Czarnikjak

Distant possibility. We look like a midtable team tbh. I wouldn't read too much into beating depleted Everton without their main goal threat in DCL and Richarlison. It's like us playing without Watkins and Ings. Edit: and without Martinez and Cash

I am not denying that he was better than Watkins today. All i am saying is that if Smith decides to play 4-3-3 with only one striker, watkins is much more suited to this role, with his physicality and harassing defenders. Smith was clear that he has no intention on playing Watkins out wide. So if Smith decides to play 4-3-3 i believe Bailey-Watkins-Buendia is our strongest front line with Ings an option of the bench.

Let's be honest, if everyone is fit and Smith wants to play 4-3-3, Ings fits only on the bench. He is not as effective as Watkins as a single striker.

It's owed to MSD and secured against the stadium owned now by the holding company (or one of the other subsidiaries). What happend i think is that Mel took a loan from MSD to buy the stadium from the club. So the club itself is not in debt, but it doesn't own the stadium anymore.

All valid points Peter, we don’t know the whole picture as Derby have not published accounts since 17/18 season. They were due to publish them in August as part of the agreement with EFL, not sure how administration would affect that. What we do know: 1. Mels takeover wasn’t one of those leveraged buyouts ( like Man Utd or Burnley) where buyer effectively buys the club for money borrowed in clubs name. He actually paid for the club without saddling it with debt. 2. Up until 17/18 the club was virtually debt free, With all the debt under Mel and his holding company : Something went horribly wrong since.

Yes, seeding in groups is based on coefficient. But that's not all, coefficients are more evil than this. You get extra money for hight coefficient. Let me give you example: Aston Villa (zero coefficient) and Chelsea (one of the highest coefficients) qualify for champions league this season. They both have exactly the same results, let's say 6 losses in group stage. Prize money - Chelsea gets €30m more than Villa. It sucks, but that's the way it is.

ASM carries them as much as JG carried us over last 2 seasons, this is clear to see. It's a given he will get injured again at some point, they should pray it's not longterm. They are already relegation candidates, without him for a longer period, they would be relegation certainties.

Strange attitude. I am sure everyone at the club would disagree with that. You not gonna get from midtable straight into Champions League places. If you ever want to see us in CL, few seasons of Europa League are unavoidable and necessary.

Mel Morris didn't leverage debt against the club. He kept putting in his own money (more then he was permitted under ffp) until he couldn't/wouldn't any more. Although I agree with your general point, stopping it wouldn't fix all the issues.

You can't loan him out again untill January, so he needs to stay there till then and fight for his place. Some Ipswich fans say he is clearly skilful but extremely lightweight on these rare occasions when he was on the pitch.

It's still early days and Gray/Townsend might proove to be flash in a pan, but it's just another example that you don't have to spend big, you have to spend smart. You would expect that chances of a signing being success increase with the amount spent, but it doesn't alway turn out like that. Following on from crazy summer 2019, i generalise our recruitment strategy as being very safe. High fees paid for relative known quality (either played for the manager before, or played in the division, or well known and scouted around Europe players ). Not many risks are being taken. You can see it as a positive and as a negative, I haven't made my mind up yet.

It's not negativity against Ings. The point people are trying to make is that when everyone is fit, one of Buendia Bailey or Ings would need to be benched (unless we play some sort of 4-4-2 formation which I believe is not best for our midfield). Out of these 3 i would bench Ings and play 4-3-3

We can’t, not until January.

Not really, our xG was only about 1.5 We lost as they have £100m striker and we made silly mistakes at the back.

An apology would suffice, no need to sack anybody.

True that. Even better example is Harry Kane. He was loaned out 4 times before making break through at Spurs. You really can't make a judgement about players future at this age. One thing is guaranteed, there will be some players from our academy that will never make it, even though big things are expected of them ( and the opposite, some will make it even though we don't expect them to).

Purslow said they needed to make a marquee signing for the academy to show young players and their parents that Villa are serious about youth development. Barry was perfect for that. Coming from Barcelona, with big reputation. I think he already played his role for us, helping us to kick start the academy and sign dozens of talented players from all over the country, even if he doesn’t make it himself not a big loss. As to why it’s not happening for him right now? Who knows, bad attitude, bad luck, bad manager, could by any combination of reasons.

That is true. But if you follow your logic, in this system we played yesterday there's no place for Buendia and Bailey. So did we sign THEM to be bench warmers? When everyone is fit, one of new signings will need to be benched unless we play some sort of 4-4-2 formation. And I see us stronger with 3 in midfield. For me, personally, Ings would be the one to bench.

Yes, that's true, and we haven't paid £30m for him to seat on the bench. In hypothetical scenario, where 2 up front doesn't work for us and Ings doesn't perform, it might make it difficult for Smith to drop him to the bench. We saw that last season with Barkley. He was crap for many games, yet Smith was persevering with him and kept playing him. There's big pressure on to keep your "big" players playing.

Sadly he had a really bad game against Chelsea. You can see how much a forward like Watkins brings to our general play, Ings just can’t Give you that. Although he is the more clinical finisher. tbh, in those 4 games I don’t think Ings contributed enough to our play. He scored a pen and THAT scissor kick, not much else. If we have to bench someone to fit Bailey, Watkins and Buendia in the team, I would bench him.

It is not straight forward. Last year we had 3 different teams broadly speaking : 1. U18 league team ( without best under 18 players who were part of U23 league team) 2. U23 league team ( over 18 players and the best of under 18) 3. FA Youth Cup team ( all best under 18 players)

Will find out more about Chelsea today, when they come against top opposition But I have been very impressed with them so far. They mauled Crystal Palace, not letting them have a single shot on target. Brushed aside Arsenal like they were not even there. Got a draw at Liverpool playing most of the game with 10 men. What's not to be impressed with?

I was thinking the same. 4-3-3 with Ghazi dropping to the bench. But watching smith's press conference yesterday i have no idea anymore. He was adamant that he has no intention of playing Watkins or Ings out wide...only through the middle together. If this is the case, ghazi might start LW and Bailey RW. Leaving only 2 in midfield.

Interesting proposal for a reform of English football pyramid by Fair Game organisation : https://www.fairgameuk.org/about Part of their Manifesto : THE FAIR GAME SOLUTION • Abolition of parachute and solidarity payments. • 25% of The Premier League TV rights both domestic and international - and new income streams such as streaming - goes to the rest of the pyramid and independent football organisations such as the FSA, PFA, LMA (up from 14% currently - note to properly tackle the cliff edge between Premier League and the Championship this proportion would have to be significantly higher). • The Introduction of the Sustainability Index as a measure to distribute funds fairly. This total pot is then split two ways: • 20% is given as baseline funding to clubs to spend in whatever way they see fit. • 80% split dependent on a club’s sustainability category rating (30% unrestricted; 70% on capex and community projects that can be either rolled over or backdated five years and should explicitly include investment in women’s football). To ensure cliff edges rise consistently, each division’s split of this money needs to be: • 46% Championship • 24% League One • 13% League Two • 7% National League • 3.5% National League North and South • 2% Women’s Super League • 1% Women’s Super League 2 (note: WSL divisions only have 12 clubs) Assuming every club reaches the highest standards on the Sustainability Index, this would give: • A category 1 Championship club not in receipt of parachute payments £13.91m an uplift of £8.81m • A category 1 League One club £7.26m an uplift of £6.65m • A category 1 League Two club £3.93m an uplift of £3.33m • A category 1 National League £2.12m – when they previous received nothing • A category 1 National League N & S club £1.06m • A category 1 WSL club £724,000; and • A category 1 WSL2 club £362,000

My previous post might have come accross defeatist, but I am trying to stay realistic. Not only is the system rigged against us, but we also started from very low level after Lerners and Dr Tony's exploits. In last 11 years, 43 out of 44 CL spots went to Sky6 teams...this is a sobering start if you hoping on us breaking the top 4 anytime soon.