketcasey' and likely to implode at any minute either.

Marinakis may have created a footballing Damocles, exposed to riches and glory, but with relegation and financial armageddon (apparently relegation clauses aren't a thing) hanging above their heads held away by the thinnest MGW shaped strand.

 

In the first couple of years in the prem survival is the only thing that matters, once you get into year 3 you get full benefits of a permanent financial advantage of teams in the championship & every promoted team going forward. 
 

I don’t blame Forest for throwing money at it it just shows the lunacy of the elitist financial system in football. At the end of the day it’s worked for them

they are lucky b*******, officially the lowest tally to stay up even if they win

not good as they are slowly stabilising as a prem club & once you get in that cycle it takes a lot of incompetence to get out of it