Now that the American investment is confirmed, I have one piece of simple advice for Paul Jewell.

It is this: buy yourself a plane ticket to Africa and snap up whoever hasn’t already been bought by a European club, or if they have been bought – see if you can prise them away from a minor European club from - say Belgium or Switzerland.

The little I’ve seen of the African Nations Cup has convinced me that is where our salvation lies.  Not only do many of the players possess tremendous technical skill, they also show a healthy desire for the game, coupled with a keenness to ‘mix’ it or as we used to call it: “getting stuck in”.

Some of the exuberant play on display puts the recent showings of a so-called Premiership team to shame, and I urge PJ to go out and buy at least seven players.  They at least would put in more effort and desire than some very well-paid European footballers who seem to spend more time thinking about how to embroider their car seats than giving their all for the cause by utilising all their skills.

It used to be said that when Derbyshire needed a new fast bowler, all they had to do was to go to a local pit and whistle down the shaft and up one would come.  The same was pretty much true for footballers – thousands of kids would play in the back streets for hours on end honing their skills and the best would gravitate to the professional ranks.  These days have gone – the thousands of the kids are now putting their time and energy into computer and arcade games in their bedrooms.

Life has changed here in the UK – but the plains and shanty towns of Africa are producing the next generation of footballers just as the barrios of Argentina have produced some of their most gifted footballers.

I know that the richer clubs are already creaming off the best – those players have already been identified and marked out months, if not years ago, but my view is we would still be better off getting some of the African left-overs. Those they regard as being not so good would still be better than our dross because it’s not infected with this despair and loss of confidence that seems to be affecting our team.

Ripping apart teams is usually not a good idea and should only be used as a last resort as football teams tend to be similar to racehorses or performance cars – they need careful calibrating to get the right mixture of physicality, technique and tactics.   This is why so much attention is paid to diet, training methods, tactics and so on.  But in Derby County’s present state, we have a team that seems to be in a state of shell-shock and incapable of even playing to their own strengths.  We are therefore in danger of free-fall and if this is not arrested soon, we will not be talking about getting promotion next season but avoiding relegation. 

As everyone knows, once a downward spiral starts, it is extremely difficult to stop it and turn it upwards.  Every family that has experienced difficulties with children or between partners knows this – things go well and then suddenly something happens and before you know it, it just gets worse and worse, and nothing you do seems to stop the rot.  People start turning on each other and every action or word is viewed with suspicion and hostility.

My view is that the time for adjustment has gone and now is the time for drastic change – a complete upheaval and renewal.  Now that we have the American investment – let’s start with a trip to Africa and get a complete new team, promote one or two of the Academy players like Beardsley, Addison and Simmonds.  Move the rest of the present team into the reserves to see who starts to recover their own self-esteem and then in the next transfer window, start handing out P45s to those who have totally lost it.

Otherwise we’ll be staring at League One status and sure enough the American investment will melt away like the froth on our Starbucks Cappucino.

Photo: Action Images

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