The Derby players reported back for training and supporters awaited more movement on the transfer front.
Much of the news is about expectation and anticipation surrounding the 2010-11 Championship campaign and the usual pre-season fitness news fillers.
I received my latest DCFC e-Newsletter exhorting me to buy the next £40 Adidas Rams’ shirt. Well two such mails actually! One informed me that the ‘reveal’ will be on July 16th in the city centre...but it’s still a ‘no thanks!’ from me!
There was another bulletin for me too, advertising the Christmas party bookings at Pride Park Stadium. Fair enough; all the summer World Cup barbecues and parties have been extinguished after the England debacle!
Monday saw another chapter added to the dog-eared Derby County ‘Medical Card’ with the disclosure that Jake Buxton has only just undergone surgery for his troublesome groin and stomach injuries. The club hopes that the procedure will resolve the persistent ailments - but the surgery rules out Buxton for some six weeks.
He’ll therefore miss out on a proper pre-season and although he contributed last season, especially when many other defenders were injured early in the campaign, there’s a question mark over his capacity to withstand the demands of football at Championship level.
The Rams will also be missing midfielder Stephen Pearson for the early part of the campaign, and Miles Addison for probably the whole season. There’s also a question mark over the resilience of Dean Leacock.
Nigel Clough could certainly do with better luck in 2010-11 regarding player fitness and the revamped medical/physio responsibilities that he has implemented will be expected to bring a dramatic reduction in the casualty rate.
The last thing fans want to hear are more stories of woe and worry about long-term injuries - they want the Rams to be fit, up and at it, and competitive from the get-go without the litany of injuries and squad disruption of last term which so badly affected selection consistency and League form.
Some fans mull over whether players are getting under-trained (or were before they came to Derby) or over-trained. Are Cloughie’s disciplines too tough for some; have training schedules proved too demanding for recovery on top of the physical depletion of players in need of recuperation between games?
Some of the Rams’ players say DCFC’s pre-season is the toughest they’ve ever experienced. That might reflect on their past clubs, or player attitudes to hard work! Successful teams have settled line-ups because of low injury incidence and loss of form is accommodated by greater availability in the squad.
Ex-Rams’ winger Gary Teale, released at the end of last season, joined Sheffield Wednesday, who are preparing for life in League One after relegation. Many fans will smile contentedly as I’ve written ‘Ex-Rams’ in front of Gary Teale and I confess I’m glad we’ve moved him on.
Another character who won’t be in the Rams squad either is winger Lee Croft. He is on his way to Huddersfield Town on loan until January 2011. Clough signed him with from Norwich City last summer with high hopes that Lee would deliver quality service into the forwards but after a few promising performances, his form dipped and injuries spoiled his season for months on end.
Derby County players reported back for pre-season training at the turn of the month. Newcomers Gareth Roberts, James Bailey and John Brayford met up with their colleagues in the Rams’ squad for the first time.
Roberts and former loanee Tomasz Cywka were able to complete their free transfers to Derby County on July 1st when their contracts with their existing clubs expired. Both have 2-year deals with the Rams.
Young Irish international defender Mark O’Brien, who came through major heart surgery last year, is also set to figure in Derby’s first-team plans.
Manager Nigel Clough will want newcomers to settle in quickly, stay fit and contribute. Fans are hoping that the players will join together successfully in 2010-11 after the inconsistency of form and injury disruption that dogged the last campaign.
The Rams are using the training areas and scientific fitness and performance in Loughborough University, which will facilitate measurement and monitoring of player fitness levels and performance.
Ex-skipper Robbie Savage manfully talked up the Rams’ chances as the 2010-11 squad came together for the first time, and he hoped that Kris Commons could play a key role in Derby’s season.
Derby have a tough opening schedule commencing with the televised away game at Leeds United and must hit the ground running, or could find themselves perpetually battling away from the lower reaches of the Championship as in the last two campaigns. It’s time to swap places and let others do the struggling.
Clough knows that scoring goals will be key to that progress and wants Paul Green to hit double figures - he scored only twice in 2009-10. Green has scored 8 goals in 77 appearances; Stephen Pearson has hit the net 3 times in 95 games.
Robbie Savage scores one per season - he only has a handful of goals since joining Derby too. So, that trio between them, over 2 seasons and more than 250 games between them haven’t exceeded 20 goals in total yet in all that time.
Unless you have a couple of midfielders that can notch around 10 goals a season to add to the tally of your main marksmen, you’re going nowhere. Hopefully with the contributions of Commons & Davies (if fit), Tomasz Cywka, Dave Martin and James Bailey, we can improve our strike rate. Goals win games!
Heritage matters will be in the news in the run-up to the new season; the Clough & Taylor statue will soon be revealed. The families were pictured at the site near the north-west corner of Pride Park Stadium, as the statue foundation stones were laid.
Peter Taylor’s daughter, Wendy Dickinson, will have the first of her two books out, which will chronicle the life of her father from the backstreets to the Baseball Ground in the first volume.
It will be a welcome story and will add to our knowledge of the duo’s life and times, coverage of which which had gravitated much more towards the history of Mr Brian Clough.
International managerial casualties have hit the headlines as high-profile coaches are sent tumbling from their posts as nations exit the World Cup less than gloriously, and now the attention is turning to the domestic scene as the new season draws ever closer.
No doubt there will be more managerial shuffles even before the season is under way but in the Championship, Nigel Pearson’s move from Leicester City - play-off contenders last season - to newly-relegated Hull City has surprised many people.
The Foxes appeared to be building, but now have to install a new regime. Hull is cash-strapped and trying to cut their cloth, under the guidance of former Rams’ director Adam Pearson. It will be interesting to see if either club is a contender in the Championship promotion race in 2010-11.
On Merseyside, the wily Roy Hodgson has taken the hot seat at Anfield and Liverpool’s recovery will be anticipated feverishly by all those poor downtrodden Koppites who have seen their team fall out of the Premier League top four.
Fans of his Hodgson’s club, Fulham have experienced the elation of a European final and now the loss of their talismanic manager in the space of a few short months. West Ham Cast-off Gianfranco Zola may fill that role.
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RamsWeek 27 last year was a case of ‘here comes the judge’ as the ex-Rams directors Jeremy Keith, Andrew Mackenzie and Murdo Mackay, and their crony were all found guilty of the various charges of fraud, conspiracy to defraud and money-laundering. Soon, the fraudsters would be serving jail sentences.
The Rams’ players reported back for training and as with any year, there were the newcomers hoping to impress and looking forward to their new challenge at Derby, and some injury cases fighting to get fit and play their part.
Derby’s new Adidas kit was launched and the Shop DCFC racks resembled a clothes store as ever, with a new twist of black and white to the range.
Waste-of-money Paul Jewell signing Emanuel Villa let Derby and joined Mexican club Cruz Azul, for £1.5m, whilst Nigel Clough was still chasing Blackpool defender Shaun Barker.
It was also a year ago that the Sky fell in on former RamZone platform provider, Rivals, as RZ webmaster Arild had predicted a year earlier. Rupert Murdoch’s relentless global conquest saw no utility in allowing football fans to run their own websites, and so he closed Rivals down.