Derby County landed their biggest transfer capture of the summer so far as the squad rebuilding continued. With pre-season looming, fans hoped that a new Derby County was emerging.

First news of the week came with Derby County declaring ‘there was plenty of time’ to deal with the subject of manager Nigel Clough’s contract, which has a year to run.

The club has shown great loyalty to Clough, sometimes despite atrocious results and in the face of criticism from disgruntled fans - but DCFC are not rushing into negotiations.

I’d say there are two important phases for Clough’s tenure to negotiate yet, before further clarity of his prospects emerges: one would be the relationship he strikes up with a yet-to-be-appointed DCFC ‘Technical Director’, the other would be a solid start to the 2011-12 Championship campaign, with Derby running with the leading pack.

The manager would come under close scrutiny if another struggle looks like developing. Mr Glick said this week that the TD hasn’t been chosen yet but ‘was likely’ to be someone not currently in employment. That would also enable the Rams to steer clear of delays or compensation issues regarding the new staff recruit.

Though it’s unclear as to whether Clough would report to the new man instead of directly to CEO Tom Glick, Nigel is also being involved in the process of finding the TD - and their compatibility over matters of player recruitment and selection and other football matters could well be critical to Clough’s longevity. For the meantime, player recruitment rightly remains everyone’s priority.

Defender Miles Addison’s future at Derby was secured with a year’s extension to his current deal. Miles is now tied to Derby until 2013; it is likely that he will go out on loan to Barnsley until the end of this year to ensure he gets plenty of match action as he recovers from the serious foot injury that has plagued his past two seasons.

The Tykes finally sold their prized asset, defender and captain Jason Shackell to the Rams this week for a fee reported to be worth between £750k - £1m, plus add-ons. It was Derby’s sixth signing of the summer and their biggest capture to date. Shackell chose Derby above several other possible offers but he was sure it was the right move for him.

The deal represents Nigel Clough’s biggest transfer outlay for Derby and CEO Tom Glick said: “we should all rightly get very excited about and I can’t wait to see him out there on the pitch.”

That’s slightly over-egging it, as Shackell is a defender; his job is to shut out the opposition - and Derby fans will expect that from him, nothing more, nothing less after the porous defensive displays we’ve endured in recent seasons.

I think the ‘excitement’ will come from the forwards and a midfield creator with productive attacking play - if the club are able to recruit a quality schemer. I’m a bit disappointed that the Rams haven’t captured Neil Kilkenny from Leeds. He’s an influential midfielder of the kind Derby needs - but having rejected a new Leeds deal, he’s been snapped up by Bristol City.

Shackell however is an imposing figure at the back and if he can forge a good partnership with Sean Barker, then Derby look to have one of the strongest central defensive combinations in the Championship. Shackell was excited by his move to a bigger arena and knows that expectations will change too. Derby’s fanbase will look to a sea-change in the Rams’ defensive capabilities.

The Rams are set to sign Aberdeen striker Chris Maguire at the start of July, as well as reportedly having bids in for Leicester striker Martyn Waghorn and Burton Albion goalkeeper Adam Legzdins. The Brewers’ Player of the Year is poised to sign for Derby for £200k.

CEO Tom Glick also declared that Derby anticipate signing a holding midfielder, a centre-forward and a left-back. If all those intentions are fulfilled, Clough will have signed a dozen new players.

Some loan rumours emerged with Sunderland’s young striker Ryan Noble mentioned in media chatter.  Must admit, I cannot even remember him from an abortive loan stint at Derby last season, when he made one substitute bench appearance before scuttling back to Wearside injured.

Ex-Ram Giles Barnes has failed to cut it at either Fulham or WBA and is a free agent - it’s mooted that Nothingham Forest might give him a chance. So far, Giles is a great talent gone to waste…  

It’s just days away from seeing the players report back to Moor Farm for pre-season training and with so many newcomers, the winds of change will be blowing through the training ground.

Mr Clough and his training staff registered that they had lost patience with the class of 2010 - and if truth be known there are very, very few recruits left from the days of Billy Davies and Paul Jewell that deserve a shirt at Derby County. A few of Nigel Clough’s recruits have come up short, too.

The start of July will trigger many more contract clauses and transfer moves throughout football and a fresh breeze will also blow through plenty of players' careers. Derby are still recruiting for all departments of the 2011-12 team - and are certainly also looking to move on some existing players as well.

The Rams haven’t shipped out many of their unwanted players yet; Ben Pringle joined Rotherham United and ex-Academy fringe players Arnaud Mendy and Gregg Mills have been released. Chris Porter will be out of contract and in search of a new club.

CEO Tom Glick thought that this process would pick up as clubs entered pre-season and looked to reinforce their squads. Some surplus players should command fees which will help to balance Derby’s spending a little.

Goalkeepers Stephen Bywater and Saul Deeney, and Dean Leacock, Chris Porter and Luke Varney are among players I’d expect to depart, perhaps out-of-favour wingers David Martin and Lee Croft will go too; the Rams have also shed Robbie Savage and loanees Daniel Ayala, Alberto Bueno, Brad Jones and Michael Boulding so there eventually will have been quite a turnover of players, as expected.

There hasn’t been much clamour for Rams players in the transfer market but sources suggest that Luke Varney might be wanted by Portsmouth - with £750k being the asking price. He’s been on loan to Blackpool and had a good spell at Bloomfield Road earlier in the season.

That led the Seasiders’ manager Ian Holloway boasting that he’d be able to snap Varney up in a permanent transfer for just £250k - but now it’s all gone quiet over there. I’d suspect that Derby would be delighted to move Varney on to Pompey for three times that fee - and the message to Holloway would simply be: “unlucky!”

The Rams had their first fixture rearrangement of the 2011-12 season, with their visit to Bloomfield Road Blackpool being moved from Tuesday 16th August to a day later, on Weds 17th (8.00 pm).

The move was made because Blackpool’s Carling Cup tie with Sheffield Wednesday will now be televised on Sky on Thursday August 11th, so the Seasiders moved their Championship fixture with Derby back by 24 hours.

The home games against DirtyLeeds (on Boxing Day) and Nothingham Forest (4th February)  have been moved to a 1.00 pm kick-off on police advice, and the date for the Rams’ Carling Cup home tie with Shrewsbury Town was confirmed as August 9th.

Not before time, the winds of change are finally blowing through the Geneva HQ of the game’s ruling body, FIFA. Vice President Jack Warner has departed his post amid the recent bribery scandals; conveniently, it seems that his resignation is accompanied by exoneration from blame for the fiasco, which is hardly the reforming attitude that we had all been promised.

The so-called FIFA Ethics Committee investigation brought forward new allegations this week.  It declared that it has ‘comprehensive, convincing and overwhelming evidence’ that a senior official, Mohammed Bin Hamman, used bribery in attempting to influence his candidacy for the FIFA presidency.

Bin Hamman withdrew his candidacy during the controversy when the investigation was launched, leaving current President Sepp Blatter to be re-elected unopposed. 

Whilst it seems ludicrous that Sepp Blatter was re-elected as the only presidential candidate, the current corruption allegations against the only other nominee, Bin Hamman can hardly give football fans any comfort that the game’s administrative body really is under serious overhaul.

Back in the Greedy League, Chelsea secured the services of the young Porto coach Andres Villa-Boas (with a name like that, shouldn’t he be Aston Villa’s new boss?). The West London club had to pay some £13.3m severance compensation to Porto due to a release clause; that’s before the new Chelski boss starts spending more of Roman Abramovic’s millions on new players!

Villas-Boas is a young but highly-rated and meticulous coach who has had spectacular success in the Portuguese league with Academia and FC Porto. Great things are expected of him and time will tell if he can import his attractive, winning style to Stamford Bridge.

The new season draws ever nearer and by the time next Sunday’s RamsWeek diary is published, Derby will have made more signings, possibly sold on a player or two - and will be getting to grips with their pre-season fitness programme.

Midsummer is behind us already; the cathartic love and music vibes of the Glastonbury Festival has marked out the summer music season again. Before we know it, August will be upon us!

_______________________________________________________________________

RamsWeek 26 last season saw the club reassuring fans that ‘time is on our side’ regarding making more signings, after a rather unambitious and underwhelming close season activity level.

Derby said they had right until the end of the August transfer window to make signings, though in fact it turned out that they’d sell centre-forward Rob Hulse to eventual champions QPR and would spend the rest of the season without an adequate target-man centre forward on their books.

Clough no doubt soon rued the day he declared that Derby were well off for strikers, saying there were six choices in his options - I said I didn’t share his optimism, and soon enough, Hulse was gone and Porter and Davies were always injured. Rookie Cywka and Commons, along with Luke Varney remained and that was never going to be adequate.

Miles Addison and Stephen Pearson were in rehab from serious injuries (I’m sure I wrote that before, y’know) and Jake Buxton’s troublesome stomach and groin injuries were still baffling the medical men.

CEO Tom Glick was elected to the board of directors of the Championship in the football League’s administrative body. He filled the vacancy left by Owen Oyston of Blackpool, who was now a Premier League chairman.

Photo: Action Images

Derby County Polls