We are experts in making offers that are definitely not enough. We are so shoe-strung we spend that long messing about on fees that we always miss out on the better "targets" that come with competition, even when they're heavily discounted. De Lange last summer being the prime example of this. Val wanted 90% of his business done before pre-season. Which contradicts what some fans say on here about patience - that hasn't got us anywhere. It's about getting the targets in as quickly as possible so that they can bed in and increase your chances of a successful campaign. We have billionaire owners but are constantly scraping the barrel and missing out. As it stands today we have 1 new signing training with the first team, no one has heard of him and are short on the following players from last year: Dolan Weimann Batth Woodrow Dennis Cozier-Dubbery Beck Sanderson That's a lot of minutes missing.... from a team that wasn't good enough to get the playoffs. We haven't picked up any astute free transfers, some of these have resale value which would have been key to our model if not spending, in the mould of Viktor Johansson from last year; these are the fine lines that means we haven't and never will make the playoffs under Venky's due to a non-competitive approach in the market: As it stands this isn't a rebuild, it's simply a lot of time wasting and a seemingly major inability to tie down any valuable senior players to attractive long term contracts. There's not a chance we paid millions for Taveres. Career wise he isn't even a player that would be worth £2m, it's nonsense... but they will advertise it during the next crisis video. We have all of the signs of a team operating without any influential senior executives... and still, distant owners. As a result current players are holding off from committing, or know they can get a better offer elsewhere.

Wasn’t this guy linked with Wolves? Would be great signing but I can’t see it.

Yeah but look on the bright side. This guy has reported it on twitter, so it will soon be in the Telegraph, half the fanbase believes overnight that we are going around making bids like this and the best part of it is it doesn't cost us a penny. Free positive publicity. What's not to like.

Ah well, we tried. Time to get some premier league kid on loan instead

Hahahahaha.

That's a rough start and an even rougher finish. 😂 Good luck to them!

I see Kerkaz has signed for Liverpool. I think that means Beck will be available again.

Yup! Classic Venky's Rovers... trying to make it look like they're trying by tabling stupid lowball offers that they know will be rejected.

We do seem to get more than our share of these type of injuries.

Yes but if we know the selling Club are after double what we're offering for players, then we've little or no chance of succeeding we're just tyre kicking.

In other news... we've also had a £10m bid rejected for Cole Palmer. Love the ambition, they're trying their little best! Seems like the selling Clubs are just being greedy.

A tough start and a tough finish to what increasingly looks like being one feckin hellish season. Not seen any relegation odds for Championship yet but think Rovers and Sheff Wed will make a tasty and profitable double!

First time I've seen his top set of teeth

Very bad news if correct. To miss 4 of the 6 weeks pre season means the lad wont be ready for the start of the season and he could be trying to play catch-up for months to come. These things happen but we seem to suffer more than most with injuries - think our once much vaunted sports science / medical department has been dumbed down, like all areas in the club, beyond recognition. There's always a price to pay.

Yes, but like Rovers under current conditions, she wasn't competitive..

Name was dragged through the mud twice by Eustace / Derby and then the Women's team too.

I bet we have to play all the teams home and away. It’s the same every bloody season.

At least the one in lane two competed.

Don’t forget Rohan Kanhai. Sunil Gavaskar rated him as the best batsman he’d ever seen and named his son Rohan. Saw him playing for saint annes at Leyland around ‘61. He lived in Blackpool for 60 years.

We’d be the one in lane 2:

It isn’t an exact science like if it is hamstring (just guessing at this stage) you could do all your tests and they come up yes fine but when your running you could overstretch it on a turn or a stride where it’s classed as a ‘strain’ same with groin and quad injuries just happen - there’s no conspiracy to it

I couldn't care less about it being Derby. Shame it wasn't against Preston. That would have made it a bit more of an occasion.

Shouldn't all the testing/complex pre season programme prevent the possibility of all that? Never remember it happening when they just sent them off to run up and down sand dunes.

150th anniversary game will be a belter anyway! Derby county

More likely to happen early in pre season after being off for weeks Unfortunately it just happens