Guest blogger Elliot gives his thoughts on Derby's return to pre-season.
With the latest news coming out of Derby that they have released winger Jordon Ibe, the club is now down to just 13 senior players. Those numbers need to be looked at a bit further as two are goalkeepers and one is Krystian Bielik who is out with an ACL injury and will most certainly will not play any part at the start of the new season. The Rams can just about scrape by and say they have 11 first team players. None of those are centre-backs.
The future looks continues to look bleak, even if Derby do start the season in the Championship, as it stands, they will be one of the favourites to get relegated. This team struggled to score goals last season, have seemed to lose striker Martyn Waghorn on a free transfer (to Coventry) and a team that conceded goal after goal are somehow defensively weaker than later season.
The most frustrating part for Derby fans is that the team will have to be rebuilt without without having to dip into the transfer market. There are plenty of talented free agents at the moment, however the longer The Rams remain inactive in their pursuit to sign anyone, those players will be snapped by other clubs.
The likes of Dwight Gayle who has lit up the Championship before is now a free agent. Yes his wages would be high, but minus a transfer fee surely he would be a good signing for any Championship club.
The off the field issues clearly have to be sorted before we will see any sort of movement in terms of players coming in but the longer that goes on the more concern this is causing fans.
The lack of communication to the fans has been a massive irritation. The club has of course lost a great amount of money through the lockdowns and is trying to find new owners. At the moment there are just murmurings go around that new owners may be coming in soon but there is nothing concrete. Since an open letter that was published by the club there has been a massive lack of communication, which is odd considering the letter stated the club wanted to be more transparent.
With COVID restrictions looking to finally end, Derby will be looking to sell season tickets soon but they will have to ask themselves this… who is going to be putting money into a club that has a squad not able to compete in the championship and one that cannot respect it’s own fan base?
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