This week RamZone asked columnist Stuart Hughes - “GSE promised to strengthen the squad but instead it has been weakened. What are your thoughts now the transfer window has closed?”
Stuart Said:
There is no doubt that the January transfer window represents a huge missed opportunity and has served only to weaken the Derby County squad in terms of numbers, quality and goal scoring potential.
Both president and chief executive Tom Glick and manager Nigel Clough entered the transfer window saying we were looking to strengthen by adding a central defender, a central midfielder, and a striker. Music to my ears, if I’m honest, particularly the much needed striker.
Whether you like it or not, whether you agree with it or not, clearly Derby County are working to a budget and the contract offer the club placed on the table for Kris Commons would’ve made him the Rams highest paid player.
I’m assuming, therefore, that other decisions regarding players and player wages couldn’t be made until the club knew whether Commons was staying or not.
I’ve commented previously on the Commons saga and won’t repeat myself here. I can fully understand the frustrations of Glick and Clough over this though.
If a player says to you, “I’m happy here and I want to stay and this is what I’m looking for in terms of salary and length of contract” then you’d expect that player to sign on the dotted line – the way that Shaun Barker did – when you meet those demands in full.
I don’t blame Kris Commons for joining Celtic – more money, European football, opportunity to win trophies and medals, improved International chances – but the protracted contract negotiations must’ve affected the club’s ability to progress Plan A, Plan B or Plan Z.
Until Derby County knew whether the £15,000 per week was going to Commons or not they wouldn’t know which plan they were pursuing. The whole saga must’ve distracted and hindered other plans to strengthen the team, particularly in regard to any permanent signings the club had planned.
Ben Davies came in from Notts County and Clough must’ve been delighted to finally sign a player he had been tracking for some time and had tried unsuccessfully to sign in the summer.
The transfer negotiations were played out in the media a little too much for my liking with Notts manager Paul Ince accusing Derby County of deliberately trying to unsettle a player they wanted to keep. I think Glick deserves credit though because this deal was concluded reasonably quickly without descending into the farcical merry-go-round we had when a certain former manager tried to sign Ferrie Bodde from Swansea City.
Other publicised loan targets failed to materialise during the transfer window. Liverpool’s central defender Daniel Ayala almost signed, indeed was announced as signing in some media quarters, but the deal didn’t go through because he was still carrying a hamstring injury.
The pursuit of Leicester City’s Martyn Waghorn seems a strange one to me but there must be something in it otherwise the club wouldn’t still be pursuing it. The Foxes management are telling the player to stay and fight for his place whilst at the same time they are signing strikers left, right and centre to push him further down the pecking order.
I can only assume that Waghorn is unhappy at Leicester and looking for a loan away from the Walkers Stadium otherwise Derby County would have dropped their interest by now.
And then there was Kilmarnock striker Conor Sammon. This, more than anything, shows how crazy the pressure created by the transfer window is. I’ll be honest, I’d never heard of Sammon, but based on one goal I’d seen him score against Celtic on You Tube, I suddenly found myself willing Derby County to sign him on transfer deadline day and was disappointed when our bid was turned down, even more disappointed when Sammon signed for Premier League Wigan Athletic.
I don’t think I was the only Rams fan wanting us to sign Sammon because this player we’d never heard of was suddenly going to be the saviour of our season. As fans we got impatient when instead of putting in a bid, Clough decided to go and watch Sammon one more time, a decision that would leave just two days before the window closed to make a move.
I felt better on Tuesday when I read in the Derby Telegraph that Kilmarnock did accept a Rams bid at 6.30 pm but, let’s be honest, we were never going to sign Sammon once a Premiership side came in for him.
And maybe that explains why Nigel Clough, not me, is managing Derby County. The budget for new players is tight so the Rams can’t afford to gamble on players, or pay over the odds for players that may not improve the squad. They certainly shouldn’t panic and sign players they don’t really want.
As far as the outgoing players are concerned I can’t really argue with them. With Commons, much better to get some money for him now than nothing in the summer – he’d offered nothing against Crawley Town, nothing against Watford, and nothing against Nottingham Forest.
Dean Moxey is a tougher one. I quite liked Moxey but also I have to admit that he’d been at fault for quite a few goals this season and his ridiculously unnecessary second yellow card against Forest probably sealed his fate.
I don’t think the club were looking to push him out the door but when an out of the blue bid came in for him from Crystal Palace (undisclosed, but thought to be in the region of £400-500,000) then I think that represents a good value for a player who may have reached his level. Clough probably felt it was too good an offer to turn down.
Although we also released Mitch Hanson, Kallum Keane, Graham Kelly and Medi Abalimba, it’s still only one in and two out in my mind because these young players weren’t really part of the senior squad.
Stuart Hughes is a local writer and Derby fan. You can read more of his written work on his website www.stuarthughes.webs.com