I am really looking forward to the new season and hope that our new signings can make the difference and we have a really good start and stay in the top 6 all the way through with the icing on the cake being top two at the end of the season. However the Nick business still leaves a nasty taste and I have always said that Mr Allam can be very unpredictable so you can never be really sure that he will not throw a tantrum over something and everything will fall apart again. I think it is sad that the local connection that we had with Nick has gone and wish that things had been dealt with differently from the beginning. He should not have been pushed into management like he was, it should have been a gradual process with him having an input into the reserves and building an academy. The money for signings situation is still a mystery and I just can't believe that both Nick and Adam would have said what they did if there had been money. Of course there had to be signings now because how much stick would the Allams have got if they had not provided some, they had to back up their claims with the goods. Just want to get the season underway and see what happens.
those managerial appointments didn't work at all, but by all reasoning they should have, and ap will have been aware of their previous records: a. molby did well with kidderminster. no denying that. that duration made him look like a good manager. the fact that he rubbished the team after an encouraging opener to 2002-3 (2-2, goals from green and elliott both on debut with ashbee sent off on debut) said a lot about him that we didnt expect. but kidderminster made him look good and he wasn't. b. parkinson looked like a good manager. there was no denying it. but he wasn't. when he was in league 2 his teams would go up and when he was in the championship they would go down as later became obvious. c. whatever people think of dowie, and having an ugly head is not a way to judge a manager, his overall managerial record is no worse than phil brown's, he's got as many promotions as phil brown, he's got more points per game than phil brown, and as a last throw of the dice, given that nobody else wanted the job for 9 games, given that brown hadn't got us a win for ages, it was worth putting a statistically better manager in place and hoping for the kick in results mentioned elsewhere. but he too couldn't transform a crap demoralised team. on paper all three appointments should have worked. even alex ferguson buys crap players sometimes.
Pearson was brought in specifically to sort out the financial holocaust and debt chaos at Derby, which he duly did with cuts and budget reductions. Their commercial ops looked very vibrant whenever I have been there in the last two seasons.
From what little I have seen of the Allams they have wildly different personalities, and thus sometimes the messages from them seem contradictory. The old feller in particular should be kept away from the microphone.
The whole AP/NB thing has been done to death and my main regret is that Nick Barmby is longer at the club full stop. Ive said it many times and that is that he took on the thankless task of steadying the ship after NP left and did a good job to a point. What was wrong imo was that the Allams/AP should have said back in November that Nick Barmby is the caretaker manager only until the end of the season. Then that allows the club to decide if they want NB to carry on in the role or for him to drop back into the background staff area. NB should be in charge of the development squad imo and his loss will be felt much more there than at first team level. But that ship has now sailed and we have a new CAPT. We have moved on.
I was told that the club was originally for sale at 17m, with 8m going to Bartlett. I am pretty sure that that figure ended up near to 11m to Bartlett but that some of that was recoverable from a third party. It is hard to remember all of the details as it was just part of a conversation that now seems such a long time ago.
