Here are some thoughts on last night’s defeat to Leicester.

• I wrote last week that I have nothing against Tom Carroll and he looks a top quality young player. However there’s no doubt that our team selection, performance and subsequently results have fell off the edge of a cliff since his arrival. Clough has stated several time of late how he didn’t understand why we weren’t “at it” from the start. The main reason is, in recent weeks, it takes at least 45 minutes and a couple of tweaks to find a formation that works (see Barnsley, Reading and Leicester).
  

  "Bloody hell, who was that bloke we signed from Notts County"

• Clough’s notorious stubbornness and black/white attitude to players is really costing us at the moment. Hands up who thinks our midfield would be as easy to walk through/past/around with Bailey and Addison in there? Again, there’s no question Hendrick and Carroll are good footballers but they are so easy to play against its not true and they don’t offer the quick direct passing you get from Bails.
• On a similar note, what’s happened to Ben Davies? Whilst always a marmite character with Rams fans, what you definitely get from him is someone who is a genuine right side midfielder, a shift and decent shooting/delivery. He should be at least on the bench as opposed to two centre halves last night.
• I think Bally has done a monumental shift in difficult circumstances over recent weeks, but he needs a rest. For me, we need to persevere with Tyson but we definitely need Theo back in. Genuine nuisance value who makes things happen every time he’s on the pitch.
• Finally last night’s attendance of 28000 was unbelievable. If you consider that Leicester only bought about half of what they would have done on a Saturday, it’s even more so. We regularly support the general fiscal policy of GSE, but with support like this after the 3 years we’ve had, it has to be said it’s about time something a bit better was served up.

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On that basis it’s hard to criticise those who do. However the utter drivel being spouted by the first few callers after Saturdays thrashing at Southampton (not helped by the Radio D team) demands a comment.

I know its standard form that when the Rams win, you pretty much get (literally) radio silence and then  it’s Yanks out, Clough out, every time we lose. To be fair I don’t think DCFC fans are alone in this trait.

Whilst it’s disappointing to see a “nice but nothing” club like Southampton sprint past us to the Premiership, the whole “that’s what you get if you invest” chorus, conducted it has to be said by messers Davies and Bloomfield, was fundamentally flawed.

Currently in the Championship, only two clubs have thrown serious money at their team. One being West Ham, who, armed with parachute payments and an experienced manager, have made a calculated big punt on going straight back up. The other is Leicester City who have, frankly, had a debacle of a season and are currently no better off than the Rams.

Southampton are widely regarded as having one of the best academies in English football and have promoted from it regularly over recent history. Nigel Adkins is also a good manager who has signed proven championship players who he knew well.  But most crucially of all, in the context of Saturdays comments, is the fact that in the summer they sold a player for in excess of £10m. A fact conveniently ignored by everyone, including the professional journalists.

I could write plenty more on this, but I’ll just leave you with this thought. If/when somebody gives us a silly money offer for a Hendrick, Bennett or a Hughes which we accept, don’t cry asset stripping or no ambition, revel in the new found spending power. If we ever turned down such a bid, then that would be cause to say that Southampton have a better plan than us.

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However the predictable way the second half panned out, the ease in which Reading saw out the game after their goal and our now established mid table league position has prompted a new round of “where are we going?” type comment and conversation.

Let’s start with a positive and be clear, this season has been a massive step forward. We’re nowhere near the bottom of the table and have indeed been involved and flirted with the top 6 for most of the season.

Billy Davies always says you need three good runs in a season to be successful in the Championship. We’ve had two already and it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that we could string another run together before the end of the season. That probably won’t be enough to get us into the top 6 now, but should be enough for a single digit finish, which, in reality, is exactly where we deserve to be.

"Look I know you're not used to it, but I really think you can do a job down the right"

There is no doubt that the core of the team is good and we are definitely now “difficult to beat”. However, accepting several of them are coming back from injury, none of our strikers still look like they are capable of scoring 15 goals a season. Half of them don’t look capable of playing 15 games!

Moving into midfield, the right side has all of a sudden become a problem position. Whilst its nobodies fault that Brayford got injured, why couldn’t Ben Davies have done a turn instead of Hendrick, Tyson or Bryson (all of which looked lost)? Whilst he deserved to get dropped when he did, he had a great start to the season and, say what you like but, our set pieces have been awful since his demotion.  Assuming Greeny is leaving, right midfield is almost becoming the new “must have” for the summer (left back is sooooo last year).

In central midfield, I have no problem with Tom Carroll and he looks a good player but, to use Nigel’s own philosophy, is he better than Hendrick or Bails? The short answer is no. I can only think that we assumed Greeny was leaving and something has gone on with Bailey. Random transfer speculation swiftly followed by a random benching (don’t forget he was MOM against Stoke) are both signs of a possible issue. On the basis that we are not going up or down, surely an experienced head or twenty games for one of our own youngsters would have been a better idea.

The next few games look tough and we need to get scoring some goals again soon. However, being positive, I am confident that overall we’ll win more than we lose before the end of the season which, as I said earlier, would be definite progress.

I’ve already heard Nigel speak a couple of times about “what we want to do in the summer” and I am sure he already has his targets and plans in place. I am pretty sure this summer you will see a quality not quantity policy and you may even see us cash someone in like Brayford, Bailey or Bennett (those Man City rumours won’t go away), if we need the funds to get the creativity and ruthless finishing we now so obviously need to get to the next level.

Keep the faith everybody. It’s a long and frustrating ride, but we’ll get there.

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When Ryan Noble joined the Rams for his second loan spell,Derbyhad several strikers injured. We had won five games on the bounce and we hoped the in-form Noble (judging by his record for your reserves) would help us keep the momentum.

Noble’s first available game wasBurnleyaway where he started on the bench but was introduced at half time after an early injury to Theo Robinson, as a like-for-like replacement.

The following Saturday, the Rams were playing Stoke at home in the FA Cup and Noble was guaranteed a start but Martin O’Neil decided he didn’t want him Cup tied. An odd decision in my view as I wouldn’t have thought Noble would be pivotal toSunderland’s FA Cup campaign, yet 90 minutes against Premier League opposition would have been great for his development. Surely the whole point of loaning him out?

Noble startedDerby’s next match – away toBarnsley– and was part of one of the worst 45 minutes I’ve ever witnessed as a Rams fan, with us 3-0 down after half an hour. Noble wasn’t especially bad but didn’t contribute a lot, playing firstly centre forward and then wide right. He was replaced after an hour by the returning Nathan Tyson, who looked lively as the Rams pulled two goals back.

Our next match was postponed and Tyson started the following Saturday with Noble on the bench. With Theo Robinson and Steve Davies now fit, our striker crisis is over and Noble’s loan due to expire.

So once again, we’ve had Ryan Noble for a month but due to circumstances, not seen a lot of him. I’m sure it’s been a disappointment for him as well. Maybe we’ll try again next year. Third time lucky anyone?

(Written on the morning of his last match with us and trying to tempt fate that he’ll score the winner!)

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www.ramspace.co.uk

• I can understand why Green was left out but Clough definitely got his starting team wrong. Hendrik looked lost on the right from the first minute and Carroll gave Bryson little or no help in stemming the Barnsley midfield tide. Why Bailey was excluded after his performance against Stoke I don’t know.
• I said before the game our front 6 was unbelievably young and even Ben Davies could have done a shift on the right to add a bit of experience. Unfortunately men against boys was how the half played out!
• Having said that, our general play was as bad as I’ve seen for a long time. Nobody could pass on the floor, the movement was shocking (as was the pressing) and pretty much everyone seemed to be off the pace or have their head down.  Barnsley won every second ball (and first and third) and the gaps we gave them made them look like Brazil.
• The penalty the ref gave them was as soft/harsh as you’ll ever see. Looked a standard coming together as the ball ran out of play which happen 5 or 6 times every game. If the ref saw a pull, he was the only one who did.
• After looking totally out of his depth in the first half, Carroll was majestic in the second and I think he will enjoy playing at Pride Park. He pretty much ran the show and Tyson also looked sharp when he came on. Wardy put his bottom lip away after his goal and got back to his old self and a second goal a bit earlier would have made it interesting because Barnsley were on the ropes.
• It’s easy and boring to moan about refs, but on the basis of the harshness of Barnsleys penalty, how he didn’t give one if not all 3 of our appeals is a mystery. The high kick on Brayford was well worth a shout but the handball and in particular the foul on Carroll after his fifa12 marquee spin were as nailed on as you’ll ever see.
•  The Rams should take credit for the second half, but the damage was done. Barnsley were no great shakes and we should have taken something from the game. However I guess West Ham didn’t expect to lose 5-1 to Ipswich!

Lets hope the real Derby County stand up on Sunday!

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During the summer, Tom Glick spoke about appointing a Director of Football type role, to help us get players in and out. The topic is back up the agenda this week with speculation about Ross Wilson from  Watford being sounded out about the role. The art of selling players is rarely discussed but recent years have shown the growing importance of off-loading to the Rams.

Selling players hasn’t been one of the Rams strengths in recent years. Our turnover of players has been huge yet the minority have brought in funds. Off the top of my head, I can think of Earnie, Miller, Varney, Tito and Hulse that we received significant fees for. The problem is that even these players were sold at a loss (£4.25m for Hulse anybody? We’ll come back to timing later).

On the plus side, we haven’t sold many players against our wishes; but on the downside, getting rid of players has constantly been a drain on our resources, rather than a source of income. This has been demonstrated more clearly than ever during the past two transfer windows where we had hoped to get fees for Bywater, Pearson and Leacock that would boost our transfer kitty. In reality, getting rid of them has cut into our budget.

The sale of Dean Moxey was viewed as a bit odd and/or a bit pointless at the time. However, there was a simple logic

Derby's most profitable sale in recent history by virtue of not being a loss.

behind it. Trade someone who is not “part of the plans” and not in the team, for someone who would go straight into the first team (Ben Davies). Say what you like about Davies but he has been in or around the team since. I’m sure the two deals weren’t dependent on each other but money moves in and out. If Moxey had hung around and became an outcast (every possibility under Clough), he could well have become a Croft-esque toxic debt.

To demonstrate the importance of trading even more, look no further than our friends down the A52. Prior to last season, Mark Arthur (Forests Chief Exec) boasted that Forest had turned down £1m bids for Nathan Tyson and Kelvin Wilson. Two players that weren’t regular starters in the Championship. Madness. A year later, both players left for nothing, having started 20 league games between them during a season of constant contract speculation. (Wilson actually signed pre-contract for Celtic in January and was officially “injured” thereafter).

Despite Billy Davies’ constant complaints about not signing players,Forest’s inability to move players on has meant a glut of strikers clogging up the wage bill. Last season Earnie, Tyson, Adebola, Blackstock, Tudgay, Findley, McGoldrick, Garner (loaned out) and Boyd (loaned in). This season, Earnie, Garner, Tyson and Adebola have all left (incoming money = nominal fee for Garner) but the numbers have been swelled by Miller, Derbyshire and now Harewood joining (approx £2.5m spend). This kind of activity needs heavily subsidising and Nigel Doughty has done that for ten years. Now the subsidies are over,Foresthave no money and an unbalanced squad.

One of the most difficult aspects of selling a player is getting the timing right. The basic problem is that a player’s peak value will coincide with the most unpopular time to sell him. Look at the uproar a few years ago when clubs were sniffing around Idiakez, Smith and Camp for fees ranging between £1m and £2m. A year or so later, we got less than £1m for all three. No one was bothered though, they were no longer key players – fans don’t worry too much about the loss of income, the Directors can always pick up the tab.

Selling players sometimes needs a clinical business head without sentiment; and a thick skin against fans reaction. Dean Sturridge for £5.5m, Malcolm Christie for £5m, Rob Hulse £4.25m; who wouldn’t have done these deals in retrospect?

After Boro's bid for Studger was declined, they turned their attention to Michael Ricketts. The scout was sacked soon afterwards.

Tom Huddlestone is widely seen as being undersold and we tried to avoid a repeat of this by declining paltry bids of £1.5m-£2m for Giles Barnes, who as we all know, left for nothing relatively soon after.

The important thing seems to be that you need to be in control of the sale. If a player is playing well and/or the team are doing well, then the negotiating position is strong. When you are actively trying to get rid, buying clubs feel like they are doing you a favour (because they are!). As Glick said, clubs would not just take Bywater et al for nothing, they even wanted the Rams to sweeten the deal with the player, allowing the acquiring club to offer lower wages/signing on fee. Players like this become toxic debts over time, hence the need for a Director of Football to aid the outward trading as well as inward.

To continue with the Forest case study, there are some good examples of the above. The first being Lee Camp. In the summer, Swansea made a substantial bid for Camp (£3m allegedly), who was apparently keen on a Premier League move. Forest declined the bid and Camp’s form this season has noticeably declined. The moment has gone. With Forest in the bottom three and openly saying they have no cash, the value of the squad has shrunk massively. Cotterill has said they won’t be selling their best players but how many of their squad men are worth £1m nowadays? By not trading along the way,Forest have gone from keeping their players under the counter to openly advertising a damaged goods sale.

"If you don't sell me, I'll let one through my legs against Derby"

Without a Sugar Daddy (such as Doughty) or parachute payments, Championship clubs have to sell. 1) To bring money in and 2) because the Championship will not be the limit of your best players ambitions. Reading are a good example; selling Long and Mills on their own terms whilst maintaining a play-off challenging squad.  Burnley and Southampton have also made controlled sales whilst performing well in the league.

Whether it be this transfer window or the next, it’s likely that The Rams will face some tough decisions sooner or later. Would you sell Ward for £2.2m as the Leicester rumour would have it? (a massive profit in a matter of months but also our in-form player). What happens if Brayford or Bailey are ready for the Premier League before we are, would you begrudge them a move or keep them down? How about a bid Mason Bennett? (will he be a Huddlestone or a Holmes?).

This time last year, all the talk was of Kris Commons. The decision to sell was unpopular at the time but completely forgotten since Ward’s emergence. This year the debate will be around Paul Green. No one doubts that Green is a good player but with Bryson, Hendrick, Bailey and Addison (yes, let’s not forget him as he played centre midfield in Barnsley’s win at Leicester), the only space for Green is on the right hand side of midfield, not his preferred position. A tactical sale, followed by acquiring a right winger might be a good idea. But of course, some will argue to keep him and sign a winger!

There’s no doubt to make this work, it helps to have a long term view. Thankfully The Rams have this. Clough seems to have one eye on the conveyor belt of players coming through and has already mentioned Tom Naylor and Will Hughes as factors influencing the future of Ando and Green. Can you imagine Silly looking a year or two into the future like this? It’s not just Silly though, most managers are forced to take the short term view out of self preservation. Only the likes of Ferguson, Wegner and Gradi have the luxury of being able to plan like this.

The transfer speculation in January might be a nightmare for managers but great for fans (especially on a slow day at work). We watch with interest who will be joining us…and who will be leaving!

Here’s the first batch including Bywater, Ando, Leacock, Pearo and Dave Martin:

Stephen Bywater:

Bywater has featured in at least one previous Departure Lounge, if not two. He looked destined for Ipswich at one stage but came back; he bizarrely almost went to Tottenham but it fell through; and he might have joined Cardiff had he not had a rush of blood in the play-off semi. He has had his moments with the Rams, most notably the promotion season and Clough once proclaiming him to be one of the best English ‘keepers around.

Despite a few errors, Bywater was never really a “calamity keeper”. His biggest flaw (as pointed out by Simon our in-

"So Stephen, how's your career going?"

house goalkeeping expert) was that he simply didn’t prevent enough goals. As obvious as that may sound, you only have to witness some recent “match winning” saves by Fielding to demonstrate exactly what is meant by this. Bywater rarely, if ever, earnt us points. Throw in the odd error and a dodgy temperament and its time for him to move on.

Now on the bench in League One behind a fit again Nicky Weaver, which suggests Clough’s judgement is shared by many of his Championship peers.

Russell Anderson:

Often referred to as a “model pro” and regarded as an all round good guy, it was a shame for Ando that he has simply faded away. He had shocking luck with injuries, starting the season for two years running, yet completing neither match. He always did a decent job for us when he did play and didn’t let anyone down when covering at full-back – he simply wasn’t on the pitch enough, starting only 18 games in 2 1/2 years. To be fair though, he was only ever going to be a squad player and arrived for free. To borrow a phrase from Noel Gallagher “it as hardly Paul McCartney leaving The Beatles” when Ando moved on.

Dean Leacock

It was reported this weekend that Leacock would be leaving and is likely to join Leyton Orient. For a player I never rated highly, I was surprised how far his star had fallen. Leacock was one of Billy’s first signings and was almost ever present once Davies had decided on his preferred defence.  In a season based around narrow victories and pinching goals, Leacock was a star and at the time linked with Everton for a few million quid. We all know what happened in the Premier League. Like many others, Leacock didn’t look at home there and his weakness for being brushed aside too readily was exposed several times.

Like many other recent Rams, injuries hindered Leacock over the next couple of years with him in and out the side.

Torres had no goal drought in these days.

Always popular with the fans, I was amazed at how often I heard people saying “we’ll be fine when Leacock comes back”, his stock seemingly rising as Jagger’s parade of dodgy defenders came and went (Albrechtsen, Darren Powell, Clod etc. although we can’t blame Jag’s for the latter).

Barely over a year ago, the Rams were riding high, with Leacock and Barker looking a good Championship partnership…then it all went horribly wrong.  If a single match can break a players career, then Leacock at the City Ground was it. Played at right-back by Clough, he was torn apart by Tyson and then again by Clough in the press afterwards. From that moment on, Leaock was clearly “not part of the plans” any longer. He did play again – most notably in a solid performance in the return Forest fixture – but his time was up.

As I began by saying, I’m surprised Leacok has dropped into League 1, especially to a club with no prospect of promotion. Still only 27, don’t rule out Leacock bouncing back to the Championship in the next year or two.

Stephen Pearson

Like Bywater, there’s not much we haven’t already said about Pearo and he has also probably featured prematurely in Departure Lounge’s of the past. In summary, we have always thought he’s more an athlete than a footballer. Able to run the length of the pitch with the ball but rarely does anything with it. Another player hampered by injuries over the years,  he has always threatened to be a decent player but never convinced fans or managers that he should be a regular.

His play-off winner is his obvious legacy but his annihilation of Paul Connolly against Leeds last season was also a rare highlight of his Rams career.

Dave Martin

A(nother) strange episode in Nigel’s transfers dealings. There will always be signings that don’t work out. However, to have someone on loan for 4-5 months, proclaim them to be “coming on nicely”, sign them and then freeze them out was just plain odd.

Dave Martin was initially thought to be a victim of the Rams new wingerless formation but as time went on and

This is what he looks like folks!

formations changed, it was quite clear that Clough did not fancy Martin in the slightest. It was probably signings like this that made Clough decide he wanted established Championship players from now on (as he said last summer).

If the move was a bad one for us, it was even worse for Martin. Last season Millwall flirted with the play-off’s, whilst he was loaned out back in League One or playing reserve team football. Now he’s dropped again to join Southend in the basement.  Never mind, he scored on Saturday and he’s now got Dicko to keep him company.

“Getting a few out is priority”, “only if it’s a significant improvement on what we have” and “we’ll react in the loan window if we have to” are phrases most fans of DCFC are now well used to hearing in the month of January.  However this year, there doesn’t seem to be half as much reaction to the statements as usual.

Whilst I fully accept that whilst the team is winning, fans generally don’t worry about anything else, I also believe that there is now a general recognition amongst even the harshest GSE/Clough critic, that our model is a good one and we are on the right lines.

Over the last two years, Rams fans have endured various relegation battles whilst working through harsh austerity measures. To compound matters, we’ve also had to endure our two most local rivals enjoy several full on promotion tilts whilst regularly signing players for big fees and/or wages.  To rub our faces in the dogshit, we’ve also been spanked by them both on several occasions.

Tom bags the real thing whilst Leicester burn £4.5m on a poor mans version.

But what happens when you “invest heavily in the playing staff”, “have a go” or “show some ambition”? Perhaps a Newcastle have a bit more money than you;  maybe your new players don’t quite gel;  or perhaps you quite simply backed a twat of a manager. Well you have to chase the money you’ve lost with yet more money, you get relegated or you go into administration.

Last year Forest lost £10m, the year before they lost £11m. Last week they sold 10,000 tickets to their own fans for a Cup game against local rivals. Up until Friday night Leicester had actually sold more tickets. Their wage bill remains higher than their turnover.

If you think Nigel wasted £250k on Dave Martin, imagine what Cottrell feels like with Miller, Greening and Derbyshire. The latter two worthless, all with full contracts to run and (I would imagine) none of them on less than £15k per week as a conservative estimate.

Now let’s look at Leicester. Slightly different in terms of having significant (soulless anybody?) foreign investment, but throwing money around like water. In reality is Jermaine Beckford (£3m, 5 figure salary) more effective than Theo at this level? Is Matt Mills £3.5m better than Shacks? Is Konchesky £15k plus a week better than Robbo? The answer to all of this is No. Let’s hope their owners run out of money or get bored soon.

When teams get promoted to the Premier league you constantly hear people talk about “surviving first, then let’s build something”. Likewise when teams come down its very much promotion first time or meltdown. The current structure of DCFC means we will never fall into this category.

So whilst I’d love us to sign Billy Sharp (why do Rams fans have a thing abut him?), I’d love Greeny to stay and I’d love to see a loan from one of the big 4 premier league teams, I also see we’re in a great position now for sustainable improvement over a significant period of time.

Don’t believe the hype. The only way is up.

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The Rams began the season with a run (“why haven’t we given Nigel a new contract – its a disgrace. Sack the Board”) before going into a massive dip (“sack Nigel, sack the Board”). With an awkward looking Christmas on the horizon, the Rams have managed to put together a impressive mini run which has seen us jump to 9th (2 points from the play-off’s).

Happy New Year twitter haterz

All three victories were against promotion/play-off contenders.

How did this happen? Well, a point I’ve made several times in conversation recently bears repeating: if you asked 100 Rams fans in August what our strongest team was, the majority verdict would have been: Fielding; Brayford, Roberts, Barker, Shackell; Bailey, Green, Bryson (although unknown quantity at the time); Ward, Tyson, Maguire/S Davies. With the exception of the final striker, our best 10 was an easy pick, yet it took until Boxing Day to get them all on the field at the same time. A co-incidence that we’re winning? No. OB, Hendrick, Theo and B Davies have all been great at times this season and earned us points but none were expected to play 46 games.

In contrast to last year, when the points total was similar but the trajectory downwards, The Rams could be embarking on a second run. Nick Barmby’s post match comments about Derby “parking the bus” could have been a side swipe but for a team with less clean sheets than a seaside B&B, it was music to our ears.

We’re always optimistic at Ramspace and don’t like to get carried away. However, you may recall us predicting a top eight finish before the season (repeated by me in the Guardian pre-Christmas). We’re still not getting carried away but the line graph of progress isn’t looking too far off.

Not an unusual sight at this level.

vs. Radford FC on the 2nd of January. Sick of drinking Carling in the clubhouse, “Post Office John” has arranged for a few barrels of Derby brewed Mr Grundy’s beer to be available, with proceeds going to the club. An expensive pint for John but a great gesture none-the-less. Even better news is that the first pint is only a quid with a DCFC season ticket or CAMRA membership.

So if you’re at a loose end on Monday, get yourself down to the Watkinson Bowl (Borrowash rd. Spondon). If it gets cold, you can always stay in the clubhouse watching Sky Sports News!