23/24 season

[uttoxram75]

We should have a fair crack of the whip this coming season. The EFL have lifted the embargo because they let Peterborough off a points deduction that would have stopped them making the play offs and didn't want to risk Derby sueing them.

I fully expect the refs orders to rule against Derby to be lifted due to this so I'm going for autos.

I still think we should have a stand named Fck The EFL though.

[LeedsCityRam]

22 hours ago, TuffLuff said:

Had a think about this question over a few days and I think I’ve come to the conclusion that while I expect us to be challenging near the top, I’m not too bothered about promotion. I mean if it happens then great, I’d be ecstatic but a few things bother me.

1) I want us to be a sustainable club, I don’t want us to have a chairman who’s having to throw thousands, if not millions, into the club just to keep us afloat or chasing a near impossible dream. We are a community club and I don’t want us to have an idea that the finances of the club are an ownership problem rather than an overall problem we need to keep an eye on.

2) I want us to have an achievable plan in place to build something. We might have this already in place internally but I want us to have a plan to build something over x amount of seasons rather than just getting to the championship and then going from there. 

3) I have great concerns for the football pyramid as a whole, I can’t see the point in being a championship team with more overheads, trying to get to the prem where the gap between the have and have nots gets ever bigger.

Yes I’d love promotions and getting back to being a big club again, but I also like local ownership and I want us to be steady and stable. We need to be careful what we wish for and think about what’s next and how it’s going to be achieved as much as just having expectations.

 

I share your wish for the club to be sustainable but don't believe that is inconsistent with expecting success or wanting to leave this division asap.

The revenue generated by this club would put us top 10 of the Championship with only the clubs with parachute payments & Sunderland (with their crowd numbers) significantly ahead of us. Obviously there will be a small handful of clubs spending well beyond their means (Bristol, Stoke. Parmo Parasites) but I think it should be perfectly achievable for Derbý to be both a sustainable & relatively successful club in the division above. The examples of Luton & Coventry further illustrate that approach is possible on much smaller revenue.

Not relying on spending means thinking shrewdly about recruitment & planning. I suspect in time Clowes' careful stewardship will get us a lot closer to the top division than Mel Morris ever managed.

[IlsonDerby]

20 hours ago, MadAmster said:

If you count RamsTV interviews with David Clowes as reliable, then, yes. Plus something he said to me in the Directors Lounge (actually, we were in the doorway) at Forest Green. The plan is for the club to be self sufficient, paying its own way. Remember, when it was first mooted that he would buy the club to save it, he was said to be worth £250M. Buying DCFC and PP cost him £50M. Most of what he had left will be in non-liquid assets rather than ready cash. He also said, when there was talk of him buying that his Dad had told him NOT to buy the club. DC is a canny man and won't be imposing further on his "worth" than he already has done.

He doesn’t own us though personally does he? His business owns us and his business makes 10s of millions in profit per year so his personal wealth won’t be impacted by this surely? 
 

The pressures come from making sure it doesn’t consume his successful business his dad built up to protect that and all of his employees in that business I’d imagine. 

[IlsonDerby]

23 hours ago, TuffLuff said:

Had a think about this question over a few days and I think I’ve come to the conclusion that while I expect us to be challenging near the top, I’m not too bothered about promotion. I mean if it happens then great, I’d be ecstatic but a few things bother me.

1) I want us to be a sustainable club, I don’t want us to have a chairman who’s having to throw thousands, if not millions, into the club just to keep us afloat or chasing a near impossible dream. We are a community club and I don’t want us to have an idea that the finances of the club are an ownership problem rather than an overall problem we need to keep an eye on.

2) I want us to have an achievable plan in place to build something. We might have this already in place internally but I want us to have a plan to build something over x amount of seasons rather than just getting to the championship and then going from there. 

3) I have great concerns for the football pyramid as a whole, I can’t see the point in being a championship team with more overheads, trying to get to the prem where the gap between the have and have nots gets ever bigger.

Yes I’d love promotions and getting back to being a big club again, but I also like local ownership and I want us to be steady and stable. We need to be careful what we wish for and think about what’s next and how it’s going to be achieved as much as just having expectations.

 

The issue is that they said on the play off final that championship football is worth around £8/9m more per year than league one. 
 

£8/9m is a lot of money now (since the lower league covid reset where teams aren’t spunking silly money) 

 

I suspect that with clever recruitment, sustainability is easier within the championship due to the extra breathing room. 

[alram]

one thing is certain for me is we have to get our signings in early and give them a proper pre season

 

such are the fine margins we will need a quick start, lets be honest anything less than playoffs this season will be a massive disapointment

[alram]

On 02/06/2023 at 09:57, TuffLuff said:

Had a think about this question over a few days and I think I’ve come to the conclusion that while I expect us to be challenging near the top, I’m not too bothered about promotion. I mean if it happens then great, I’d be ecstatic but a few things bother me.

1) I want us to be a sustainable club, I don’t want us to have a chairman who’s having to throw thousands, if not millions, into the club just to keep us afloat or chasing a near impossible dream. We are a community club and I don’t want us to have an idea that the finances of the club are an ownership problem rather than an overall problem we need to keep an eye on.

2) I want us to have an achievable plan in place to build something. We might have this already in place internally but I want us to have a plan to build something over x amount of seasons rather than just getting to the championship and then going from there. 

3) I have great concerns for the football pyramid as a whole, I can’t see the point in being a championship team with more overheads, trying to get to the prem where the gap between the have and have nots gets ever bigger.

Yes I’d love promotions and getting back to being a big club again, but I also like local ownership and I want us to be steady and stable. We need to be careful what we wish for and think about what’s next and how it’s going to be achieved as much as just having expectations.

 

you can achieve all those things in the championship

 

we have no place in league one, the longer we stay in this division the less relevant and smaller we will become as the gimmick quickly fades away of being at this level

[MadAmster]

On 02/06/2023 at 15:54, Andicis said:

That's the plan, for us to be self sufficient and competitive we will need investment to get there. It's fairly unlikely he will invest no money in the club. You're drawing your own conclusions here.

As are you...

I heard what he said to me and how it was said. Before retiring from teaching I also had a training company giving Communications, Business English and IT technical courses at companies. Yes, it's my conclusion on what was said and how it was said but that is one of my areas of expertise.

[MadAmster]

On 03/06/2023 at 10:48, IlsonDerby said:

He doesn’t own us though personally does he? His business owns us and his business makes 10s of millions in profit per year so his personal wealth won’t be impacted by this surely? 
 

The pressures come from making sure it doesn’t consume his successful business his dad built up to protect that and all of his employees in that business I’d imagine. 

Yes, he owns the company that owns DCFC. No way is he going to endanger the future of Clowes Developments.

The business plan we had last year, budgeted on average gates of 17K. we got over 27K. At 20 notes a go that's almost £6M. The plan also had total spending limits, wage caps etc. We underspent on that, so that's more cash in the DCFC bank. Financially the club is currently sound. This season sees us have a little more freedom than last. We may pay modest transfer/loan fees. The wage cap has, I believe been increased. However, there is a revised business plan to which the EFL has agreed. That includes the budget limits for this coming season. We will, again, keep within those limits.

In the post to which you referred I had mentioned his reported "worth" of £250M. That will have included Clowes Development, which he owns. 

 

[Old Spalding Ram]

The Sunderland Echo newspaper estimated that Sunderland’s promotion to the Championship in 2021/22 would increase their league 1 tv money from between £800,000/ 1million to around £6 million plus an increase in commercial revenue and larger attendances would make a realistic return of around £8-10 million.

With the increased Sky tv deal from season 24/25 League 1 will see a 25% increase from the tv pot whilst the Championship will see an increase of 45%.

So, from 24/25 it’s either a tv deal worth between £1/1.25 million in League 1 or a deal in the Championship worth around £8.7 million plus increased revenues, therefore the financial implications of not getting promoted this season are going to be huge!

 

…………….I certainly know which league I’d rather be in!

[Mihangel]

2 minutes ago, Old Spalding Ram said:

The Sunderland Echo newspaper estimated that Sunderland’s promotion to the Championship in 2021/22 would increase their league 1 tv money from between £800,000/ 1million to around £6 million plus an increase in commercial revenue and larger attendances would make a realistic return of around £8-10 million.

With the increased Sky tv deal from season 24/25 League 1 will see a 25% increase from the tv pot whilst the Championship will see an increase of 45%.

So, from 24/25 it’s either a tv deal worth between £1/1.25 million in League 1 or a deal in the Championship worth around £8.7 million plus increased revenues, therefore the financial implications of not getting promoted this season are going to be huge!

 

…………….I certainly know which league I’d rather be in!

Problem is, (and this is EXACTLY what happens every year around play off final time), loads of noise and talk about how the revenues grow hugely, no talk about the expenses that rise equally or more so. There's little doubt what we all want from this season but it's not a slam dunk financial success if it happens.

[jimtastic56]

On 29/05/2023 at 20:07, Kokosnuss said:

Given Warne's past record in this league, the amount of time we've had to identify targets (and whoever's in the new recruitment guy's little black book), our overall budget and the ability to pay a few fees, there really shouldn't be any excuses not to be challenging for the top 2, with a play-off place secured with a few games to go.

 

I agree. The bookies have us at 5-1 favourites to win the league and only 6/4 to go up . All blind faith as we haven’t signed a player yet .But can we please , please , please save a bit of cash for the January window . Every year teams strengthen in Jan and we go down the pan.

[Carnero]

5 minutes ago, jimtastic56 said:

I agree. The bookies have us at 5-1 favourites to win the league and only 6/4 to go up . All blind faith as we haven’t signed a player yet .But can we please , please , please save a bit of cash for the January window . Every year teams strengthen in Jan and we go down the pan.

Worth bearing in mind that even at 6/4 favourites that basically rates us as a ~40% chance of going up, and a ~60% chance of not going up. Hardly a certainty.

[Tamworthram]

27 minutes ago, Carnero said:

Worth bearing in mind that even at 6/4 favourites that basically rates us as a ~40% chance of going up, and a ~60% chance of not going up. Hardly a certainty.

It's not really worth bearing in mind considering none of us, including the bookies, know who will be playing for us (bar the few that have been retained). 

There's not really anything to read into it at this stage.

Edited June 4, 2023 by Tamworthram

[Carnero]

1 hour ago, Tamworthram said:

It's not really worth bearing in mind considering none of us, including the bookies, know who will be playing for us (bar the few that have been retained). 

There's not really anything to read into it at this stage.

Worth bearing in mind for the people who think it's a given that we should get promoted this season. The odds setters have the chances at 40% before much money has been staked. Certainly not a given in their view.

Edited June 4, 2023 by Carnero

[Blondest Goat]

16 minutes ago, Carnero said:

Worth bearing in mind for the people who think it's a given that we should get promoted this season. The odds setters have the chances at 40% before much money has been staked. Certainly not a given in their view.

Whoever sets the odds either really rates Warnes ability to get the required players in or didn't really watch us much last season.  Dont think you could've seen the last few months and thought that we were close to being good enough for promotion.

[Tamworthram]

25 minutes ago, Carnero said:

Worth bearing in mind for the people who think it's a given that we should get promoted this season. The odds setters have the chances at 40% before much money has been staked. Certainly not a given in their view.

Apart from Celtic winning the Scottish Premier League and Bayern winning the Bundesliga (although it was a close run thing last season) there is never such a thing as a given in football least of all before clubs have even started their summer recruitment.

I would say to anyone who thinks that it’s a given that we should get promoted this season at least wait until to see who who we sign. 

[JuanFloEvraTheCocu'sNesta]

On 03/06/2023 at 00:00, uttoxram75 said:

We should have a fair crack of the whip this coming season. The EFL have lifted the embargo because they let Peterborough off a points deduction that would have stopped them making the play offs and didn't want to risk Derby sueing them.

I fully expect the refs orders to rule against Derby to be lifted due to this so I'm going for autos.

I still think we should have a stand named Fck The EFL though.

There was no refs order against us. Refs at this level are just rubbish. The sooner a number of our fans accept that the better.

[Guest]

18 hours ago, Mihangel said:

Problem is, (and this is EXACTLY what happens every year around play off final time), loads of noise and talk about how the revenues grow hugely, no talk about the expenses that rise equally or more so. There's little doubt what we all want from this season but it's not a slam dunk financial success if it happens.

We had those sort of higher revenues comparably throughout Morris' tenure. He chose to exceed the accompanying higher expenses by exceeding what we could afford to spend on transfer fees and wages for players, many of whom were simply not good enough to justify that level of expense. Brighton, Burnley, Norwich, Brentford, Watford, West Brom and Huddersfield managed to get up by spending sensibly. Shackell, Johnson, Butterfield, Blackman, Anya, Waghorn, Jozefzoon, Jowziak and Marriott were players with big question marks over their recruitment because we paid over the odds for what they could deliver. Morris was chucking money blindly onto the table, naively believing money was bound to get us to the PL.

When we return to the Championship we must recruit and spend better in terms of value for money and stay within budget. It's not impossible; other clubs have done and it's the only way to survive business-wise for any company long-term. Then when we arrive in the PL we must do the same again in terms of spending the windfall; no big debts. Surely if our fanbase hasn't learned the need for sustainability now then it never will.

[GenBr]

On 03/06/2023 at 09:51, IlsonDerby said:

The issue is that they said on the play off final that championship football is worth around £8/9m more per year than league one. 
 

£8/9m is a lot of money now (since the lower league covid reset where teams aren’t spunking silly money) 

 

I suspect that with clever recruitment, sustainability is easier within the championship due to the extra breathing room. 

I know its a while ago now and things have changed a bit, but the squad that Nigel built when he was here was built on a shoestring and he managed to bring in some of my favourite players of the past 20 years. I think you are right and if we can get our recruitment sorted I can't see any reason why we need to spend ourselves into oblivion like we did under the last administration.

[Ambitious]

Recruitment is absolutely everything - it baffles me how reckless some clubs are with their due diligence and how lazy some club's approach to it is. We were terrible in that regard under Mel Morris. 

Clough had his own parameters for scouting players and who he wanted in the club. He signed some decent players, but also signed some rancid footballers. From listening to podcasts, it also sounds like a very strange character who would treat some players like s*** and give others the run of the club and I think the players he brought into the club showed in his character for better and worse. 

I know recruitment isn't always a simple process, but there is literally software where you can watch every touch of a player from around the world in all different types of situations, including every data point possible for a game. It truly comes down to how hard you're willing to work to find the right players. How well a person can interpret data initially to create a shortlist and then once they have the shortlist, how do they analyse players.