"Great signing!"

[Jourdan]

Since 2015, here is how I would categorise our signings:

Great signings: Vydra, Ince, H. Wilson, Mount, Tomori, Bogle

Good signings: Johnson, Clarke, Lawrence, Wisdom, Carson

Good signings on the pitch and in the dressing room: Davies, CKR

Potentially good signings: Byrne, Marshall, Bielik and Jozwiak

Poor or forgettable signings: The rest

[Orphanram]

9 hours ago, Rammy03 said:

Hit or miss. There have been some great signings, some good signings and a lot of poor ones who simply haven't done the job which is to get us into the premier League.

Too often we pay over the odds for players who don't cut the mustard and have no resale value. It is no way to run a football club and that's why we find ourselves in the predicament we do today.

Everybody mentions Brentford but take a look at Norwich since sporting director Stuart Webber joined the club. Unlike Brentford they have actually been promoted to the premier League. Their recruitment over 2 seasons is the reason as to how they did it. Buendia, a top player signed for just 1 million. Pukki a free transfer. Not Jozefzoon for 3 million and Waghorn for 5 million. Some of the stuff we've done is shambolic. 

I think your spot on in regard to Norwich and it’s ever been thus when it comes to the most successful teams.  When people reminisce about the Jim Smith era, the Premier league bit is often what gets discussed but the first team he built for the promotion season remind me a lot of Norwich. A few decent youth team players but not an over reliance on them, and then a mix of British and European players that have been done brought in via a bit of wheeling and dealing. I get that its probably a bit more sophisticated when it comes to recruitment these days but any club in this division, whatever the era, that has had the ability to get the right blend of signings who have a bit of experience, come from different markets and come at the right prices have consistently done well over a long period of time. Even the Wolves promotion was a bit like this even though they were able to get the deals done via the super agent route. 

[Jourdan]

9 hours ago, Rammy03 said:

Everybody mentions Brentford but take a look at Norwich since sporting director Stuart Webber joined the club. Unlike Brentford they have actually been promoted to the premier League. Their recruitment over 2 seasons is the reason as to how they did it. Buendia, a top player signed for just 1 million. Pukki a free transfer. Not Jozefzoon for 3 million and Waghorn for 5 million. Some of the stuff we've done is shambolic. 

The thing is, Norwich are a big club for the Championship and have spent five seasons in the Premier League since 2011, so I am sure this has helped them to develop and improve their infrastructure and gives them an edge when it comes to scouting and recruitment. It will be the same for WBA (and Fulham too) if/when they come down next season.

Everyone mentions Brentford because in seven years they have gone from being similar to Peterborough in League 1 to now being a permanent fixture in the top half of the Championship and the gold standard for recruitment, scouting and analysis at this level.

[kash_a_ram_a_ding_dong]

Deleted,wrong area

[Rammy03]

53 minutes ago, Jourdan said:

The thing is, Norwich are a big club for the Championship and have spent five seasons in the Premier League since 2011, so I am sure this has helped them to develop and improve their infrastructure and gives them an edge when it comes to scouting and recruitment. It will be the same for WBA (and Fulham too) if/when they come down next season.

Everyone mentions Brentford because in seven years they have gone from being similar to Peterborough in League 1 to now being a permanent fixture in the top half of the Championship and the gold standard for recruitment, scouting and analysis at this level.

You're not wrong but Norwich were a mess when they came back down a few years ago and any Norwich supporter will tell you that. Since they introduced a sporting director and Farke as manager, they have been able to shift out all the dead wood and bring in high quality for little money.

It's all about recruitment. If you get that right then most things tend to look after themselves. It's no good having good infrastructure and a great training ground if you haven't got the players good enough to be there. And that's where Derby are currently going wrong.

This is a huge club in the championship and as Rooney has already said, if we get the recruitment right we can have a really good chance because most other things are already in place.

[Gee SCREAMER !!]

2 hours ago, cannable said:

Which is fine, but the club was cost cutting from Lampard onwards. Once Marriott was in we had him, Martin, Vydra, Nugent, Jerome and Bennett as forward options. Three of those can press. 

Waghorn didn’t become our main centre-forward until the 36th league game of the season. In the 43 league and cup games prior to this he only started up front seven times. 

We really didn’t need to sign Waghorn. 

Can't really count Vydra, he clearly wanted out and was willing to go to Leeds at one point.  Nugent was done at this level after 18 months here. Bennett was just, well, Bennett. Martin was not pulling up any trees at that point, probably impacted by his intestinal issues.  We sold Jerome too early in my opinion - he was a different option against the Tyrone Mings and Hanleys of the division and had a bit of pace to get in behind.

Whilst I do agree that we could have invested better than Waghorn at the price paid we did need more firepower from somewhere.. 

[TheresOnlyWanChope]

9 hours ago, Gee SCREAMER !! said:

Blackman had spent 3 years on Readings bench, I desperately hoped Wednesday would get him but we doubled our bid for a player with 5 months on his contract.  I was second place in Huddersfields player of the season list and he has those awful sideburns like an Alvin Stardust tribute act. ?

22 starts and 11 goals the season we signed him. Don’t know why you would be desperate for another team to sign a player with those stats. 

[cannable]

7 hours ago, Gee SCREAMER !! said:

Can't really count Vydra, he clearly wanted out and was willing to go to Leeds at one point.  Nugent was done at this level after 18 months here. Bennett was just, well, Bennett. Martin was not pulling up any trees at that point, probably impacted by his intestinal issues.  We sold Jerome too early in my opinion - he was a different option against the Tyrone Mings and Hanleys of the division and had a bit of pace to get in behind.

Whilst I do agree that we could have invested better than Waghorn at the price paid we did need more firepower from somewhere.. 

Which is also fine, but we come back to my point that once we had Marriott in then we shouldn’t have gone anywhere near Waghorn. 

And if we still needed more firepower having just signed Marriott then why are we signing Marriott? Spending £3,000,000 casually here and there is what got us into a mess in the first place. 

[TomTom92]

Signing Waghorn for the money we did was scandalous. Not been a bad servant but he hasn’t repaid his fee in the slightest. Same goes for a lot of players.
  
The money we’ve squandered is tragic. At least under Nigel if a player turned out to be poo it was because we’d signed them for a bag of potato’s and a wink. 

[Gee SCREAMER !!]

3 hours ago, TheresOnlyWanChope said:

22 starts and 11 goals the season we signed him. Don’t know why you would be desperate for another team to sign a player with those stats. 

Without checking I would guess his stats overall at Reading weren't great as he always seemed to be on the bench prior to that run.  They certainly weren't great here - must have been 1.3 million a goal.

[cannable]

3 hours ago, TheresOnlyWanChope said:

22 starts and 11 goals the season we signed him. Don’t know why you would be desperate for another team to sign a player with those stats. 

Because he’d had one purple patch in his entire career and this persuaded us to sign him! 

[Jourdan]

13 hours ago, Rammy03 said:

You're not wrong but Norwich were a mess when they came back down a few years ago and any Norwich supporter will tell you that. Since they introduced a sporting director and Farke as manager, they have been able to shift out all the dead wood and bring in high quality for little money.

It's all about recruitment. If you get that right then most things tend to look after themselves. It's no good having good infrastructure and a great training ground if you haven't got the players good enough to be there. And that's where Derby are currently going wrong.

This is a huge club in the championship and as Rooney has already said, if we get the recruitment right we can have a really good chance because most other things are already in place.

High quality for little money? No more deadwood?

I am not convinced that Norwich’s recruitment is that much better now than before, to be honest. I tend to think that the few overshadow the many.

Success stories like Pukki and Buendia stand out because they haven’t just been good, they have been very very good, especially in this division. They make you forget about the tens of players who have gone to Norwich and had little to no impact or got lost in the churn.

This supposedly good recruitment also completely deserted them in the PL and none of their signings helped their cause in any way and they were entirely reliant on the group that got them promoted in 18-19.

What has impressed me about Norwich in recent years though is their development of young players and ability to sell them on at a large profit. I imagine it’s the model we are trying to emulate, but then clubs remember how easy we are to deal with.

[rynny]

3 hours ago, cannable said:

Because he’d had one purple patch in his entire career and this persuaded us to sign him! 

He also had a decent half a season at Sheff Utd in league 1 that persuaded Reading to buy him (14 goals in 33 games) 

 

7 hours ago, TheresOnlyWanChope said:

22 starts and 11 goals the season we signed him. Don’t know why you would be desperate for another team to sign a player with those stats. 

Because he scored 9 goals in his previous 85 games for Reading. 

[Rampage]

On 26/03/2021 at 12:50, vonwright said:

Is our recruitment basically loads worse than most teams in the league? Here's a list of loan and permanents that have come through the door in the last five years. How many names do you look at and instinctively react: "Great signing!"

For me it's seven out of 50 or so, and three of loads were the Lampard loans (perhaps explaining why we made the play-offs that year).

This seems like a bad hit rate.

Kamil Jozwiak
Jordon Ibe
Mike Te Wierik
Lee Gregory
George Edmundson
Patrick Roberts
Beni Baningime
Teden Mengi
Nathan Byrne - GREAT SIGNING
Matt Clarke - GREAT SIGNING
David Marshall
Colin Kazim-Richards
Henrich Ravas
Jack Marriott
Florian Jozefzoon
Scott Malone
Scott Carson
Krystian Bielik - GREAT SIGNING
Graeme Shinnie
Wayne Rooney
Kieran Dowell
Jamie Paterson
Ben Hamer
Martyn Waghorn
Jack Marriott
Florian Jozefzoon
Harry Wilson - GREAT SIGNING
Duane Holmes
Ashley Cole
Andy King
Scott Malone
Fikayo Tomori - GREAT SIGNING
George Evans
Mason Mount - GREAT SIGNING
Tom Lawrence
Andre Wisdom
Tom Huddlestone
Cameron Jerome
Curtis Davies
Kasey Palmer
Max Hunt
Sam Winnall
Matej Vydra - GREAT SIGNING (eventually)
Ikechi Anya
David Nugent
Kyle Mcallister
Chris Weale
Julien De Sart
James Wilson

How much did this lot cost and what did we sell some of them for when they left.

[cannable]

5 minutes ago, Rampage said:

How much did this lot cost and what did we sell some of them for when they left.

Off the top of my head, in excess of £30,000,000 down… Vydra and Evans the only players to bring in profit. I’ve seen various reports on the figures for Holmes so maybe him too.

Six million pound signings have or are about to leave on a free. Four of those cost £2,000,000 or more. Another, in Marriott, is out on loan. 

[LittleEatonRam]

On 26/03/2021 at 14:19, Ambitious said:

The recruitment of first team playing staff at Derby County has been appalling. When you consider our position in the league, wage bill and money spent then you can't argue otherwise especially over the course of the past six years. 

Now, the players have largely regressed since coming to the club which is another issue in itself. Jozwiak is a much better player for Poland than he's ever shown here, which again should be dissected to why. Mel Morris has hired the wrong people, trusted the wrong people and I think in turn has lost faith in his ability to run the club to a good standard.  

The summer under Paul Clement set this club back a decade. If you're going to spend recklessly then at least make sure you're spending it correctly. We signed awful players on large contracts and we're still very much paying the price today. 

The last paragraph in particular is spot on, but it is worth saying (and saying again) that almost nobody saw anything wrong with this spending spree at the time. We paid £4m for Shackell who was 32 at the time, gave a him a 3 year deal and the fans' response was "if he gets us promoted it's worth it". Hardly anyone raised a concern that we might be paying over the odds for players, that we were performing a complete volte face on our previous transfer policy or that we were buying players of the type which would move us further away from the ethos which saw us reach the playoff final in 2014 by mopping the floor with other teams in our division.

No, Derby fans were too busy cheering each time we broke the transfer record. And now those same fans are indignant that we are in this situation.

[BathRam72]

Jack Marriott is so bad you named him twice ??

[Sheikh n Bake]

So many experts here judging signings with the benefit of hindsight.

I don't recall too many signings that we've made that I thought were terrible at the time. In fact, often those who I thought would be poor often proved me wrong. 

[TheresOnlyWanChope]

18 hours ago, rynny said:

He also had a decent half a season at Sheff Utd in league 1 that persuaded Reading to buy him (14 goals in 33 games) 

 

Because he scored 9 goals in his previous 85 games for Reading. 

My point was I thought it was strange someone posting that they desperately wanted Blackman as an example sign for some other club when he looked extremely good in not only his recent form before but over a period of time before he signed. Regardless of stats. It's just a bit of a strange view to be so desperately against someone signing. In the end, he wasn't a success at Derby but thats not the point.