Ramballs

It would be unfair of me to give a full opinion of the draw at Blackpool when I wasn’t there. I’m quite happy with the result because every point away from home is valuable but it’s the game on Saturday that will tell us if it was a decent point or not. There are a lot of fans around the messageboards who still appear to need 24hr suicide watch despite is picking up four points from the possible nine.

I’ve been browsing some of the messageboards and I’d like to share some of the more considered write-ups from yesterdays game.

First off, Milton_Keynes Ram from popside.com shared their post-match thoughts. MKR knows football and I think if you want a decent report of the rams performance, head over to popside.com and read MKRs comments after each match.

A clean sheet is always welcome but god that was a boring and crap game of football. In patches on Saturday at Scunthorpe we played better than we did last night, but the difference was a lot more solid against what was admittedly a very very poor Blackpool team who will probably struggle all season.

The first ten minutes we looked the more controlled and composed team and look to me like we would assert control and dominate the game but a few almost casual moments at the back, players trying to do too much on the ball, or no conviction when passing itl got the crowd into it for them and seemed to give their players the boost they needed and after that we never seemed in total control.

Addison and Buxton in particular looked more solid than at the weekend…..though given the type of forward Buxton was up against I’m not surprised. Moxey and Connolly on numerous occassions played their entire attack onside when they should be able to look across the line or/and take the lead from the centre backs and a better attack would have taken advantage. Savage too played them onside a few times when tracking back. To me I think the individual awareness of a number of players in these instances was poor, couple with poor communication from Addison/Buxton almost caused us problems that should never have occurred.

Green was missed tonight. Pearson started reasonably well in the first 5-10 minutes but rapidly faded out of the game and Savage never really took control of the midfield. Croft was exceptionally poor and should have been dragged off plenty earlier whilst Teale seemed frightened to take the full back on either side on. For the majority of the game Teale was up against Eardley the ex-Oldham right back we were linked with over the summer - looked a very good player albeit the first time I’d seen him.

Commons started well but then drifted more and more out of the game as it went on; surprised reading Clough’s comments about him post-match whilst Hulse was clearly not match fit. Although only on briefly Varney probably contributed more in the time he was on the pitch than in any other game for us besides the second half of his debut at Burnley last season.

Whilst we had problems with the offside rule whilst defending the amount of times Croft, teale and Hulse managed to get themselves offside at innocuous times was criminal.

Very poor and flat atmosphere from the travelling fans although the home fans made up for it. Did well to keep the noise in the ground given one temporary uncovered stand and one half built one. Never intimidating as some grounds can be but full marks for getting behind their team.

Finally if the rumours were to be believed about us being in for Charlie Adam over the summer I’m glad they weren’t true. Rotten rotten footballer.
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Over on the DET forums, ratpackramwrote:

Bywater 6 - nothing to do , one save in second half , dodgy ball control nearly let in their forward

Connolly 6 - poor first half , improved a lot in the second

Moxey 9 - outstanding , class class class , great buy

Addison 8 - never gave them a sniff

Buxton 9 - won every header, small but so is cannavaro, another great buy

Croft 5 - unfit , poor crossing, might do better if he lost a few pounds

Teale 6 - tried but no end product

Savage 6 - did what he does , kept it simple

Pearson 7 - just shaded Sav, had a
bit more going forward

Commons 8 - involved in anything we created which was not a lot to be fair but has our x factor

Hulse 7 - no service , kept battling away trying to flick ball on to himself as no one gambled for the flick on

Might get slaughtered for this but I was impressed with Varney when he came on for Hulse
what about playing him in home games alongside Hulse with Commons on the left linking with Moxey , push Teale on the right , get Croft on a diet and bring Barker in for Connolly.

Yesterday we all breathed a sigh of relief as Shaun Barker was officially unveiled as a Derby County player. The weeks of speculation as to whether he would sign for us or the red dogs had been doing the blood pressure of some fans no favours at all. Browsing the forums didn’t help either as they produced new updates every twenty minutes confirming he’d signed for us, or them, or us, or them. I even saw one dreamer declaring it’s was a done deal for Forest: they outbid us and were paying wages of £30k per week.

Capturing Barker was a always going to be a significant move for which ever club secured his signature; the Rams had made it pretty clear for a long while that he was a key target and it was no secret that Forest were in for him also so the following bidding war, ending with a Derby victory, was sweet. It’s nice to beat Forest at everything; on the pitch, on attendances and now to signing players. We should just be glad that Stuart Atwell wasn’t brokering the deal.

Across the forums you can almost feel the shift in confidence now that we have the man who describes himself as an “old fashioned defender”. I’ve seen messageboard contributors who had all but written us off suddenly believing the club are pushing forward and are heading in the right direction. Others are just glad that we’ve spent some money. Popside.com’s DSBean Leacock announced that this signature had “alleviated some of his fears” and appeared to be glad that we’d paid a fee, going on to say “I might have a choc ice later to celebrate”.

Some fans are never satisfied though. While browsing Come On You Rams, I noticed an distinct air of discontent coming from New England Ram who said “Wow so Nigel had noticed the need for a centre back after all. I just want to know why this was not his first signing. This signing should have been made weeks ago.” I’m no expert but I’d guess the hold up in the transfer probably had something to do with the the reluctance of Blackpool to just let their better players leave without a fight, the fact that we weren’t the only club intereted and the negotiation of personal terms. After all, this is real life, not sensible world of soccer.

Over at dcfcfans.co.uk there were reminders of what people thought of Barker when he played for Blackpool against Derby. JoeMadRam reminds us that many people had sour grapes and said Barker was a dirty player but those same people are now delighted that he’s our dirty player.

David, a dcfcfans administrator, agreed, saying ” when we play the likes of Forest which will be a dirty game you want Barker in your team to bully the forwards”, going on to say “every one loves a dirty bugger and thats why I’m still with the missus”. Ok David, there is no need to rub it in.

Over at ramzone.net there was talk of the rams having a more solid defence this season. Hemingway thinks that if the Rams signs Patrick Kisnorbo, things will be looking good for the coming year.

I agree. Against Burton, Kisnorbo put in a solid showing. He looked mobile, strong and he did well from set pieces, so a few goals throughout the season could probably be expected. Genuine competition for places is what Cloughie will be after and having filled his squad with hungry players with a point to prove, he’ll have competition in abundance.

One final thing before I go. If you haven’t checked out this article on Wee Billy down the A52, I recommend you have a gander. It may bring back some memories.

One of the most difficult things for any business is preparing for the future. Sure, businesses can make plans and try to position themselves as best they can for future changes in the marketplace but they can never be certain that their plans will pay off. We’ve seen it a thousand times over; Microsoft backed hd-dvd for the 360 instead of blu-ray, but blu-ray won the format war,; banks thought they could lend to people who didn’t have the means to pay them back and still make a profit but they got that wrong too.

The “normal” world of business makes investment decisions based on a number of factors such as demand, marginal costs and, of course, the amount of risk involved. Increased productivity and efficiency can save businesses huge sums which results in more profit but in the world of football productivity is a useless measure of success.

For football chairmen, there are no guarantees that a huge investment will bring about the results they desire. Where as a new machine in a manufacturing plant can bring greater economies of scale, the same can’t really be said for a new striker. Andrei Shevchenko cost Chelsea £30m and his form at AC Milan suggested he would be worth every penny. They were wrong. He was shite.

For a club like Chelsea, with Romans billions keeping them afloat, it’s easy to spend £30m on rubbish players because they just move onto the next one. Even with Romans billions, Chelsea still haven’t dominated the way many expected they might. Yes, they’ve had more silverware since Roman arrived but they haven’t won the Champions League and didn’t look much like winning the premier league last season either. Add Many City and their oil billions to the title race and Chelsea face even greater competition in spite of Abramovichs estimated £700 million investment into the club.

Clubs that aren’t in the top four, or don’t have billions in oil dollars backing them, face difficult investment decisions. Pumping extra funds into the squad, particularly in the lower leagues, can see a club rise up through the leagues. Doncaster have climbed from non-league to the championship under the ownership of John Ryan but that has cost him £5 million. That’s a remarkable success but for other clubs, the story hasn’t been so pretty.

The Premier League, with all it’s lovely branding, pots of television cash and international exposure, has driven some chairman to the brink of insanity as they chase down a Champions League place. While he was chairman at Leeds United, Peter Ridsdale went for broke as he pushed for a place at Europes top table. They failed. They had huge debts and couldn’t pay them back resulting in administration, a player exodus and two relegations. Years of turmoil have since followed as they dropped to league 1 where they remain for a third successive season.

Newcastle are the next club to find themselves teetering precariously on the edge. The media portrays the barcode army as some sort of super club when the reality is they have big support but haven’t won a trophy for fifty years or more. If league titles were settled by the number of messiahs a club can have, Newcastle would has walked the league last season. Had someone told Mike Ashley that he’d have both Kevin Keegan and Alan Shearer on his management team during the season he’d probably thought they’d do the double, he’d get the freedom of city and god himself (or herself) would concede defeat as the chief deity of the north east.

The experience of clubs like Leeds and Newcastle should act a warning to others, especially those chasing the Champions League spots. The board at Derby County certainly appear to have taken notice and are working hard to reduce the clubs debt. Under the ownership of General Sports and Entertainment (GSE) the club will be seeing a small profit this season and while this is due to a certain amount of belt tightening, it is also down to the new approach to sponsorship that Tom Glick and the team have taken. Last season our sponsorship revenues were double what they were where the previous season in the premier league. While I understand sponsorship revenue and “a small profit” aren’t likely to get fans jumping out of their seats, they are indications that the team is in the hands of professionals.

Browsing the message boards and reading some of the negativity can be seriously depressing at the moment. There appears to be a lot of criticism of the current owners for their apparent lack of investment within the squad which, according to some fans, must mean they aren’t serious and they are just here to turn a “small profit” and skim off the cream for themselves. Transfer activity is often seen by fans as being an indicator of a boards genuine hunger to bring success to club but a belief that high wages and high transfer fees are a recipe for success is terribly misguided, as the example of Leeds and Newcastle, to name but two, points out. GSE reduced the debts of Derby County rather significantly, spent approximately £9m on transfers in their first year and have doubled sponsorship revenue while freezing season ticket prices for those wishing to renew. These are not decisions of a board looking to make a quick buck and run.

Given the recent history of the three amigos it is easy to understand some fans cynicism, although I believe their is no reason to be so sceptical. The current crop of investors in Derby County are already wealthy beyond most peoples dreams and have been very succesful in their own field of work. Having the likes of Jeff Mallet, former president of Yahoo! Inc, in the investment team is a major deal. This guy isn’t concerned with playing with a train set and getting wrapped up in a false accounting scandal; he’s a serious investor with an interest in the sports business.

These guys want the club to succeed and I’ve seen little evidence to suggest that they want anything but the best for the club. What they have brought to the club is a level of professionalism that has been missing with Derby County for years. Despite Peter Gadsbys protestations, when he owned the club we weren’t great on the pitch and were terrible off the pitch. Now though, if you speak to anyone that deals with the new management team, they only have high praise for the staff. This works well behind the scenes and with Adam Pearson and Nigel Clough running the football side of the business, we appear to have a highly talented team working pitch side also.

Unless Kris Commons and Rob Hulse are sold from under our noses and the money is not put back into the squad, I’d recommend having some faith in this board. They haven’t yet done anything wrong and they have allowed both managers to buy new players. The fact remains that Nigel Clough buys the players he wants and the lower league players he has signed have been identified by him, not an American sitting in Detroit trying to balance the books. As Derby County fans we know what makes our club great and we recognise it’s potential. As such, it should come as no surprise to us that our potential is recognised and we are able to bring investment from around the world into our wonderful club.

How time flies? Ramballs was born one week ago today and already I’ve had some fanastic feedback, plus an amazing number of hits, so first of all I’d like to say thank you for reading the blog. It’s pretty time consuming, even though I haven’t added any huge articles or created a stunning design, but it’s good to see you guys coming back to check my updates. We even made it into the top 100 wordpress blogs of the day on July 4th.

DCFC News

This week saw the completion of two outgoings from Pride Park as Tito Villa and Tyrone Mears finally said goodbye.

News had been circulating for a number of weeks regarding Mears’ move away from the East Midlands. Portsmouth, Marseilles and Burnley were all touted as possible destinations for the right-back with the Turf Moor outfit finally sealing the deal on Wednesday. Derby fans were not surprised by the sale given the previous allegations made against Tye regarding his dash through a window to escape to France during Paul Jewells ill-fated reign. Burnley are reported to have paid £500,000 plus add-ons for the energetic defender.

Tito Villa has been sold to Cruz Azul, a Mexican club, for £1.7m. This represents a loss of £300,000 on the striker but most fans think this is a fantastic piece of business by Adam Pearson and the club. While Tito may have been a fan favourite, it was clear that he was not going to feature regularly for the rams and it was in the interests of both parties for him to move on.

Regarding his time at Derby County, Tito said “The most beautiful thing I’ll take with me is the love of the fans, I’ll remember how wonderful they have been to me and how well they treated me all the time.” I’m sure you’ll join Ramballs in wishing Villa the best of luck in the future.

The first batch of Coca-Cola Championship television dates were announced by Sky and BBC. You can find the details here and here. Derby County V QPR on October 24th will be shown live on BBC 2 at 5:30pm. Newcastle, on the other hand, have six of their first nine games being screened on either Sky or the Beeb.

The official DCFC site this week announced the continuation of the black and white half season ticket scheme. All tickets include 12 home league fixtures including a guaranteed ticket for the home tie against Forest. Prices start from £220 for adults and £84 for juveniles.

The 2009/10 home strip has been launchd. Ramballs was at the event in Derby market place and managed to bring you a exclusive photos along with some pictures from the event being held in Quad afterwards. The day was glorious, the entertainment was good, Rammie has had a revamp and the kit is, well, the kit is exactly the same design as most other Adidas strips for this coming season.Find Ramballs coverage here.

From the forums…

www.dcfcfans.co.uk has had a lot of discussion regarding the kit launch. DerbyDan seemed to enjoy one picture in particular, so much so that he made it his avatar. The picture in question was the model from the kit launch. In case you missed it, I’ve stuck her in again.

www.popside.com have been discussing their drinking habits on the “I’m so p*ssed I can’t actually speak” thread which has clocked up a rather impressive 1800 posts. DSB this week announced “I got utterly utterly tw*tmonged last night had a cracking time, was GREAT”. Keep up the good work DSB.

Ramzone featured news this week that Martin Albrechtsen has been told he can find a new club. The forum also discussed the recent closure by Sky of the rivals.net website which came out of the blue after the huge corporation realised that it wasn’t likely to turn a profit unless they paid it some attention and listened to it’s member.

And finally, there was much deliberation on the TheRams.co.uk forum about the design of the latest kit. The best mock up that I saw was from Cliffy who clearly put a lot of effort into his designs and managed to churn out quite a number of them, including the one below, my favourite.

If he hadn’t put the collar on it he’d have had it pretty much nailed on. Well done Cliffy.