After the awful defeat at the hands of Preston, the air of resignation among Rams fans had turned to disgust and outright condemnation.

Fans let the team have it with an emphatic chorus of booing at the interval and full-time. Time for new players to bed in, find their feet and fitness is needed, sure - but the hallmark incompetence and failure to overcome adversity (gifting opponents yet more soft goals) was just too much for fans this time.

Nevertheless, the week started with a flurry of interviews and a press call for the rejuvenated boardroom arising from the long-awaited announcement of the American takeover of Derby County.

It’s an investment partnership with GSE, General Sports & Entertainment, Andy Appleby’s ten-year old Detroit-based sports and entertainment marketing and management enterprise. The new owners have declared that the input was in terms of cash, not new debt.

However, the ultimate investors in Derby County remain anonymous because GSE in itself doesn’t have $100m of funds to give a football team. Ostensibly, the visible owners are Appleby, with 93% of the shares and Adam Pearson with 7%.

Personal profiles and shiny happy interviews are on the official website; the Manchester City programme carried these too, along with platitudes to supporters in an open letter.

The new owners do have a tremendous record in sports management in America with the kind of profiles that can radically alter how the club does its PR, marketing, merchandise, and fan liaison. Good stuff! We now have an American-style structure in Tom Glick as the President and CEO; Tim Hichey will be Executive Vice President

Chairman Adam Pearson becomes Chief of Football Operations, Paul Jewell’s position as manager is secure and there is local involvement because Peter Gadsby and Don Amott become non-executive directors and other recent financial and commercial recruits brought in by Gadsby and Pearson are retained.

Mr Appleby did sound like a marketing executive, saying: “it’s all about customer service, marketing and branding. We will worship the fans rather than they worship us.” Or, worship our wallets? Oops, sorry!

Consultant Roger Faulkner was instrumental to negotiating the deal. He is a lifelong Rams fan and originates from the area, being a former Belper grammar school lad who left for America early in his career. He’s been deeply involved in promoting football in America since the heydays of the Detroit Express in the NASL with Pele in the New York Cosmos in the 1970s and later led the successful Michigan World Cup Bid Committee in the 1990s.

He said that the group had looked at Coventry City & Southampton but were attracted to Derby because of their superior overall facilities and bigger fanbase. ‘We won the Premier League twice’, he erroneously declared! Nope, we haven’t done that, Roger - we’ve won the Football League Division One title twice! Tom Glick says: ‘we aim to be a top 10 Premier League side’ and they have a track record of success.

The new owners will hardly need to ask Derby County fans what they feel about investor anonymity, after the deceits of the Sleightholme fiasco! We don’t know who the ultimate investors are, or whether the stadium has again been mortgaged as security. Is it really as simple as ‘no-strings’ cash injections?

Some sources assert that there is Chinese and Korean (as well as American) monetary input into the DCFC takeover. Who are they? What do they want out of Derby County?

The Premier League would (should!) have presumably learned more about the investors to sanction this takeover - so why can’t it be mandatory that the club’s own supporters are also given that information as well? What is there to hide? Submerged information will eventually find its way to the surface…

Whichever characters (at home and abroad) - and their backers - that are subject to the so-called Fit And Proper Persons Test should also be known to fans of any club involved in a major takeover or re-financing, in my opinion.

There are five good reasons, for a kick-off, why that should be the case regarding Derby County – the five characters who all have a Valentine’s Day date this month with the judge & jury on various fraud and money-laundering charges….

The GSE deal won’t mean £50m for Paul Jewell to invest in the playing squad – unless there are renewable cash injections commensurate with the club’s status as the team progresses. The club has debts of circa £25m and of course most of that has been the price of signing and rewarding the players that Billy Davies had recruited during the 16 months or so that he was in charge.

It’s a rather chilling thought that we’re at a similar financial debt situation to when we were relegated under Lionel Pickering at the turn of the century. We were £30m in debt then with more saleable playing assets that we currently have. £25m in 2007-08 hasn’t bought much, we can reflect (and it doesn’t, in the Premier League nowadays!) though it’s reasonable to assert that we may have done better for our money in the transfer market than Mr Davies contrived on our behalf.

Paul Jewell needs success in his transfer dealings once he’s able to reconstruct the squad in earnest. Another false dawn with cheap recruitment of mediocre squad additions would be very damaging and the expectation from the fans now is that GSE will provide enough support to (a) win promotion and (b) prevent Derby County being a “yo-yo” club.

It would hurt loyalty to struggle and be relegated from the EPL again without a realistic chance of consolidation, through failure to invest in a competitive squad.

There was transfer activity at Derby County as the transfer deadline approached as fans hoped for defensive reinforcements. John Macken was sold to Barnsley for a six-figure fee and Bob Malcolm’s contract was cancelled by mutual consent as Paul Jewell quietly shovelled out more of Billy Davies’ hapless squad-building attempts, subsequent to releasing the unwanted Andy Griffin to Stoke City.

Lewin Nyatanga, who has promise but isn’t yet equipped for Premier League football, was loaned again to Barnsley for the rest of the season.

It was an ignominious end to Bob Malcolm’s undistinguished stint with Derby. Having been suspended by the club because he was put on drink-driving charge after Christmas, when he fell asleep in the middle lane of a motorway in a similar manner in which he often fell asleep in Derby County’s midfield, he received a driving ban and fine and then found himself having a rude awakening with a sacking.

On Tuesday, Newcastle United offered £2m for Giles Barnes, which was turned down flat by Derby. Glasgow Rangers finally secured the services of another goalkeeper - which re-opened the negotiations to bring Roy Carroll to Pride Park. Jewell even considered swapping the experienced keeper for Lewis Price. Carroll did move to Derby on Deadline Day, as Stephen Bywater moved out on loan to Ipswich.

The Rams’ new American owners were keenly anticipating their latest taste of Pride Park football at the Manchester City evening game on Wednesday night. Having witnessed the only other good morsel of home success this season at the Newcastle win in September, they joined a crowd of almost 31,400 who helped to usher in a new era at Derby County.

Jewell rang the changes again as he searched for a more solid combination of players to turn the tide of Derby’s woeful season.  Darren Moore and Claude Davis took the central defensive roles, so to speak, Craig Fagan returned and Rob Earnshaw made his first Premier League start under Paul Jewell alongside Kenny Miller up front.

Derby got about their business for once and looked much more purposeful. Fagan, Miller and Earnshaw buzzed and probed and the defence generally did better than of late. City had plenty of attacking flair but looked brittle, as Derby aren’t the only team suffering from a loss of confidence from poor form. It was an open game and there were chances for both sides but the first half was scoreless.

Then, Kenny Miller struck after 28 seconds of the second half. It was a deflected shot leading to an own goal - but we don’t care how they go in after all the blank days and bad luck seen this season! Derby had persisted in pressing the City area from the restart and might just realise that if you get the ball in the danger area enough, sometimes the breaks will go for you.

Within a short while, however, the irrepressible Petrov delivered one too many quality balls into the Derby penalty area and young Daniel Sturridge had his Uncle Dean swallowing his Radio Derby microphone in his excitement and pride as his nephew slid in the equaliser.

The Rams did hold out this time to win a rare point and the all-round performance conveyed far more purpose, determination, industry and teamwork than in a couple of dozen other games this season. Fans had finally had some relief and the result, on top of the re-financing, has given Rams fans a lift this week.

Loanee Danny Mills, injured early on against Preston, has a serious injury and returned to Manchester City – with City refusing to waive Mills’ wages to force Derby to continue paying him and the Premier League invoking the rules on Derby by not cancelling the loan, which means Derby have used up their quotient for the season and have to support an unusable player.

We can therefore justifiably expect the Premier League to ensure the rules are also stringently applied to City with reference to their incomplete move for Benjani from Portsmouth. The Pompey striker was subject to a medical query and some haggling about the fee – as well as delayed registration paperwork that missed the deadline – so if this move is allowed to go ahead after the transfer window closes, the Premier League will be questioned and lobbied.

The Rams did capture some much-needed strength and experience in defence in the guise of the indomitable Alan Stubbs from Everton. He’s a stalwart centre-half, 36 years old and almost 600 games behind him. Not a long term signing but he can bolster the defence and so with a seasoned goalie in Ray Carroll and more defensive power with Stubbs, there is more depth to the squad going forward.

Aussie Mile Sterjovsky may or may not have his international clearance by now (he wasn’t cleared for the Brum game but did attend it) so there is more competition and some new international experience now for Paul Jewell to choose from. It has been quite a successful transfer window for the club.

The Birmingham City away game on Saturday was billed by Blues’ chief David Gold as a ‘must-win’ fixture; Jewell wants to see improvements in consistency and teamwork and unflagging effort to the cause, and Rams fans simply want a few results to avoid the dreaded ‘wooden spoon of all time’ as a club relegated with the fewest points in Premier League history. In a season of ignominy, it’s not much to ask!

Brum have spent a fair bit (without getting a foothold on Prem safety) and did so again in January, with one-time Billy Davies’ target, attacker James McFadden joining Birmingham from Everton for an eventual £6m deal among the recruits.

Roy Carroll took over from Lewis Price in Derby’s goal and Alan Stubbs paired up with Darren Moore in defence; Kenny Miller and Rob Earnshaw were the front two. After a nightmare first minute in which Alan Stubbs gifted the ball to a nearby Bluenose with a crass error straight out of the Andy Todd & Claude Davis Book of Football Gaffes, Stubbsy settled down to a solid debut and Carroll saved well on a couple of occasions and showed good handling and distribution.

It was a poor game, Birmingham wasting several clear chances and Derby soldiering on without much guile or inspiration. After an awful first half there was more life in the game on the restart. Derby may well have scored despite threatening only sporadically, as Miller hit a post but Blues took the lead when Seb Larsson got the better of Edworthy to finish crisply.

Paul Jewell sent on Giles Barnes and Emanuel Villa to give Derby more thrust. Right near the end, Villa snatched his first Derby goal with a flashing header, which had the mark of a seasoned striker. It kicked Brum in the proverbials and pulled them into the bottom three as Rams fans looked forward to seeing many more ‘Tito’ strikes.

With the right service he could become a fans’ favourite, he’s coming on strong and will improve further as the team is rebuilt. 1-1 it was - the Rams had actually mounted a fightback!

With the January signings becoming more effective (though Lauren Robert isn’t at the races yet), there is hope for some better results to come before the season’s out and we may yet go down fighting. Bring on the Spurs next Saturday!

In RamsWeek 5 of 2007, the Rams eased past giant-killers Bristol Rovers 1-0 in the 4th Round of the FA Cup courtesy of a Paul Peschisolido strike in front or 25,000 at Pride Park Stadium.

They followed up with another League win, again 1-0, over Burnley. An early Steve Howard header was enough although it did seem that Derby would run riot in spells. Derby’s energy and movement swamped Burnley and Stephen Pearson was especially prominent.

Celebrity referee Mike Riley booked 7 players, red-carded Djemba-Djemba for a perfunctory trip on Steve Howard and sent both managers to the stands - but Derby were six points clear and Billy Davies was set for another Manager of the Month Award! When will he ever earn another, and with whom?

Photo: Action Images

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