Paul Warne

[R@M]

So clearly now the ‘out’ argument is that with that budget it should have been easy and my 9yo could have managed us to promotion 🤪

A factor I haven’t seen mentioned is that we had about 4 players 20 months ago. It is always going to cost more to get what was required, firstly a team, then competitive then winning. Our squad was not huge, but I’m betting we signed twice as many in 20 months than any other team. 

[Ghost of Clough]

11 hours ago, Ambitious said:

The average wage bill in the Championship being £30m seems high to me, certainly post-COVID. The parachute payment sides doing their best to prop that up, maybe, but last accounts for some of the non-parachute sides: 

Stoke - £31.1m turnover - £28.2m wage bill (268 staff)
Middlesbrough - £28.5m turnover - £29.6m wage bill (228 staff) 
Cardiff City - £26.2m turnover - £22m wage bill (206 staff)
QPR - £23.2m turnover - £25.4m wage bill (189 staff)
Coventry - £20.3 turnover - £18.4m wage bill (196 staff)
Birmingham - £19.7m turnover - £28.9m wage bill (237 staff)
Swansea - £19.6m turnover - £26m wage bill (510 staff)
Millwall - £19.3m turnover - £22.5m wage bill (156 staff)
Bristol City - £18.5m turnover - £26.3m wage bill (205 staff) 
Huddersfield - £18.1m turnover - £21m wage bill (234 staff)
Hull City - £18m turnover - £23.6m wage bill (225 staff)
Rotherham - £15.6m turnover - £9m wage bill (166 staff)
Preston - £15.5m turnover - £21.5m wage bill (134 staff)

We turned over more than 8 of those teams I searched for whilst in League One - turnover £20.4m & wage bill £17.2m (177 staff). The Championship TV money is going to push us on an equal footing as MIddlesbrough - give or take a little. Stoke over-inflate their accounts with an annual £10m+ sponsorship deal with B365 which is why they have the highest revenue of all the non-parachute sides. 

It doesn't matter what a club's turnover is, it's how much an owner is prepared to lose.

A league average wage bill of £30m would be about right if using the latest Championship accounts, and estimating wages for the clubs 'new' to the league. I would actually estiamte it at closer to £31m for the current season.

However, if you exclude the top 6 and bottom 6, the average would be close to £26.5m, roughly where I expect us to be for 24/25, and rank us 12th in the league.

[Ghost of Clough]

40 minutes ago, R@M said:

So clearly now the ‘out’ argument is that with that budget it should have been easy and my 9yo could have managed us to promotion 🤪

A factor I haven’t seen mentioned is that we had about 4 players 20 months ago. It is always going to cost more to get what was required, firstly a team, then competitive then winning. Our squad was not huge, but I’m betting we signed twice as many in 20 months than any other team. 

I'm betting we signed just as many players as most clubs over the past 2 seasons.

Last summer, we made roughly the same number of signings as the league's average, but had a quiet January. We also had a quiet January last season.

According to Transfermarket, out of the 31 clubs to have played in L1 over the past 2 seasons, we've actually made the joint 3rd least signings (36) with only Wednesday and Bolton (both 32) signing less.

3 clubs signed at least 60 players and 10 other clubs signing over 50 over the course of 4 transfer windows.

[Grumpy Git]

12 hours ago, silverback said:

I like his whole club mentality and generally as a person he comes over as genuine,  and that will always be a key issue for this old fan, he cares.

This 100%, I like him as a person and also believe he's a genuinely nice bloke. Depite being in the 'out' camp after Shrewsbury away, I really hope he succeeds at PP.

UTR.

[Carl Sagan]

Has this become a finance thread rather than a Warne thread?

I would definitely have fired Warne earlier in the season. And said so at the time. Obviously he is Clowes's man and the recent statement from Clowes makes clear they are going forward together long term. DC sees much more of what happens around the club than me. From a far distance as a fan, I would still have considered replacing Warne now, with a proven Championship manager like Cooper or an exciting up-and-coming coach like Skubala, so they would be the ones directing the spending over the summer. But it's very clear that's not going to happen.

What Warne has done well is the even keel, the acceptance that you win and lose games, but instilling in the team the understanding of the consistency and desire and togetherness that is required for a promotion campaign. We had the best defence in the league and the best goal difference. Hopefully we can build on that, but good midfielders and then forwards (the players we need) are expensive. We have to find value in the transfer market - the Adams signing is perhaps a glimmer of hope that recruitment is improving, even if one swallow doesn't make a summer - see CBT.

What I hope and expect Clowes is doing is preparing the succession plan, a bit like how clubs such as Brighton always have someone to step in when their manager is poached. Whether Warne is eventually poached (hopefully as it would mean we're doing well) or sacked, then Clowes needs to already have ten coaches in mind he thinks he could persuade to come, and who would take us to the next level. Maybe Cooper and Skubala would be on that list.

 

[Inverurie Ram]

🖤 Love Paul Warne 🖤

🖤 Love David Clowes 🖤

🖤 Love Derby County 🖤

Still far too many pirates on this ship that want to jump onboard the merry ship and stab whoever they want in the back to grab the treasure and bring some unlawful big name like previous pirates “Stevie Mac the Knife” who was up to various skullduggery with loose woman and lost his bottle of watered down rum in the process.
 

These pirates are now all over wickedpiratepedia and hanging around various ports quoting all sorts of pirate names in their pointless fight for a mutiny to try and turn the good ship into a pirate nightmare on the seas.

At one stage if felt like I was sailing this ship alone until good people came aboard to enjoy seven seas swimming so well. 

Let’s stay on the good ship and keep the pirates away.

😡 🏴‍☠️ 😡

🖤 🐏 🖤

 

 

 

[DavesaRam]

On 30/04/2024 at 05:21, oodledoodle said:

Wasn't that thread from October, when things were looking absolutely dire on the pitch? I appreciate it's a results business, but at the time we were getting neither the results nor a performance. We'd barely troubled the top six the previous season, and looked set to repeat the same again.

The message was sent loud and clear that it wasn't good enough. Had things carried on in the same manner, he'd have been out of a job. Absolutely no doubt in my mind. It's also important that Warne at this point was freely admitting things were nowhere near good enough. It wasn't just us Warne outers that were critical. He was agreeing with us.

Credit given to all involved that following that "altercation" with Hourihane and the fans, results did improve. And that was despite key players being out injured. I absolutely think that the toxicity at the time knocked some reality into the players and staff. I think it was their make or break time. I also absolutely think we'd be nowhere near second had we all just clapped them off every game, and quietly accepted whatever garbage was being served up. I truly think it was the moment the penny dropped for the club. And it was needed.

I think that point in time, when the Warne doubt was at it's highest, that neither camp was wrong. One camp were fed up with things as they were in reality. One camp were optimistic things would improve. I'd also argue both camps were right because despite results improving, arguably the football didn't. So some very valid questions remained.

However it's results that get you up, so most sane doubters were placated. And we did go up. Because we're Derby and we're brilliant, regardless of who's in charge.

But I'm always wrong, so feel free to disagree.

Superbly well expressed, Oodleddodle!

[Inverurie Ram]

@oodledoodle have a pot noodle and stick Whitney Houston up ya jumper, and enjoy yourself because the Rams are going up…….🎼

🖤 Love Paul Warne 🖤

 

[Archied]

2 hours ago, DavesaRam said:

Superbly well expressed, Oodleddodle!

Not really , that thread , that thread ?,

this forum was made pretty much unusable for a fair time , a new Warne out thread every ten minutes , every other thread invaded and turned into a Warne out thread by a very determined few posters ,brow beating , swamping people who just wanted to support and read about derby county and happy to be patient with the manager, eventually people got sick to death with it and started to fight back against this aided by the sterling job it was becoming clearer and clearer Warne was doing ,,,then what ? A rewrite of history and veiled accusations of bullying ,,, really ? 
some really need to take a long hard look at the state this forum was becoming and the behaviour of some posters who were brow beating the hell out of people on virtually every thread🤷🏻‍♂️

 

[LeedsCityRam]

12 minutes ago, Archied said:

Not really , that thread , that thread ?,

this forum was made pretty much unusable for a fair time , a new Warne out thread every ten minutes , every other thread invaded and turned into a Warne out thread by a very determined few posters ,brow beating , swamping people who just wanted to support and read about derby county and happy to be patient with the manager, eventually people got sick to death with it and started to fight back against this aided by the sterling job it was becoming clearer and clearer Warne was doing ,,,then what ? A rewrite of history and veiled accusations of bullying ,,, really ? 
some really need to take a long hard look at the state this forum was becoming and the behaviour of some posters who were brow beating the hell out of people on virtually every thread🤷🏻‍♂️

 

Lets drop this nonsense that one side were more 'virtuous' than the other. There were a few determined anti-Warne trolls that even I found tiresome but equally some pious, holier than thou Warne obsessives who were incapable of answering honest concerns about Warne without deliberately missing the point and/or attacking the poster in a dishonest attempt to discredit arguments.

Not entirely sure why you're taking the bullying suggestion so personally either.

[Inverurie Ram]

@Archied & @LeedsCityRam love your fellow Rams Fan, we are stronger together……bickering bickering like Ronnie Pickering….we are better than that.

Anyway Liam has a message for you all……

 

[DavesaRam]

37 minutes ago, Archied said:

Not really , that thread , that thread ?,

this forum was made pretty much unusable for a fair time , a new Warne out thread every ten minutes , every other thread invaded and turned into a Warne out thread by a very determined few posters ,brow beating , swamping people who just wanted to support and read about derby county and happy to be patient with the manager, eventually people got sick to death with it and started to fight back against this aided by the sterling job it was becoming clearer and clearer Warne was doing ,,,then what ? A rewrite of history and veiled accusations of bullying ,,, really ? 
some really need to take a long hard look at the state this forum was becoming and the behaviour of some posters who were brow beating the hell out of people on virtually every thread🤷🏻‍♂️

 

I notice towards this end of this thread that there is still disagreement, some of it quite entrenched, but there is now a degree of civility about the discussions, which is good!

On his arrival, I had concerns but was quite willing to give the guy a chance. After all, he had been somewhat restricted at Rotherham. I was also looking forwards to good times at the start of this season, but was somewhat concerned by our lack of control of matches, and the commensurate lack of actual football. His stubborn insistence on his "one way  to play" approach quite rightly earned him criticism, which peaked at the time of the great rebellion. The football wasn't just dire, it was mostly appalling. And much as many were prepared to put up with it in order to get out of this hell-hole, it was a really tough watch. I was by this time shifting quickly to "Warne Out", simply because it was clear we were capable of a much better level and style of football,  and when we saw glimpses of it, the good results followed. However, although criticism was, I believe, well justified, there was no need for the personal insults which were being thrown around. I may have lobbed a couple in hinting at his apparent lack of coaching and tactical prowess, but that is where it stopped. Form me it didn't reach the level of personal attack, and if I posted anything which could be perceived as such, then I apologise.

But then there seemed a watershed, a turning point. Whether or not the ferocity of the protests triggered or not most of us will never know, but all of a sudden we found Collins in the area when  crosses were being sent in, and the crosses themselves were no longer stratospheric. We also seemed to explore the use of midfield, which for months had been treated by the club as a barren wilderness. And the results started to come. The mood changed, and only changed after matches like Northampton and Wycombe, where we reverted to Warne's original MO. But having seen changes to how we approached games I was critical of going back to what had demonstrably failed several times, but hoped that it was a temporary blip. 

What I have observed, and this is just my opinion, is a maturing and growing by Paul and his team, so given the restrictions which the club still faced right to the end of the season, think he has done a good job. It was good to go into the closing matches expecting a result each time. I still believe that we could have achieved a lot more with a more expansive approach to tactics, but Paul Wane had his view of how to get the job done. He certainly helped his cause with the signings of Nyambe and Adams.

I am confident that in the same way that Paul knew how to get us out of League One, he also knows what will be needed to make us an established top-half Championship club, and am looking forward to seeing how he goes about it.

I am also looking forward to going into the new season on this forum with the new level of civility that we seem to have generated. WE should have a great future together.

COME ON YOU RAMS!

[Inverurie Ram]

 

[Archied]

8 hours ago, LeedsCityRam said:

Lets drop this nonsense that one side were more 'virtuous' than the other. There were a few determined anti-Warne trolls that even I found tiresome but equally some pious, holier than thou Warne obsessives who were incapable of answering honest concerns about Warne without deliberately missing the point and/or attacking the poster in a dishonest attempt to discredit arguments.

Not entirely sure why you're taking the bullying suggestion so personally either.

I am happy to drop it , the bullying thing ? I don’t take it personally I take it seriously as it’s the kind of thing that infects every area today , it’s a very sad tactic to throw out false accusations of this kind of stuff then just refuse to back it up , so yes move on 

[On the Ram Page]

7 hours ago, DavesaRam said:

I notice towards this end of this thread that there is still disagreement, some of it quite entrenched, but there is now a degree of civility about the discussions, which is good!

On his arrival, I had concerns but was quite willing to give the guy a chance. After all, he had been somewhat restricted at Rotherham. I was also looking forwards to good times at the start of this season, but was somewhat concerned by our lack of control of matches, and the commensurate lack of actual football. His stubborn insistence on his "one way  to play" approach quite rightly earned him criticism, which peaked at the time of the great rebellion. The football wasn't just dire, it was mostly appalling. And much as many were prepared to put up with it in order to get out of this hell-hole, it was a really tough watch. I was by this time shifting quickly to "Warne Out", simply because it was clear we were capable of a much better level and style of football,  and when we saw glimpses of it, the good results followed. However, although criticism was, I believe, well justified, there was no need for the personal insults which were being thrown around. I may have lobbed a couple in hinting at his apparent lack of coaching and tactical prowess, but that is where it stopped. Form me it didn't reach the level of personal attack, and if I posted anything which could be perceived as such, then I apologise.

But then there seemed a watershed, a turning point. Whether or not the ferocity of the protests triggered or not most of us will never know, but all of a sudden we found Collins in the area when  crosses were being sent in, and the crosses themselves were no longer stratospheric. We also seemed to explore the use of midfield, which for months had been treated by the club as a barren wilderness. And the results started to come. The mood changed, and only changed after matches like Northampton and Wycombe, where we reverted to Warne's original MO. But having seen changes to how we approached games I was critical of going back to what had demonstrably failed several times, but hoped that it was a temporary blip. 

What I have observed, and this is just my opinion, is a maturing and growing by Paul and his team, so given the restrictions which the club still faced right to the end of the season, think he has done a good job. It was good to go into the closing matches expecting a result each time. I still believe that we could have achieved a lot more with a more expansive approach to tactics, but Paul Wane had his view of how to get the job done. He certainly helped his cause with the signings of Nyambe and Adams.

I am confident that in the same way that Paul knew how to get us out of League One, he also knows what will be needed to make us an established top-half Championship club, and am looking forward to seeing how he goes about it.

I am also looking forward to going into the new season on this forum with the new level of civility that we seem to have generated. WE should have a great future together.

COME ON YOU RAMS!

A good and more positive post than some you have made. I think some fans over-credit themselves with the view that they changed the way the team played following the defeat at Stevenage. Paul Warne and his players would have known that their performances weren’t good enough to achieve their pre-season goal of automatic promotion. The team weren’t helped by the number of injuries they had, forcing some players to play out of position etc. Warne was also not able to get some of the new players he wanted e.g. an “Adams” type player and he first spoke to Nyambe at the start of the season, but he didn’t want to sign at that stage as he thought someone higher in the pyramid would come in for him.

The team and manager fixed their form, not the irate supporters. 
 

I sincerely hope he is able to sign the players he wants this summer, as I am keen to see how Warne plays next year. We do still need more aggression, athleticism and pace in the team. Make no mistake their will still be plenty of “roll your sleeves up” encounters next season but hopefully some very good football to go with it.

[Anag Ram]

Another thing I would like to say in praise of the management team is that in past seasons, there seemed to be very few goal scoring options.

This season I think we had 19 different scorers. Nineteen!

Just shows that confidence has risen in the squad.

 

[MadAmster]

@DavesaRam The lift was right 🙂

On the PW front, I'm expecting to see more of his post 3rd promotion with RUFC football than that of the first 2 he had with them. In the weeks leading up to us nicking him, their fans were waxing lyrical about the results and the style of play being served up. An expansive style. I hope my expectations become a reality.

[Srg]

18 minutes ago, MadAmster said:

@DavesaRam The lift was right 🙂

On the PW front, I'm expecting to see more of his post 3rd promotion with RUFC football than that of the first 2 he had with them. In the weeks leading up to us nicking him, their fans were waxing lyrical about the results and the style of play being served up. An expansive style. I hope my expectations become a reality.

Warne has always talked a pretty good game with regarding what he likes. Fast, athletic, pressing, front-foot etc etc. Aligns with what I'd to see too.

He's always been hamstrung in delivering that with the players we've had at our disposal and those we could realistically get under restrictions. This is a major chance to see if he can actually put those ideas onto the pitch.

[Gerry Daly]

Having been relegated twice from the Championship should at least have give Warne a good idea of what works and what doesn't in that league. He clearly knows how to get out of this league which was the number 1 priority, get us out and get us out quickly. That has meant that we have limited the haemorrhaging of money and our best young players, both from the first team squad and the academy to a minimum. 

Warne's last attempt at the Championship was short lived but successful up to that point. So hopefully that's an indicator that lessons had perhaps been learned. He should certainly be better prepared for the tactics and standards required this time. When you listen to Warne its obvious that he's a bright guy, he's far more erudite than most football managers you listen to so it seems inconceivable to me that he can fail to understand the tactical nuances that his arm chair critics - myself included - accuse him of. Bright guys are better than most at learning too. So why did we hate the football so? I'm coming to the conclusion that Warne knew better than we did that the ugly, basic football the team played a lot of the time was the most effective at that level. He said - and I criticised him for it -  ''my job is not to entertain the fans, its to get results''. My criticism at the time was 'no Paul, your job is to do both'. Whilst I still think so, maybe I should concede that his view, as a professional, is that to do both may be possible but with this squad would be less certain to get promotion quickly which was the overriding priority. 

So lets see how recruitment goes, this summer and next January. I think we will make a solid return to the Championship finishing comfortably mid table and then kick on the following season            

[MadAmster]

1 hour ago, Srg said:

Warne has always talked a pretty good game with regarding what he likes. Fast, athletic, pressing, front-foot etc etc. Aligns with what I'd to see too.

He's always been hamstrung in delivering that with the players we've had at our disposal and those we could realistically get under restrictions. This is a major chance to see if he can actually put those ideas onto the pitch.

Agreed. However, we should, IMO, temper our expectations. Clowes has been clear from day 1 that the club will be run sustainably and be self sufficient. i.e. he's not going to throw millions at it. We'll spend what we can afford and no more than that. If it takes 2 or 3 seasons to start challenging for the top 6, so be it.

Obviously, top 6 is where I'd love to be this time next year. I'm just not going to run that particular flag up the pole as it's a perfectly normal wish but not a likely probability. Midtable would do me fine under the circumstances. If we do better, you won't find me complaining about it.