Are we ready for possible promotion?

[SaintRam]

4 minutes ago, David said:

5th Crystal Palace, 23 players signed - Finished 11th, Survived

 

Definitely feel like we'd have to come closer to emulating this, personally. In terms of number of signings I mean. Finishing 11th would be a dream.

 

[Millenniumram]

balls thread symptomatic of problems at the club, why is the whole fan base so ducking scared?! What happened before was a never to be repeated royal duck up of immense proportions due to a certain wee Scottish muppet. It won’t happen again, unless you think Mel is truest clueless. We should have nothing to fear from the prem were we to make it (unlikely but still), so the only focus should be on making it there and going at things without fear.

[Curtains]

3 minutes ago, Millenniumram said:

balls thread symptomatic of problems at the club, why is the whole fan base so ducking scared?! What happened before was a never to be repeated royal duck up of immense proportions due to a certain wee Scottish muppet. It won’t happen again, unless you think Mel is truest clueless. We should have nothing to fear from the prem were we to make it (unlikely but still), so the only focus should be on making it there and going at things without fear.

We are Derby we don’t scare easy 

[Day]

13 minutes ago, David said:

You would need to look more in depth into how many players featured, but I wanted to look at promotion, number of signings made and the outcome in their first season in the Premier League over the last 5 seasons.

4 out of the 5 seasons the club(s) that signed the most players stayed up. 

Newcastle 10th, Crystal Palace 11th and Watford 13th are the 3 best first seasons in the Premier League after promotion, 2 of which signed over 20 players, the most players any out of any promoted clubs.

Crystal Palace who signed the most players did it with just £29m spent, the 23 signings included 6 free transfers and 3 loans, 2 of which were ex Derby players Cameron Jerome and Tom Ince. 2 of the players they paid money for were also ex Derby players Joe Ledley and Barry Bannan (ok he was a loanee)

As I say you would need to look deeper into the signings, how many minutes they played etc. but I'm guessing you will probably find that it's a myth that clubs who go up only make a couple of signings. You're looking around 14 players on average coming in, which Derby probably would need. The beauty of it is, we will have the space not to be concerned by outgoings, more I look at it, this is the perfect time for us to go up.

12/13
1st Cardiff, 14 players signed - Finished 20th, Relegated
2nd Hull, 14 players signed - Finished 16th, Survived
5th Crystal Palace, 23 players signed - Finished 11th, Survived

13/14
1st Leicester, 13 players signed - Finished 14th, Survived
2nd Burnley, 11 players signed - Finished 19th, Relegated
4th QPR, 12 players signed - Finished 20th, Relegated

14/15
1st Bournemouth, 17 players signed - Finished 16th, Survived
2nd Watford, 21 players signed - Finished 13th, Survived
3rd Norwich, 14 players signed - Finished 19th, Relegated

15/16
1st Burnley, 9 players signed - Finished 16th, Survived
2nd Boro, 14 players signed - Finished 19th, Relegated
4th Hull, 15 players signed - Finished 18th, Relegated

16/17
1st Newcastle, 9 players signed - Finished 10th, Survived
2nd Brighton, 15 players signed - Finished 15th, Survived
5th Huddersfield, 15 players signed - Finished 16th, Survived

Just a correction, Crystal Palace signed 22. Jason Puncheon arrived on loan and then signed. Counted him twice. Oops.

Thought I would look at the appearances and (subs) of those players.

6 did not play at all, 16 players signed did. 

Dwight Gayle - 8 (15)
Wayne Hennessery - 1
Adrian Mariappa - 23 (1)
Adlene Guedioura - 4 (4)
Joe Ledley - 14
Jack Hunt
Barry Bannan - 2 (4)
Jose Campana - 4 (2)
Scott Dann - 14
Marouane Chamakh - 27 (5)
Stephen Dobbie - 1
Jimmy Kebe - 2 (4)
Kevin Phillips - 0 (4)
Neil Alexander
Tom Ince - 5 (3)
Jerome Thomas - 3 (6)
Florian Marange
Elliott Grandin
Osman Sow
Nabil Guedioura
Jason Puncheon - 29 (5)
Cameron Jerome - 20 (8)

[EnigmaRam]

The problem most clubs make is they sign loads of players and what made the team good is lost.

fulham did this last year signing every man and his dog. If we are good enough to get promoted you buy a few quality players where our weakest/oldest players are then get a few quality loans in.

IF you get relegated the loans go back and you haven’t busted the bank to try and stay up. Would still leave a core of players to go for promotion again with some nice parachute payments.

if you stay up you look to make the loans permanent if financially possible and they perform well and add a few more bits of quality.

personally I love the championship as I go to every game expected to compete if not win but we do need promotion for the financial windfall to become self sustaining.

 

[toddy]

Remember bald eagle built a very good side base around Stimac that got us up.  But then bought us some quality. ..Wanchope, Ansanovic we finished 12th then he added Baiano and Eranio the following season and we finished 9th then 8th.

Quality and not quantity.

[GenBr]

7 minutes ago, EnigmaRam said:

The problem most clubs make is they sign loads of players and what made the team good is lost.

fulham did this last year signing every man and his dog. If we are good enough to get promoted you buy a few quality players where our weakest/oldest players are then get a few quality loans in.

IF you get relegated the loans go back and you haven’t busted the bank to try and stay up. Would still leave a core of players to go for promotion again with some nice parachute payments.

if you stay up you look to make the loans permanent if financially possible and they perform well and add a few more bits of quality.

personally I love the championship as I go to every game expected to compete if not win but we do need promotion for the financial windfall to become self sustaining.

 

I agree we shouldn't **** the money away, but we are going to have to bring in a fair few players even if we don't go up due to all the loans ending, contracts expiring and I expect sales of at least a couple like Pearce and maybe Bogle.

Of our starting 11 against Bristol Mount, Wilson and Tomori will all go back to their parent clubs, Johnson and Roos have expiring contracts? and I think we will sell Bogle (maybe not if we get promoted). Basically going to have to replace half the team anyway.

[Gil]

This is one depressing thread. Especially on the day of perhaps the biggest game of the season.

All moot if we don't come out with 3 points in our next 2.

[cheron85]

4 hours ago, BathRam72 said:

For every good team going up their will be another to replace them next year.

Leeds were nothing last year, they came from nowhere, so what is to say a Brentford or Bristol can't go on to be those teams? 

True

What's to say it won't be us next year? ? 

[Gil]

For the record I think the style FL envisions is more suitable for Premier League football than this League.

Promotion also gives us a chance of attracting much better players to deliver his philosophy & also gives us a great chance of retaining Wilson/Mount/Tomori.

[cannable]

2 hours ago, toddy said:

No, as they had to get a dozen players in..... but I think they were a better side last season in teh championship than we currently are.

Why does Fulham signing ten players necessarily mean they weren’t ready? 

The team they got promoted with would have been fine. Instead Jokanovich had players signed for him that didn’t suit his system and they didn’t adequately replace their full-backs.

They’d have been better off throwing money at keeping Fredericks and Targett and perhaps just signing one new and good centre-half and cover for McDonald.

[BaaLocks]

2 hours ago, toddy said:

You have to remember Cardiff have in a manager someone that knows what is required to get of a division with promotion.

You have to remember that was not the point I was making

[jono]

5 hours ago, toddy said:

Yes, i know we are one win away from securing the playoffs, but are we ready for promotion? 

The club is certainly ready, but is the squad? Are we really good enough? With the exception of the loanees how many of the current squad are capable of holding their own in the prem?

We all know its a difficult job for all promoted sides to stay up once in the prem. Look at Fulham they were a very good championship side last season arguably better than our current side and they had to spend £100 million to try and make an impact and still they are coming back down. Buying a new squad does have its downsides.

So are we really good enough? Yes, we had our Utd, chelsea and Southampton games where we held are own...but then we have had our Millwall, Blackburn, Ipswich both the Villa and Leeds games. They have not been many great performances in the league with the exception of Nowich and West Brom away.

Even the happy clappers have to be realistic here.

Remember 10 years ago? That was maybe one of the worst seasons of my last 50 yrs as a supporter. Never do i want to relive those proformances again.

Are we really ready for promotion?

Yes we are ready, that is, Derby County Football Club it’s supporters and the players, who if we get there will have earned it by right of conquest. 

Its the next step .. Do our leaders invest heavily in trying to stay up, somewhat of a gamble these days. Or do we use sticking plasters and hope, or do we do next to nothing but take a season in the sun and the parachute payments that go with it.  if we end up as a yo-yo club like Norwich is that the worst thing that can happen ? After that maybe our culture, history and fan base will help lift us to the next level 

[rsmini]

I've been saying for a while that it's not the end of the world if we don't go up because I'd like to see more of the youngsters given a chance to break through next season. However if we get promoted that will be a brilliant achievement in Franks's first season and grab it by the horns and enjoy every single minute whether we are ready or not, just enjoy the ride

[BaaLocks]

2 hours ago, GenBr said:

West Brom and Villa might have been in the Prem for a while before they got relegated, but both are still in receipt of parachute payments and both are in with a good shout of going back up this year. If you go back a few years before they had their run of consecutive seasons in the Prem West Brom were almost constantly getting promoted and relegated from the Prem.

Boro also on parachute payments are still in the mix. Norwich only stopped receiving parachute payments this year and will now get them again when they come back down. - they got promoted in 10/11, relegated in 13/14, promoted in 14/15, relegated in 15/16 and now promoted again in 18/19.

No debate - what I am saying is that they did not purposefully set out on the often proposed plan to get promoted, bank the cash and then use that as a war chest for a more sustained push beyond a second promotion, following relegation. People talk about it often as the way to do it but no team has ever set out to execute it as a plan.

[BaaLocks]

2 hours ago, Mucker1884 said:

 

Fester?  2 x Play Off wins mid 90's.  Promoted as runners up 02/03.  Winners 13/14.  Even managed a League one win in 08/09, so a fair bit of yo-yo-ing there in a 20 year span.  I make that an average of a promotion or relegation every 2 years... although admittedly one of each was in the wrong direction (To and from League One!), so even ignoring that, and concentrating on Championship/Prem, It's still a promotion or relegation every 2.5 years. 

In a similar period, Palace managed 1 x Championship win, and 3 PO Wins.

Remember, you've got to come back down, to go up again!

 

OK, maybe not the greatest ever post in "putting someone right", and as you rightly say, no team has perfected the Yo-Yo model, but these two seem to be now settling rather nicely with the big boys, so at least give us something to aim for (I won't mention the obvious, as that's probably a dream too far, even for the happiest of clappers amongst us)!

 

Nearly needed an edit... Ooh... Ooh... Wet Spam also... 4 promotions in 22 years between 1990 and 2012.  They've been up there for the last 7 years now!

For sure some clubs have yo-yo'ed a bit until they have stabilised. Others, like West Brom, are still yo-yo'ing. But the point that was made that we consciously should go up and effectively use the whole of the promotion season for no other outcome than banking as much cash as possible and then use that to fund a more serious effort the year after we come back down. I don't think any club ever has actually done that, much though some are saying on here (maybe a little tongue in cheek?) that we should.

[Rampage]

We are ready for the money

 Target is 12 points

??✈️

[Nuwtfly]

4 hours ago, cannable said:

How can you make both of these two points when Sheffield United play a swashbuckling and, arguably, revolutionary 3-3-1-2 with overlapping centre-halves? 

Fair play to Sheffield United for getting promoted with only 10 players! That is revolutionary ? 

[Nuwtfly]

1 hour ago, Millenniumram said:

balls thread symptomatic of problems at the club, why is the whole fan base so ducking scared?! What happened before was a never to be repeated royal duck up of immense proportions due to a certain wee Scottish muppet. It won’t happen again, unless you think Mel is truest clueless. We should have nothing to fear from the prem were we to make it (unlikely but still), so the only focus should be on making it there and going at things without fear.

I honestly cannot keep up with your opinions of this football club ?

[Nuwtfly]

This is a difficult thread to answer because getting promoted is a bit like having a kid: you're never ready.

Have we been good enough over the course of the season to merit promotion ahead of other clubs in the play-offs? Probably not, if we're being honest. But they call the play-offs a lottery for a reason, and that means we've got just as much of a right to win it as a Leeds or a Villa.

In saying that, I think there are clubs who are more "prepared" than us. Sheffield United for example have a clear playing philosophy, a manager who has been with them for a long time etc.

We have a rookie manager in his first season and a ton of players out of contract in the summer. We could certainly be in better shape for promotion. But here we are.

Get in the play-offs and all that will matter is who can play better over the course of three games. Three games. That's all it will come down to.