Quote Originally Posted by ramAnag View Post
Wow...you must be approaching 3000 words now. You’re not Frank Lampard Snr or Uncle ‘arry in disguise are you?

You also seem to have developed the politicians’ strategy of deliberate misinterpretation to try and substantiate your argument and I really haven’t got the time to answer each and every point...it would mean writing as much as you and, frankly, life’s too short.

With that in mind I’ll just address your final four points, which I’m assuming is what you rest your case on.

1. Lampard was only a ‘marginal’ and questionable improvement on what went before. He finished in the same league position and with one less point than Rowett had twelve months earlier, but he took us to the final rather than the semi final. That, by anyone’s definition is a ‘marginal’ improvement.

2. How and at what point could the club start planning for life without the loanees? In the immediate aftermath of Wembley it wasn’t obvious that Lampard was going to leave and had he stayed it seems quite likely that Tomori at least, possibly Wilson too, would have returned. Who knows? His initially unforeseen but ultimately dragged out departure hardly helped out with the club’s ability to plan...that’s kind of the point.

3. See above. Yes it is possible that Lampard had to deal with a ‘difficult financial juggling act’ although that would presumably have been partially alleviated by the significant sale of Vydra. He may well have ‘done his best’ but he spent a lot of money and, as I’ve pointed out, his transfer purchases were not very impressive were they?

4. ‘Unfortunate’ and unhelpful? Hmmm...yet again I think that’s what I’ve been saying, albeit in rather fewer words than you.
Do I blame him for leaving to go to a bigger and ‘better’ club...no...it happens in all walks of life...but dress it up however you like, the way in which Lampard went left us in a mess, and that’s not ‘unsubstantiated assumption’...it’s just fact. The timing of his departure left us with huge wholes to fill and very little time to do it and the signings he actually made were, as I’ve already described, imo ‘mixed’ at best.
So basically your blaming Lampard based on your unverified assumptions, thats fine we are all entitled to a view, but it helps if there is evidence to back it up.

If the club hasn't got plans in place for transfers well before the end of the season, then frankly its a very badly run club! Irrespective of who the manager will be, or which loans might or might not return, the job of the scouting and player acquisition team is to have potential transfer targets identified early on - obviously things change as players not expected to leave get bids or whatever, though one would again hope there a variety of scenarios are planned for and the clubs management team have half an idea of who wants to go or who they would like to get rid of.

The idea that no targets were identified before Lampard decided to leave is naïve thinking - yes another manager might have different views, but he can only pick from the same pool of players plus whatever contacts he might have. For a club like Derby player acquisitions are governed by the potential fee, the likely wages and availability - Managers will have made it clear what players in what positions they need early on, thats why you have scouts!!

In Derby's case we lost 3 loans, we were always going to lose 3 loans, can't see given the existence of a plan that changes things one bit, other than in your assumption, which may be right but certainly isn't a verifiable fact!

I've already addressed the issue of incoming transfers, Lampard's were no worse or better than other manager's, again its likely that they were the players that could be bought that fitted what he wanted, on the other hand they could be what Mel or someone else had identified as targets before he came, who knows you or I certainly don't, so another assumption that they were Lampard's choice!

You bend over backwards to give Cocu the benefit of the doubt, but seem to do the opposite with Lampard. The only thing thats fact, is it was unfortunate and not a help that Derby changed managers again!

Mind you we have had the same manager this season as last, so on that basis we should be doing better?