Rams fans are divided in their opinions of Nigel Clough's performance so far, but I think we are pretty much agreed on one thing - Nigel is a pretty shrewd transfer market operator.

Fellow RamZone reporter Nathan Morley recently wrote about his good signings and also the ones that didn't work out. Among the latter were Chris Porter, Nathan Tyson, Chris Maguire, Lee Croft and Dave Martin. You could toss in Saul Deeney, Ben Pringle and Connor Doyle, but not much was expected from those three signings anyway.

Considering that the poorer signings were spread over almost five years - from January 2009 to the present - I would say that is quite a short list of failed signings.

By contrast, we could delve into the squad that Nigel inherited.

From the January transfer window in 2007 until Nigel was appointed, Billy Davies created a squad designed to storm the Premier League, and Paul Jewell carried on the good work. The results formed the basis of Nigel Clough's "inheritance".

By my reckoning, Nigel inherited six players that went on to contribute something under his regime. I'm using the word contribute very broadly here; some didn't play much, and some were not that good, but here are the six; Stephen Bywater, Steven Davies, Kris Commons, Robbie Savage, Rob Hulse and Paul Green. That's not a squad; it’s not even a team. It’s half a team, some of whom were constantly absent due to injury.

For this column though, my interest lies in the others; the rest of the "squad" bequeathed by Billy and Paul. These are the players upon whom, at least at the beginning, Clough's reputation depended.

You may want to make sure there are no small children present as you read their names; Roy Carroll, Ty Mears, Martin Albrechtsen, Dean Leacock, Paul Connolly, Claude Davis, Jay McEvely, Andy Todd, Mo Camara, Jordan Stewart, Gary Teale, Mile Sterjowski, Andrejs Pereplotkins, Stephen Pearson, Tito Villa, Liam Dickinson, Nathan Ellington (loan), Aleksandr Prijovic, Ruben Zadkovich and Przemyslaw Kazmierczak (loan).

Oh, and just to soak up any transfer kitty Nigel might have thought of spending, there's Jewell's Revenge; otherwise known as Luke Varney.

I've omitted the three young Rams products - Lewin Nyatanga, Giles Barnes and Miles Addison - from the list. Also omitted - because they had left a few months before Nigel arrived - are Eddie Lewis, Benny Feilhaber, Craig Fagan and Alan Stubbs; I'm sure they would have made Nigel's job a lot easier!

That's a 21 player Hall of Shame. Close to ten million pounds in transfer fees, and a lot more in wages.

Did any of them play in the Prem after leaving Derby? Only Ty Mears deserves a mention for his time with Burnley. They didn't manage many Championship games between them after leaving the Rams either. I think any one of us could have built a better squad by picking names at random from a list of League One players.

It’s hard to imagine people given the major responsibility of managing a Championship football club making such a persistent streak of bone-headed decisions.

Looking at the list, I'm even prepared to suggest that any success Billy Davies and Paul Jewell have enjoyed as football managers has been down to dumb luck.

The Rams absolute priority when appointing Nigel Clough was someone who could maintain our Championship position, with this wreckage of a squad, and build something better without spending much money.

So, when you ask what happened to the Brayford money, remember this; it has already been spent, on Gary Teale, Jay McEvely or perhaps it was the down payment for Claude Davis.

And when you want to demand that the Rams go out and spend to acquire more players, you might pause to reflect on what a dangerous place the transfer market can be.

Especially when we had a dolt in charge!

Photo: Action Images

Richard7 added 17:18 - Aug 23 Good article Bill. So many supporters seem to play fantasy football these days they forget that it is difficult verging on impossible to move out under performing players especially those on high wages - for some reason the name Claude Davis springs to mind as an example. Many of the players you mention were released at the end of their contacts. Also it needs to be remembered that when Nigel took over, Robbie Savage spent his Saturdays shopping in Manchester, trying to dispose of some of the £24k per week we were paying him, as someone had supposedly told Paul Jewell that "his legs had gone". In order to buy Savage Jewell had sold 2 of the players who could have stabilised the club in the Championship more quickly - Steve Howard and Matt Oakley. Nigel deserves a lot of respect in salvaging something from Savage. Under Jewell he'd been loaned to Brighton, then in League 1, and his last action was to be substituted when Brighton were 2 down and they then came back to win 3-2 . I'm no supporter of Robbie Savage (and wish the BBC would terminate his contract) but at least Nigel got some contribution from him on the pitch for the money we were committed to pay him.

0

Rochdale Polls