Seems that Steve Howard is.....

[BlyBlyBabes 0]

......integral in steering Derby to the Prem with his 14 goals to date.

I suspect that therein lies a story.

Now with Steve Howard & Earnshaw in tandem up front at the season''s start - as Worthington wanted, to be fair - then.................................?

Water under the bridge, yes.

But will the Board learn a lesson? I doubt it, and that''s my biggest fear.

OTBC

 

 

[Chris Meadows 0]

Hulse has done pretty well at Sheff Utd

[Tim Allman 1]

Derby offered £1million for a Steve Howard, a thirty year old striker who had played just one season in the Championship for Luton. I have heard that he was offered around £15,000 a week in wages by Derby.

At the age of 30 it is unlikely he would improve, and with such high wages, the view may well have been that he would be not been able to command a transfer fee if it didn''t work out with Norwich.

At the Q&A with the board I attended at the start of the season, the board said they were staggered at the package that he had been offered to join Derby, and that we could not hope to compete with that.

If you think that we should be spending that amount of money on a striker with a track record such as his, fair enough. I don''t.

I''m not an apologist for the board - I think that on this occasion they got it right.

 

 

 

 

[Matt Morriss 69]

And exactly what purpose does this post serve?We dont have Steve Howard, but we do have Martin, Dublin, Brown and Huckerby so lets focus on them for a change instead of crooning after might have beens at other clubs....I dont give a flyin f... about players we havent signed, all I care about is the players we do have, and they were awesome today.....

[Steve H 0]

[quote user="BlyBlyBabes"]

But will the Board learn a lesson? I doubt it, and that''s my biggest fear.

[/quote]

But what is the lesson that they can learn???

I don''t really think that there is one. At the end of the day you can''t get every transfer decision correct, its just a simple case of the one that got away, and every club and every manager has got a bag full of storys about the one that got away.

When the board decided that in order to buy Howard we were going to have to pay over the odd, most people a were in agreement that they were correct, and I think that if we were faced with the same situation again i.e. a 30 year old striker who has only spent 1 year playing at this standard and not done that well, that we wouldn''t be prepared to pay the £1M that they were after

[nutty nigel 7,539]

I''ve been saying this all season BBB! And Worthy had a right go about it at the time. Nobody took any notice though because they were all to busy with their own agendas!

Now lets hope Chris Brown can do an even better job than maybe Howard would have. Then the water under the bridge won''t be so important.

To be fair to the board not many people thought we had missed much at that price at the time.

 

 

[Archie 0]

please find your post at the time and post a link that shows how adamant at the time you were about signing steve howard. willing to eat humble pie but i''m a bit bored of people pointing such clever facts six months on. personally at the time i thought steve howard was a bit old/not really up to it, i have been proved wrong

[canary cherub 1]

[quote user="Archie"]please find your post at the time and post a link that shows how adamant at the time you were about signing steve howard. willing to eat humble pie but i''m a bit bored of people pointing such clever facts six months on. personally at the time i thought steve howard was a bit old/not really up to it, i have been proved wrong[/quote]

Archie, the point is not whether the fans got it right or wrong.

The point is that Worthy wanted to sign him and the board didn''t back his judgement.  They should have backed him or sacked him, and they didn''t do either until it was far too late.

 

[nutty nigel 7,539]

This is what Worthy had to say in the summer:-

Strikers Steve Howard, Rob Hulse and Izale McLeod plus winger Luke Chadwick have all been identified as City targets, but asked whether he expected any new arrivals this week, Worthington was not optimistic.

He said: “It is most important from my point of view that we get people in as early as possible. The problem is that anybody who joins us now will be 2½ weeks behind in training and the very high levels of fitness we are trying to achieve.

“We have to be proactive rather than reactive. We signed Dean Ashton in January instead of pre-season and I think the lesson should have been learned from that.

“Things can develop very fast and it is a case of you can miss out if you don''t move swiftly.”
No - there is no individual one,” he said. “They were the top two targets, they''ve gone. The quality that we need in the football club just isn''t about - it is about but you need to go and pay mega millions and we haven''t got mega millions.

“The two that would have come in and helped take us forward have gone and there isn''t that much about that myself and the staff feel is really going to help us.”

Hulse, who has moved from Leeds to Sheffield United for £2.1m, was Plan A - Howard, who has left Leeds for Derby for £1m, was Plan B.

“There is not a lot of plan C, D, E, F, G, H from the point of view of the quality that we need to come into this football club and take us forward. I can go and sign five six-foot three strikers tomorrow for £100,000 apiece - they won''t do the job that we want because they are not good enough, simple as that, and if you want to move forward then you need good players within the club.

“We have looked across the board and the two top targets were Hulse number one, and Howard number two.”

“It is not a surprise because when there is not an abundance of those types of strikers about, they command high transfer fees, they command high wages,” he said. “Certainly in the Howard situation, yes, £1m is a lot of money for him, but if that''s what there is about and that''s the going rate at the time, then that''s it.

“There is a budget here and it''s a tight budget and we have got to manage that very carefully to get the most from that and with having a tight budget you have got to be very careful how you spend it, simple as that.”

And The Boards explaination was:-

A good example is striker Steve Howard - a 30year old with one year to run on his contract and who scored 14 League goals for Luton last season. We had in mind what we believed to be a fair price for the player. But faced with competition from the likes of Leeds, Derby, Stoke and others, the bidding soon escalated, with Derby ending up paying £1 million plus a very, very healthy player salary and other add-ons.

Of course it''s entirely possible that both Worthington and The Board were right and also there could be hindsight in some of the posts here. However BBB''s original point about lessons being learned is a fair one when you consider what Worthy had to say at the time and what happened because we failed to get Ashton earlier in our Premiership campaign.

 

[Faded Jaded Semi Plastic SOB 1,024]

BBB - You have opened up an intersting debate. On the face of it £1m for a thirty year old player could be a gamble. My personal opinion on this at the time was that £1m for a player with a proven record at Championship level was worth a punt, not only for his goals but for his "assists". Derby County may not get promoted, they may not even make the play offs, but the new board at Pride Park are sure as hell sending out a message that they are ambitious, back their manager and are having a real go at getting promoted, particulary as from next season teams are guaranteed at least £30m plus two years of parachute payments of £11m even if you finish bottom of the Prem. The term you have to speculate to accumulate springs to mind. 

[Steve H 0]

[quote user="Archie"]

The point is that Worthy wanted to sign him and the board didn''t back his judgement.  They should have backed him or sacked him, and they didn''t do either until it was far too late.

[/quote]

It''s not that they didn''t trust his judgment, it was more the fact that Derby were prepared to offer a lot more in fee''s and wage''s, for a player with no proven track record at this level and with his age counting against him.

If he had signed and not delivered people would be as up in arms if not more that the whole Thorne, Robbbo, Hughes deals etc

[ricardo 7,395]

[quote user="BlyBlyBabes"]

......integral in steering Derby to the Prem with his 14 goals to date.

I suspect that therein lies a story.

Now with Steve Howard & Earnshaw in tandem up front at the season''s start - as Worthington wanted, to be fair - then.................................?

Water under the bridge, yes.

But will the Board learn a lesson? I doubt it, and that''s my biggest fear.

OTBC

 

 

[/quote]

 

At the time I thought £1 million for him was a bit steep but he has proved me wrong. In any event there is no way we would have paid him 15 grand a week so never any real chance of him coming here.

[ZLF 274]

HIndsight always makes the decison right or wrong;  Howard has worked out but equally he could yet another expensive white elephant costing 7 figures - another thorne say;   he had always played in the lower leagues and while he started well with Luton (7 in 10 games) he then petered out suggesting that teams had him sussed.   £1m was a big gamble for an aged player with no real champs experience.

What we are assuming is that Howard would have scored 14 for us,  however we do not know he would have linked well with Earnie or not and with the same midfield we have had season would there have been the chances for the strikers to score those 31 goals? Would he have settled here or would we have gone 4-5-1 anyway leaving him on the bench.   Its all guess work as much as hindsight in saying we should have bought howard. 

Not everything the previous or current manager or the board has been done is wrong;   It was a judgement call and during the summer £1m plus big wages for a 30yo target man who seemed to have lost his edge was deemed to be too much;   I would probably have made the same decision in their position, on  this one anyway (having said that I would have had a new manager in place by then too ;-) ) 

[whoareyou? 0]

I will guarantee that if Derby get promoted, they will be looking for a replacement for him cos he will not cut it at Premier level.

Hindsight is a skill no one has but i doubt he alone would have got us promoted or is getting Derby promoted on his own!

Even now i think we made the right decision especially if he is earning £15k per week.

[Canary02 0]

[quote user="Steve H"]

[quote user="Archie"]

The point is that Worthy wanted to sign him and the board didn''t back his judgement.  They should have backed him or sacked him, and they didn''t do either until it was far too late.

[/quote]

It''s not that they didn''t trust his judgment, it was more the fact that Derby were prepared to offer a lot more in fee''s and wage''s, for a player with no proven track record at this level and with his age counting against him.

If he had signed and not delivered people would be as up in arms if not more that the whole Thorne, Robbbo, Hughes deals etc

[/quote]

I think it''s one of those we''ll never really know about. With the midfield we''ve had for the past six months Howard may have struggled anyway. "Nigel Worthington - My Autobiography" will make interesting reading one day. Knowtmean?

 

[nutty nigel 7,539]

Loads of good points on this thread and it''s hard not to agree that 1m plus 15k per week was too much of a gamble for Howard.

It''s just that question from BBB about lessons being learned and Worthingtons point about lessons being learned struck a chord with me.

 

[BlyBlyBabes 0]

[quote user="mystic megson"]

[quote user="Archie"]please find your post at the time and post a link that shows how adamant at the time you were about signing steve howard. willing to eat humble pie but i''m a bit bored of people pointing such clever facts six months on. personally at the time i thought steve howard was a bit old/not really up to it, i have been proved wrong[/quote]

Archie, the point is not whether the fans got it right or wrong.

The point is that Worthy wanted to sign him and the board didn''t back his judgement.  They should have backed him or sacked him, and they didn''t do either until it was far too late.

 

[/quote]

Exactly, Megson, exactly.

Worthy got Dublin instead at the last minute. Fine.

Problem is Dion has to play in defence most of the time (against his expressed wishes) because we don''t have another commanding central defender.

Worthy''s little & large striking strategy was scuppered by the board.

OTBC

 

 

 

 

 

[Faded Jaded Semi Plastic SOB 1,024]

Whoareyou - Isn`t that the point this post is making?, Derby bought Howard to help them get out of this division the £1m price tag and 15k per week in wages will pale into insignificance when comapred to the riches the Premiership offers and I am sure that Derby will recoup some of their money by selling him to a Championship side looking for a proven goalscorer to help them achieve their ambition of getting into the Prem.......

[Smudger 0]

More to the point why weren''t we in for Varney or Chris Porter during the transfer window?

A striker that would of easily steered us clear of relegation trouble and somebody to build a partnership with Earnie for an assault on the Premiership next season?  Bothe players would of been worth paying up to £1.5 million for and both have plenty of scope for improvement and making a considerable sum of money on if sold a couple of years from now if things didn''t work out.

[Hayden 0]

We waste so much money!!!!!

the trouble is we have far too many also rans in our team so I believe you need to take risks on players in order to actulaly do something......Steve Howard was a million quid and £15k a week.........but we had four of five crap players in our squad at the time who were never going to really do anything this season (Huges, Robbo, McVeigh, Thorne) apart from hold a squad number, take their cash and hardly play. Divvy up £15k between them 4 and the odd hundred grand or four wasted here and there and we have easily wasted more money than Howard would have cost. Aaaahhhh its so annoying...Come on Granty, clear the deadwood out, they are bleeding us dry!!!!!! sorry, got distracted there

You have to sign match winners and good players who have the potential to do something in a game. Our policy of buy cheap and hope apart form the odd Earnshaw or Ashton is badly flawed. You know what they say..........buy cheap, buy twice (or three or four times in our case)

[canary cherub 1]

Ahem.  We seem to be taking it as read that Derby offered him £15,000 a week.  Can anyone point me to where this "fact" comes from?  

[Smudger 0]

[quote user="mystic megson"]

Ahem.  We seem to be taking it as read that Derby offered him £15,000 a week.  Can anyone point me to where this "fact" comes from?  

[/quote]

Probably of the Carrow Road PR machine me thinks???

[canary cherub 1]

And another thing.  If £1 million was too much for Howard, a proven goalscorer, how come £1.5 million wasn''t too much for the boy Cotterill, a player with undoubted potential but largely untested?  Maybe the board saw Cotterill as a player they could potentially sell on at a profit, but not Howard . . .?

Don''t shoot me down unless you can think of a more plausible explanation.

 

[mbncfc 1]

A good thread this. A couple of points I''d like to make...

Howard had proven capable of scoring at this level, even if only over one season. Yet, at the time, it never really seemed like an exciting prospect - merely quite/relatively expensive.

Worthy''s undoing seemed, to me, the signings he had made the season before. Earnie aside, he had spent a fair bit of money and a lot of wages on some very ordinary players. When it came to Howard and Hulse - two big targets who were going to be difficult to sign - £500k on Andy Hughes and £8k a week on Thorne probably provided enough doubt in the boardroom as far as pushing the boat out. Such previous ''relative extravagance'' would have restricted the fee/wages available too.

There is also nothing to say a £1m offer from us would not have attracted a counterbid from Derby. We could have said ''Ok, we''ll offer £1m'' and Derby may have cherped in with £1.5m or even higer wages wages. They have far more money than us it seems, and it would have always been a difficult (but not impossible) fight to win (ignoring for now the why''s and why-not''s or defeatist tendancies).

Really, it is an interesting but ultimately hypothetical debate.

What pleases me now is that we have a manager who openly wants to train, coach and teach new players to improve. If we keep our heads above water this season and bring in a couple more players who are a decent age, I think that will prove a much bigger asset than a 31 year-old striker who, from what I''ve seen, takes time to move his feet.

[canary cherub 1]

[quote user="mbncfc"]

When it came to Howard and Hulse - two big targets who were going to be difficult to sign - £500k on Andy Hughes and £8k a week on Thorne probably provided enough doubt in the boardroom as far as pushing the boat out.

There is also nothing to say a £1m offer from us would not have attracted a counterbid from Derby. We could have said ''Ok, we''ll offer £1m'' and Derby may have cherped in with £1.5m or even higer wages wages. They have far more money than us it seems, and it would have always been a difficult (but not impossible) fight to win (ignoring for now the why''s and why-not''s or defeatist tendancies).

[/quote]

It''s a relevant debate because we have a different manager but the same board. 

If indeed there was "doubt in the boardroom as far as pushing the boat out" they should have given Worthy the sack.

Pushing Derby into paying more than they wanted to would have been better than not trying at all.  And if Derby really have got all this money available to spend on players, they might have stopped at £1 million and gone for a bigger name.  Hypothetical as you say, but what gets me is that we didn''t even try.  As posted above, I suspect that the main reason the board weren''t keen on Howard is that they couldn''t envisage making a profit out of selling him on, unlike Cotterill. 

 

[nutty nigel 7,539]

[quote user="mystic megson"]

Ahem.  We seem to be taking it as read that Derby offered him £15,000 a week.  Can anyone point me to where this "fact" comes from?  

[/quote]

I certainly can''t Mystic. All I can say for sure is that our board considered his contract at Derby to include a very, very healthy player salary. I would doubt it was 15K per week though.

I agree with your other point about there being no sell on value. I wouldn''t be surprised if it''s part of the clubs transfer policy not to spend big money on players who are unlikely to be sold at a profit.

 

 

[Faded Jaded Semi Plastic SOB 1,024]

For me the debate is less about Steve Howard and more about the overall ambition of the club. We hear a lot about prudence and very little about ambition these days, I do not believe that we have been given a clear answer as to why the club did not push the boat out in the summer, particularly given this is the last year of the parachute payments. The board had a clear choice in the summer in my mind, back or sack the manager, they did neither. My own feeling on this is that we are either "potless" or we are reluctant to spend the requisite amount of cash it will take to build a squad capable of mounting a promotion push, I would love the board to prove me wrong on both counts.

[Citizen Journalist Foghorn 0]

[quote user="Canary02"]

With the midfield we''ve had for the past six months Howard may have struggled anyway. "Nigel Worthington - My Autobiography" will make interesting reading one day. Knowtmean?

[/quote]

How can you say that!! I heard that a great man once said we have a ''wealth of midfielders'' when questioned on the quality of our midfield...  The problems were up front and at the back.....

 

Patheic.

[ZLF 274]

He could have turned out to be as successful as Peter Thorne and we would have bemoaned both the waste of wages and transfer fee.  Its all an irrelevant hypothetcial becuase you cant assume he woudl score he as he has at Derby.

Its a judgement call on the manager and boards part,  if either thought he was not worth it at the time then he was not worth it. I was not alone at the time in suggesting that £1m for Steve Howard was too much for an older player with a dubious scoring record, no great footballing ability,  encouraging route 1 football and looking for the biggest wage packet of his life.   

On that basis we should have hung drawn and quarter the youth set up for allowing a certain D Beckham a trial and allowing him to leave without signing a contract...  ludicrous