Gary and his phone

[Rab a dab doo]

Give the guy (GR) a chance we haven't kicked a ball in angry yet as the season not started yet suddenly the sky is falling in on us reducing us to rack and ruin.

Woe is us.

[Curtains]

4 minutes ago, reveldevil said:

Blimey, I thought you'd at least let the season start before you turned on your man?

I'm sure Gary's got a Plan, and it obviously requires patience from the supporters while he works towards it.

We need to reduce the squad size before we bring anyone else in, surely?

Unless it's an absolutely top drawer player who we simply can't pass up.

I've not turned on Rowett but it's clear the club won't finance the deals he wants to get done. 

 

[Rammed79]

I don't want to see us paying stupid money for a winger is there not anyone in lower league that could be an investment? otherwise stick either Forsyth or Lowe on the wing they both can't play left back at same time both can put a decent cross in.

[Rev]

14 minutes ago, curtains said:

I've not turned on Rowett but it's clear the club won't finance the deals he wants to get done. 

 

I think its sensible to reduce the squad first, we can't go on carrying lots of wages with no hope of seeing a pitch?

I'd love us to sign a few more, and I'm sure the money for purchases is available, but we can't keep adding wage upon wage to the squad in the process.

I've resigned myself to thinking we'll really see Rowetts team after a couple of years, once natural wastage has occurred within the present squad.

It's no bad thing if we are asking a manager as talented as he to make the most of what he's got, rather than buying improvements, surely?

However, the above relies on Mel sticking with him, which is by no means certain. 

[Curtains]

Just now, reveldevil said:

I think its sensible to reduce the squad first, we can't go on carrying lots of wages with no hope of seeing a pitch?

I'd love us to sign a few more, and I'm sure the money for purchases is available, but we can't keep adding wage upon wage to the squad in the process.

I've resigned myself to thinking we'll really see Rowetts team after a couple of years, once natural wastage has occurred within the present squad.

It's no bad thing if we are asking a manager as talented as he to make the most of what he's got, rather than buying improvements, surely?

Good post .

What I'm concerned about is this season if we start off badly that Rowett gets the Pearson treatment. 

[Tombo]

42 minutes ago, Millenniumram said:

Seriously hope this is just him trying to reduce prices in players we're looking at buying, and not him giving up from signing players. We're in desperate need of further attacking additions if we've got any chance, even if they're pricey- we've got the money in from Hughes and ince remember! 

Not signing anyone else would make this window very Pearson esque, selling our best players and not bringing replacements in.

Or we could panic and make it seriously Pearson-esque and blow loads of money in the final few days. 

[Carnero]

2 minutes ago, Tombo said:

Or we could panic and make it seriously Pearson-esque and blow loads of money in the final few days. 

Oo that sounds like fun. Let's do that!

[eddie]

3 hours ago, Rample said:

We're not good enough at the moment and seemingly unwilling to spend what it will take to improve us. Is this admission that golden oldies and loans are the future?

Probably. And of course the reason for that is we have splashed the cash seriously over the last 3 years - just as the fans wanted. It didn't work, so we are now into a spell of looking for 'value for money'. It couldn't go on for ever - even Mel's pockets aren't that long.

 

[Ellafella]

3 hours ago, RoyMac5 said:

Well I'm happy not to be paying phone number transfers, we've got a huge unshiftable squad because of doing just that previously. Guess we'll have to be patient and/or just make do.

Absolutely. Organic growth. Quality over quantity. 

[Day]

I don't see anything wrong in refusing to pay the obsecene fees that are going around, isn't that something we complained heavily about after the summer of 2015?

Before you moan and groan, do we know how much clubs are asking for their players? Numbers out arse time, let's say Leicester are demanding £10m for Lawrence, is he worth that? Looks a player from the tiny bits I've seen but he's another player that is coming off the back of one decent season scoring 9 goals, was that a one off? Would we all be sat here next summer questioning the sanity of paying £10m for Lawrence when he's scored a single goal?

Johnny Russell, 15/16 scored 10 goals for us and 8 assists, no surprise clubs came in for him, stayed at Derby and scored just 2 with 4 assists the following season. He's now classed as "deadwood" because he's coming off the back of a crap season.

No way of predicting what he will do this season, back alongside Martin in the team is the closest we've been to the Premier League.

Players seem to only have a shelf life of 10 months with fans, have a crap season and get rid, will never entertain the idea that they may do better the following season. Why? Why is it fans favourites to sign are also coming off the back of one stand out season, Hourihane, Lawrence, expecting them to just carry on at Derby which isn't a guarantee as Blackman will tell you.

Not like Rowett has even said he's happy with the squad this is it, all he's saying is he's not paying the ridiculous valuations, my guess is he's banking on clubs to fold first and offer a better deal so they can move, if not we'll go as we are which is still a very good squad fit this league.

Whilst people say we're going with the same team that failed again, it's not, Gary Rowett wasn't part of the team before, nor were his coaches other than Phillips. It's not the same. Forsyth, Davies, Wisdom, Huddlestone, Weimann, Martin, 6 players we didn't have last year.

[Millenniumram]

6 minutes ago, Tombo said:

Or we could panic and make it seriously Pearson-esque and blow loads of money in the final few days. 

Exactly, that's what we want to avoid by getting signings done now. Hopefully things are down the line in the background and my fears are unjustified. However I can't get a vision out of my head of Gary deciding not to being anyone in, then getting a few games in before he realises we can't score any goals without Hughes and ince and being forced into buying whatever's left at the end of the window for massive sums, who don't end up actually succeeding. 

We need players in before the stupid last week, even if they're expensive the best quality players imo tend to bought around this time, we need players in so if they're gonna be expensive, which realistically they are, let's at least make them good!

[Tombo]

I also don't buy that we don't have the quality in this team. Plenty of teams in this league would kill to have the squad depth we've got. We've been blinded by the money and we've become greedy.

I think there are players out there that can improve us, sure, but we've got more than enough quality to do the job.

Why do people say we're not good enough every single year? We hear it constantly - "let's face facts, these players aren't good enough". But the team changes so much every year, if we're consistently bad then it's down to our transfer policy. Stop splashing the cash and start working with what we've got.

2015 Clement buys a whole new team (Ince, Bent, Baird, Johnson, Butterfield, Weimann, Carson etc)

2016 Pearson sells off Hendrick, Buxton, Grant and Warnock, loans out Martin and brings Alex Pearce back into the fold. Also buys Anya and Vydra. Freezes out key players. McClaren returns shortly after and freezes out Pearsons boys.

2017 Martin returns, Forsyth back from injury, Ince sold, Hughes sold, Camara sold, Christie sold. Huddlestone, Davies, Wisdom and possibly more brought in.

Managers constantly changing.

How can we say our team isn't good enough? It's never the same team two seasons in a row ffs. Management-wise I think we've had a lot of bad workmen blaming their tools.

And like any shoddy workman, they've always turned to Mel Morris upon seeing the damage, taken a sharp intake of breath and gone "oooh.... It's gonna cost you to fix this mate... Needs totally redoing..."

[Pearl Ram]

13 minutes ago, curtains said:

Good post .

What I'm concerned about is this season if we start off badly that Rowett gets the Pearson treatment. 

Pearson departed for reasons not in the public domain. It's no coincidence that not only is he still out of work, nobody appears to be actively looking to employ him. Of all the recent managerial changes, how many was he in the running for ?

If Rowett (who I'm not entirely convinced about but hoping to be so) get's the Pearson treatment as you put it, not only will I be amazed but I will be sending Mel a very strongly worded letter asking him what the Dickens he's playing at.

 

* Wouldn't be using the word Dickens in a strongly worded letter but used it here to appease the swear filter.

[Curtains]

3 minutes ago, David said:

I don't see anything wrong in refusing to pay the obsecene fees that are going around, isn't that something we complained heavily about after the summer of 2015?

Before you moan and groan, do we know how much clubs are asking for their players? Numbers out arse time, let's say Leicester are demanding £10m for Lawrence, is he worth that? Looks a player from the tiny bits I've seen but he's another player that is coming off the back of one decent season scoring 9 goals, was that a one off? Would we all be sat here next summer questioning the sanity of paying £10m for Lawrence when he's scored a single goal?

Johnny Russell, 15/16 scored 10 goals for us and 8 assists, no surprise clubs came in for him, stayed at Derby and scored just 2 with 4 assists the following season. He's now classed as "deadwood" because he's coming off the back of a crap season.

No way of predicting what he will do this season, back alongside Martin in the team is the closest we've been to the Premier League.

Players seem to only have a shelf life of 10 months with fans, have a crap season and get rid, will never entertain the idea that they may do better the following season. Why? Why is it fans favourites to sign are also coming off the back of one stand out season, Hourihane, Lawrence, expecting them to just carry on at Derby which isn't a guarantee as Blackman will tell you.

Not like Rowett has even said he's happy with the squad this is it, all he's saying is he's not paying the ridiculous valuations, my guess is he's banking on clubs to fold first and offer a better deal so they can move, if not we'll go as we are which is still a very good squad fit this league.

Whilst people say we're going with the same team that failed again, it's not, Gary Rowett wasn't part of the team before, nor were his coaches other than Phillips. It's not the same. Forsyth, Davies, Wisdom, Huddlestone, Weimann, Martin, 6 players we didn't have last year.

Good post.  

Small matter though we sold our 2 best players in Ince and Hughes and also Christie and let Camara go . 

We may win the league I don't know but how optimistic I should be I don't know even though I wanted Rowett at Derby but I also want the club to back him 109 percent 

 

[Sexydadbod]

The wingers issue has been there for many years, I've been calling for a solution to it ever since I joined the forum but for some reason we always seem to neglect the problem. Getting good wingers and not could be the difference between automatic promotion or not or making the top 6 or not. Weimann has done well in pre season but I have no faith in the rest of them to help us throughout the season.

[Sparkle]

3 hours ago, drgoodspeak said:

Derby County are still looking to add to the squad but they do not want to be drawn into paying "telephone number" fees for players, if possible.

Rams manager Gary Rowett has said he would like to bring in one or two "different attacking options" and the club is active in the transfer market.

They have targets but Rowett has also said players coming in have to be better or different to what is already in the squad.

Derby have signed three players so far.

Curtis Davies, Andre Wisdom and Tom Huddlestone have arrived for a combined sum of around £4.5m plus add-ons while transfer fees elsewhere have escalated this summer.

Tom Ince (£8m rising to £11.3m), Will Hughes (£5m rising to £9m) and Cyrus Christie (£2.5m) have departed and the squad still needs trimming.

Asked about the possibility of more new signings, Rowett said: "We would like to add but I think the problem with adding at this point is that we have some really good players and to get a player that is going to give us a little bit more than what we have, you are talking about telephone numbers (for fees).

"They have to be better or different, otherwise there is no point.

"We will do that but it is not easy when you see the sort of figures that are touted around for players at the moment - players that wouldn't be that much better than our players and you are talking about £8m, £9m and £10m.

"I don't think, at this moment in time, that we really want to be in the market for that sort of value of player."

I totally agree with all of that!

[Tombo]

1 minute ago, McLovin said:

The wingers issue has been there for many years, I've been calling for a solution to it ever since I joined the forum but for some reason we always seem to neglect the problem. Getting good wingers and not could be the difference between automatic promotion or not or making the top 6 or not. Weimann has done well in pre season but I have no faith in the rest of them to help us throughout the season.

Have you really? Wow. You must be some kind of prophet or something then?

Have you ever considered being a pundit? They seem to be good at this sort of self-promotional rubbish. Except you're doing it on a football forum, so there's not really much money in self-promotion on here...

[Curtains]

3 minutes ago, Sparkle said:

I totally agree with all of that!

Didn't Steve McClaren last January say the same thing something to the effect he couldn't find players at the right price to improve the squad. 

He was in effect happy with the squad 

[Day]

1 minute ago, curtains said:

Good post.  

Small matter though we sold our 2 best players in Ince and Hughes and also Christie and let Camara go . 

We may win the league I don't know but how optimistic I should be I don't know even though I wanted Rowett at Derby but I also want the club to back him 109 percent 

 

You would hope Martin will replace Ince's goals, Hughes as much as I loved him we are not short in that area, Christie as been replaced with Wisdom and Camara as been replaced with a new broom.

Don't think anyone will say this squad is the finished article, close the window now, but nor are we a club in desperation. This squad should be competing for top 6 as it is now, we all and I'm sure Rowett as well would like to add a couple more if possible to make things a little easier.

We have a bit of money now, let's spend it wisely this time, if that can't be done this window in 4 months time we can look again.

[Sexydadbod]

1 minute ago, Tombo said:

Have you really? Wow. You must be some kind of prophet or something then?

Have you ever considered being a pundit? They seem to be good at this sort of self-promotional rubbish. Except you're doing it on a football forum, so there's not really much money in self-promotion on here...

No need for the sarcasm, it's rude and not at all helpful to the discussion. Many other users had the same concerns. My comment wasn't to point out I was correct because I've been wrong on many occasions  but to say that the issue hasn't been rectified when it needs to be addressed . We needed one other winger when Ince was here and now he's gone we need two otherwise we won't score anywhere near enough.