Club and fans anticipated further movement in the transfer market in the week that Derby players reported back for pre-season training.

A rash of fixture changes for 2008-09 have been imposed on Rams fans already. With their first away match at Bristol City on August 16th already moved back to 5:20 pm for TV schedules it was announced that the home game with Sheffield United on September 13th will be similarly moved to a tea-time (5:20 pm) kick off for the cameras.

Then Derby’s home clash with Nothingham F*rest - originally scheduled for Saturday 1st November - was rearranged for Sunday 2nd September with a 1:15 pm kick off.

Derby’s trip to Doncaster Rovers’ Keepmoat Stadium has been rescheduled too, brought forward from Saturday 28th February to the previous evening Friday September 27th at 7:45 pm. This is due to a clash with the Saturday Doncaster Racecourse meeting. We play Donny on the opening day of the season;  Derby would want to start at home so it’s unfeasible to switch home and away fixtures.

Young defender Ruben Zadkovich did make his full international debut for Australia against China but it was an inglorious baptism. The Aussies have already qualified from their World Cup group so the 0-1 defeat wasn’t significant, though Zadkovich gave away a penalty that China missed.

No doubt the experience in front of a 70,000 crowd in Sydney will have been useful to the player.

Veteran American winger Eddie Lewis had more success, skippering the USA in Barbados and scoring the winner in their 1-0 World Cup qualifier success. The recent 8-0 victory in America made it a rather comfortable 9-0 double for the States.

Transfer news was sluggish, however Paul Jewell said in interview on Thursday that he still expected to tie up 4 or 5 transfer deals in the near future.  West Bromwich Albion has reportedly joined the chase for Swansea midfielder Ferrie Bodde, though when Swans’ Chairman Huw Jenkins will move on the issue is anybody’s guess.

I’m sure that Jenkins wants to block Derby but latest reports were that the two Chairmen were negotiating. 

 If Swansea wants defender Darren Moore, it can work both ways;  we can defer matters until we have the courtesy of allowing us access to a player of theirs that we want (and who wants to move)? If we don’t get Bodde, it will add a little ‘needle’ to the League meetings next season!

Talking of WBA, it looks like the trail for striker Kevin Phillips has gone cold for Derby and a host of other clubs. The lure of the Premier League looked set to tempt Phillips into accepting a further one-year deal with the Baggies. The Rams are still hoping to snatch Stockport County forward Liam Dickinson and have upped their original £250k offer, my guess being that they’ve doubled it.

Wolves have finally completed the signing of Rams’ midfielder David Jones for £1m. Jewell told the player he could be part of the Rams’ plans but Jones felt the Wolves offer was an attractive challenge. Derby have now sold players for over £6m this close season and with expenditure carefully controlled so far due to signing several out-of-contract players, Paul Jewell still has some serious funds to play with.

A Daily Mirror report that said that Derby were set to offer £500,000 for Cardiff City’s 31 year-old central defender Darren Purse was labelled ‘wide of the mark’ by other sources. I’d have thought we needed a young, tall, fast, athletic partner for the veteran Alan Stubbs, who has many qualities but not all of those that I’ve just listed!

Lewin Nyatanga wants to stay and fight for his place to be part of the action and Barnsley have reportedly abandoned their interest in the young Welsh international for that reason.

Chairman of Football Operations Adam Pearson remained bullish about further signings soon and reiterated Jewell’s earlier comment: “I am confident we will be in a position to announce three or four major new signings in the coming weeks and certainly before the campaign starts in August”.

The turn of the month will be significant for transfer movement generally because many player contracts come to an end, plus squads are reporting back for training and managers accelerate their strategy for the new season. At the tope level, many Euro 2008 stars are already being linked with the leading clubs

Friday saw the Rams’ players report back for training. They all underwent fitness checks; the hard work starts on Monday with a pre-season schedule that Paul Jewell has commenced earlier than many clubs. Jewel expects - demands - a totally different outlook from his squad from the inept, defeatist, inadequate money for old rope efforts that club and fans had to painfully endure from the 2007-08 team.

Better must come, the manager has resolved - and he set out four key aims: “We have got to be disciplined, we have got to be organised, we have got to be fit and we have got to have desire”. He is changing “the whole ethos” and will not compromise on the standards he will specify.

Fans are keen to see a Rams team playing with purpose, professionalism, pride and tenacity and if this is displayed, even if it takes a while for all the newcomers to gel, then most fans will be tolerant. Thinking back to 2006-07, things were hit and miss until October; then were on fire for three months.

I’d say Jewell should have good material to work with, perhaps better than Billy Davies’ recruits. Fact is, so many players tell us how wonderful Derby’s facilities are and what a great club it is - so it’s easy to have joined such a club. Well OK lads, that’s so nice to hear - but now it’s delivery time, so prove to Mr. Jewell and us lot that you deserve to be here!

There was a boost with news that Giles Barnes does not need a second operation on his injured right knee. The USA specialist gave Giles the all clear to commence rehab and training so he’ll be back in contention earlier than expected - though not for the start of the season. If a fit Giles Barnes can have a sustained run in the side to maintain his development, he could be a key player for the Rams in 2008-09.

Former Rams’ defender Gary Rowett has joined the Radio Derby sports team and will be heard adding expert commentary to the local station’s Deby County matchday broadcasts. Rowett was a promotion and Premier League colleague of their previous guest commentator, Dean Sturridge, in the mid-1990s.

There’s a new Rams home shirt launch (or ‘reveal’, as the club describe it) happening in Derby Market Place on Monday 30th June at 5.30 pm. Newcomers Nathan Ellington, Kris Commons, Paul Connolly, Paul Green, Jordan Stewart and Lewis Price will all be on catwalk duties with the new kit and Ram FM DJ’s will be helping it all along.

There will be an away kit launch at the FC Utrecht friendly game with a hospitality launch for some fans who pre-order the home kit.

In Euro 2008, the spirited Turkish contrived to lose 2-3 right at the death to lacklustre Germany, who progressed to yet another final despite putting in a generally mediocre performance. Turkey took the game to the Germans and should have converted more of the good chances they created.

In the other semi-final, the stylish Spanish swept aside a disappointing Russian team 3-0. Russia had lost the verve and sparkle they’d shown in prior games and the highly rated Andrei Arshavin was almost invisible.

It seemed that the semi-final games were played in perpetual monsoon conditions, the storms playing havoc with the broadcasting technology worldwide but the matches were open and exciting, most unlike many other sterile, cautious and tactical crucial top-level games that we see when the stakes are very high.

The final between Germany and Spain was exciting; the classy, tenacious Spanish took the European crown, winning by a single Fernando Torres goal. It should have been a bigger margin and for once the Germans had no answer to Spain’s enterprise and organisation, there was to be no comeback this time. Spain thoroughly merited their victory. With it, over four decades of under-achievement were banished.

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In RamsWeek 26 last year, West Ham wide boy Matthew Etherington was linked with a move to Derby whilst the Rams’ young winger Ryan Smith moved to Millwall.

A 56-year old man was the third person arrested in connection with police investigations into irregularities at Derby County under John Sleightholme. Talking of disgraced departures, this was also the week that Derby signed ‘striker’ Rob Earnshaw for a club record fee of £3.5m.

I commented in RamsWeek then that Earnie ‘should prove good value for money’ but I claim mitigating circumstances because the player then had a good strike rate to date and it was the same week that Liverpool paid £27m for Torres and Spurs spent £17m on Darren Bent!

I’m probably not alone in thinking that the players we’ve just signed for nowt or at a fraction of Earnshaw’s price tag may prove far more effective than Earnshaw (hardly a risky prediction!)

A year ago, Billy Davies was busy appointing backroom staff and asserted that ‘we’re not finished yet’, regarding the transfer market and that the Chairman’s pockets were ‘very deep’. That raised the fans’ hopes for a stronger, bigger squad and it all added to expectations of some roof-lifting experiences at Pride Park Stadium!

You daft ha’porths! Remember - this IS Derby County, y’know!

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