Breakfast with Mel and no Bacon or Sausages!

[Mafiabob]

2 minutes ago, eddie said:

Are you Curtains' mum?

Is that rhetorical 

[eddie]

38 minutes ago, toddy said:

Is this forum going to be renamed melsfans.uk?

If that is the impression that you have, then either

a) we have failed badly

b) you are a better troll than I am

c) you have a fixed view of things to the point of intransigence.

[Alph]

54 minutes ago, Daveo said:

*The persistent member was actually Mostyn

Hope you told him anorl? 

I was the one going through his sons pockets. And GStar's.

I got 3 bank cards, a ticket to see phantom of the Opera, £400 cash and 5 girls phone numbers.

And a letter from eon about an overdue bill

Won't say which was which. Don't want to embarrass anyone

[eddie]

2 hours ago, curtains said:

Seriously what would you want as regards the 1st team .

Would you want the best team possible from the a quad or would you want players from the academy coming in just to say we have been producing players and look how good we are. 

When they are ready they will get in like Will Hughes did .

Academy players can also go out on loan to develop and I would send Hanson out on loan now  

Managers jobs are on the line and it's the same at every single club in the land. 

Nigel Clough even said recently that he would have looked for the here and now at Derby when he was with us as it probably went against him blooding young players regarding his job. 

I got the impression that under Clement, if we had another Messi in our academy, there would have been little recognition of the fact.

I do agree that Hanson might benefit from a loan spell - as the much-maligned Mason Bennett is now doing (2 successive man of the match performances)

[Day]

Just now, Alpha said:

Hope you told him anorl? 

Yeah, I thought I couldn't remember you being persistent on the dressing room, after a who sat where it was Mostyn

[TheDeadlySaul]

This has made me feel a lot more confident in the direction the club is going. Hearing Mel address the fans issues on things such as the dressing room incident is incredibly refreshing to hear and I trust that he made the right decision on letting Clement go after hearing what the people who met him had to say. 

I've been incredibly gloomy about Derby's future the past week and felt very disillusioned with the decision to sack Clement, but I think Mel is just as scarred as all of us on the 07/08 season and we need to cement our place in the Premiership by running a club where everyone works together towards the same goal and it now seems to Clement didn't have the same mindset what is a shame as I really rated Clement. 

Just please improve the scouting department Mel and get us into the promised land. 

[eddie]

40 minutes ago, Nuwtfly said:

I'm getting the vibe from pretty much all the accounts of the breakfast with MM that Clement seemed not particularly on board, or indeed bothered about, the Derby cause.

Is that fair? 

Zinggg!!!!!

[G STAR RAM]

15 minutes ago, Alpha said:

Hope you told him anorl? 

I was the one going through his sons pockets. And GStar's.

I got 3 bank cards, a ticket to see phantom of the Opera, £400 cash and 5 girls phone numbers.

And a letter from eon about an overdue bill

Won't say which was which. Don't want to embarrass anyone

Notice you left the DCFC season ticket in my pocket...

[Alph]

Just now, G STAR RAM said:

Notice you left the DCFC season ticket in my pocket...

It's got no resale value, dude

[eddie]

13 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

Notice you left the DCFC season ticket in my pocket...

Look again - he sneaked a couple of extra ones in there.

[Duracell]

All this has made me wonder why more owners and clubs don't work with forums more often.

I'm sure not everyone agrees with everything Morris does or everything that was said, but nobody can say we're being treated with contempt. It's a good way of including the fans and expanding on points that you can't really do in a 15 minute interview to local media, no matter how comprehensive you try to make your answers.

Football forums can cause a lot of trouble, but can also be a great support network for the club as well. Forums like this have over 5,000 members plus many more visitors. Strange that they've been about for nearly 20 years now, and yet Morris' approach seems new.

[RamNut]

Um ok....just ploughed through all that lot.

a few observations.....

firstly how can DW be part of the selection process and be a candidate? That doesn't make any kind of sense.

secondly. Pc seems to demonised to a ridiculous degree. Whilst i was critical of numerous things, how on earth did we go from "PC won't be sacked period" in november / december and gushing praise in the season ticket renewal and the boxing day programme to this.

The only thing i've learned is that chris evans and pc didn't see eye to eye. Which i had guessed anyway based on chris evans resignation statement. Tbh this would seem seem fairly inevitable. Its to do with the clash of roles, and i would back the head coach/manager having ultimate control. Furthermore chris had made a balls up of a few things. Reading between the lines of comments or attitudes  attributed to schteve, i would say that the potential for conflict was nothing new.

As for entering the dressing room to "carpet everyone". Totally unacceptible. I would assume that the relationship with PC was pretty strained by this point and the sub-text was to tear a strip of PC in front of the players. I'd have liked to know why MM thought there was going to be a slanging match, and so what if there was? I'd also like to know if this intervention was before PCs post match interviews or after. It seems incredible that he cannot understand that this was totally out of order and seems almost to joke about it.

why when schteve committed to staying, why did we then sack him if his style of football was apparently the style of football we now say that we want.

why did we sign five players before the new coach had even met the squad?

which of the 12 signings were the 2 or 3 that PC specifically requested?

why sign Pearce and then sign Shackell three weeks later?

 If MM went on holiday with PC in place , what was it that suddenly prompted the sacking of PC and his unplanned return?

why was David Burke sacked?

what was PC relationship with the players like?

Are we seriously suggesting that the head coach wanted boring football and for us to not shoot at goal?

do we anticipate that if we get promoted, we might just have to play a controlling, passing game in order to try to survive?

 

 

[eddie]

Please make sure that RamNut is the first on the list next time.

[RamNut]

3 minutes ago, eddie said:

Please make sure that RamNut is the first on the list next time.

Just asking questions mate.

[Alph]

The answers I wanted out of it..

Transfer strategy - It's been shocking. Buy center forwards that we don't use. Buy players that technically and speed of thought are no stronger than what we have. All while only getting half of what some of our players are capable of. You don't chuck players aside until you've seen them at their best

Dressing room incident - Players should play for their management team. If they don't then someone should be removed. You don't need a chairman to go down there because if he needs to go in there then it's over already

Clement's principals - He sat at the fans forum at the ipro and did a presentation on who the most controlled, aggressive, attacking team was in the league. Based on possession in the final third, passes completed in the final third, shots, shots on target, shots/goal ratio. This to me showed what was important to Clement. Then we were told he went off in a different mindset? Really?

The other lads have covered the breakfast in some detail so no point in doing the whys and how's unless asked so just to wrap up and keep it brief

Transfer Strategy - Clement. Sometimes he said what he wanted and scouts would bring him some videos. Sometimes he named specific players. But I can honestly say the bloke was clueless. We grilled Mel enough to get plenty of info on this topic. Clement was clueless imo. I moaned last week that whoever came up with the transfer strategy should resign. Well, he was sacked. Very narrow minded, little to no attention to detail. 

Dressing room incident - You dont coach players to do the simple stuff. You wouldn't teach Tom Ince how to pass. He's known that and perfected that over the first 10 footballing years of his life. You teach movement, discipline, shape etc. You educate. You motivate. What Mel, and the rest of us saw, was a lack of even the most basic requirements of a footballer from our entire team. So Mel went and let the lot of them know that they're in this **** together. That if they can't motivate and do the basics then there's some serious issues. 

Now I still don't agree with him going down. He should have had Clement in his office at 10pm. But what I took from the info in this bit was a motivational/attitude issue. So maybe Clement and his squad's journey died here.

Clement's Principals - Big long talk about this towards the end. It seems Clement thought this gig would be easier than it was. He didn't pay enough attention to detail or his players. I don't think he educated himself enough on our players or the opposition to be able to produce an improvement on the performances we were seeing. 

He might have come good in time. He might go on and in his next job understand the players he's using and against better. But 7 months down the line we'd hit a wall and he didn't know a way out. He'd weakened the TEAM. We've not seen the real Martin, Russell etc at all. And he didn't really have any interest and finding them. Replacing them, making do with them? Yes. But little interest in using them as they should be used. 

I see quite a broken team now. A bloated broken team. 

Money can only ever buy players. Not teams. Jacob Butterfield aside I don't see any players that fit what McClaren and Nigel tried to develop. Johnson may have a place if his weaknesses are covered by 10 footballers. He adds something that we've lacked. But the rest? Broken. Whoever takes us into the summer will really have to get rid of those that don't fit, blend a team together and then build on it. 

 

[AmericanRam]

Very good read from all those that went to this,much appreciated.

[RamNut]

transfers - has it really been established that PC wanted Carson, Pearce, Baird, Bent, and Weimann before he'd even met our players? Or were these 5 down to chris Evans? Or schteve? Or who? I find it very hard to understand this phase of transfer activity or to believe that it was driven by a coach who had only just arrived from spain. 

the recruitment team was supposedly intended to inform transfer policy? So how can the failings be solely down the head coach?

why sign three players as requested in january and then sack the coach  2 weeks later? Especially if he was as bad as is now being suggested?

crackers.

[Alph]

30 minutes ago, RamNut said:

transfers - has it really been established that PC wanted Carson, Pearce, Baird, Bent, and Weimann before he'd even met our players? Or were these 5 down to chris Evans? Or schteve? Or who? I find it very hard to understand this phase of transfer activity or to believe that it was driven by a coach who had only just arrived from spain. 

the recruitment team was supposedly intended to inform transfer policy? So how can the failings be solely down the head coach?

why sign three players as requested in january and then sack the coach  2 weeks later? Especially if he was as bad as is now being suggested?

crackers.

I think, the others may correct me, but we went ahead with Bent and Ince on the theory that they were part of our squad anyway sort of thing. 

The rest he approved. Mel said that no player has been brought in without Clement's agreement. 

There were meetings with Clement towards the end. 

Meetings where he was asked about getting the best out of players we've all seen play much better. Where he was asked what he thought of youth players. He wasnt interested in what our players had done previously and the youth players weren't of interest. He was focused on promotion now. Not development. He's very ambitious (which is great) but in that he lost sight of the now) There became a more subdued atmosphere around the place (naturally when results go bad)

I'm not trying to convince you of anything RamNut. Just how I heard it. I don't think Clement was really buying into what Mel asked for.

Developing players, playing better football as a team rather than individuals winning games. He was focused on getting results. 

I guess Mel saw a Billy Davies style situation? Grinding and grinding until Oh! These Man City fellas are a bit good. Can't grind past this lot.

[RicME85]

All great questions @RamNut, this is why I feel that for future Moor Farm trips it should be made known and questions collected so that we get what we want to know, or at least try to rather than a bunch of guys coming home disgruntled at a lack of bacon and sausages

[nottingram]

Think it all makes much more sense now. Just don't understand how Clement was allowed so much power, I know Mel said about not making excuses but just seems bizarre that Camara and Blackman were allowed to happen when the trust was obviously dwindling. 

Sounds weird but I'd almost write this season off now, give Wassall a bit of a free hit and see how it goes. Looking forward to seeing how the squad gets rebuilt, hopefully with the academy lads.

Really good write ups as well!