The week commenced as the last one had finished, with club and fans anticipating movement in the transfer market.

Supporters didn’t have to wait long, as Sky Sports carried a website article on Monday declaring that Kris Commons had agreed terms with Derby County.

Taking Commons off F*rest for nothing and offloading Robert Earnshaw on them for £2.5m was a swap that most fans would be happy with!

Swansea’s Ferrie Bodde has not altogether ruled out a move to Derby, either. “You never know what will happen in football,” he said. “When you don't know what is on offer, you can never decide anything for certain.” As he also said, unless the clubs agree a fee, nothing can happen.

Derby want him - and Swans’ chairman Huw Jenkins could receive a large transfer fee that would enable his manager to buy several players ready for their Championship campaign. Reading have reportedly joined the chase for the player.

Young American midfielder Benny Feilhaber will undergo a knee operation for an injury sustained whilst captaining the USA U-23 team last week. He’ll be out for 6 weeks.

Eddie Lewis made a brief appearance as a substitute as England defeated the USA comfortably 2-0 at Wembley in what was a Gerrard & Barry masterclass. Lewis did put flash one hot cross toward the England goal in a rare threatening moment for the States - but it was their team of triers against thoroughbreds.

At the time of writing, Aussie midfielder Mile Sterjovski was set to abandon his World Cup campaign with Australia set to play Iraq on June 1st because his expectant wife had gone into labour. FIFA ruled that the game would go ahead in lieu of a suspended one-year ban on Iraq from competitions for disbanding its sporting federations.

Kenny Miller was in the Scotland team beaten 3-1 by the Czech Republic and Lewin Nyatanga was in the Wales team beaten comfortably by Holland in Rotterdam on Sunday, with Lewis Price a substitute goalkeeper. Only Colin Calderwood and Trees fans love Rob Earnshaw, because his Welsh international manager Toshack rightly overlooked him again.

Miller, according to media stories, was still touting himself to Glasgow Rangers saying he’d love a move back north of the border. The Rangers Trust hopefully punctured his ego by declaring Miller wasn’t a player with the right ability and application level to be up to the quality that the ‘Gers needed. However, many Rams fans would be delighted if Rangers or whoever gave a £2.5m+ cheque to DCFC for Kenny.

Former Rams’ boss Billy Davies was the bookies’ favourite for the vacant-again managerial seat at Leicester City. Whoever is the furry F*xes next boss will be their 6th in 15 months. Billy would be just the match for owner Milan Mandaric and hopefully he will come and retrieve some of his dud player purchases from Pride Park Stadium to improve the F*xes’ squad!

The changing of the guard at Derby was finally well under way at Derby this week There as a flurry of transfer announcements on Friday and more to follow early next week, the first of which is expected to be ex-Forest midfielder Kris Commons.

Too many of the players given a chance by Derby County in previous seasons to resurrect their patchy young careers, challenging them to make a name for themselves, have come up short and they have no part to play in the Rams’ future.

Their ability and effort fell way short of what was required and it is up to them to shake off the negatives and use the experience they gained with Derby elsewhere, if they can. Jewell is addressing the club’s malady and the team will be radically different come August.

Doncaster Rovers’ midfielder Paul Green (25) failed to agree new terms when his contract expired - and the Rams quickly moved in to secure his services. Though the Rovers’ chairman grumbled about money talking even though Donny offered Green their top wages, the player has given them ten years of good service, helping them to several promotions, The player himself looks at Derby County as a ‘tremendous opportunity’.

He appears to be an ambitious and successful player in his prime and looking to advance rather than a mercenary, having given his whole career to date to the Rovers. He paid tribute to all at Doncaster as well as enthusing about his new challenge at Derby County. In any case, he’s an instant hero to Rams fans as he was part of the Doncaster side that defeated L**ds United in the Division One play-off final!

Jordan Stewart, the left-sided Watford player that Jewell tried to sign in January is now a Derby County player having signed a three-year contract (as has Paul Green). Paul Jewell is enthused by the signings, seeing Stewart as a quick player who enjoys a wide attacking role and Green as an energetic and tenacious midfielder. Both players arrive at Derby on free transfers, as would Kris Commons.

Then striker Nathan Ellington was reunited with Paul Jewell, joining the Rams on an initial season-long loan with a view to a permanent transfer. A fee was involved (I’m guessing over £1m for that) but if Ellington can recapture the form he showed under Jewell in Wigan’s rise to the Premier League it will be a shrewd piece of business. If he doesn’t, will not saddled with an expensive misfit beyond May 2009.

Jewell is following through his resolve to sign young, hungry players that have experience plus the capacity to improve. As blighted as Derby have been from their dreadful 2007-08 campaign, they are a big club with potential to grow and these new players are coming to the biggest stage of their careers.

The new crop of Rams players are still young - though a year or two older than some of our unwanted men - though seem to have rather more achievement behind them and a keen expectation of success in front of them, which is what Jewell is looking for. They are in their prime years and look to be capable of washing away the pathetic, beaten mentality that has infected the Derby team for a complete season.

They will emphatically be Paul Jewell’s chosen men in 2008-09 and the manager can never again utter those repetitive, damning post-match complaints that his players aren’t up to it and that nothing can be expected from them.

It’s a good start to Jewell’s shopping spree with rising talent for not very much outlay at present. With further signings and hopefully one or two other high-profile loans from Premier League squads and next season could see the early turnaround in form that fans have been promised.

So that was five signings so far - Zadkovich, Connolly, Green, Stewart and Ellington - with Commons expected to be official come Monday. A similar number of players have already departed from Pride Park Stadium already and it was also confirmed that the hapless Robert Earnshaw had joined rival Nothingham F*rest for £2.65m.

Boy, is he in for some stick from Rams fans in the ‘derby’ games, both for being useless at Derby AND for now being a Red? We’ll take the money, thanks, Rob, and buy players that can hack it.

Talking of expensive, well-paid failures at Derby County, the ghosts of seasons past were in Northampton Crown Court again at the end of May. They attended for their pleas to be heard regarding the alleged fraud and money laundering charges during John Sleightholme’s blighted custodianship of Derby County. Jeremy Keith, Andrew McKenzie and Murdo Mackay plus two associates were in the dock last Friday.

The recent Delloitte report showed how expensive football squads have become at the highest levels of the English game. Derby paid wages that were equivalent to 125% of turnover in 2006-07, as Billy Davies recruited for the Premier League (or so we hoped). Perhaps those controversial promotion bonuses were a hefty factor in Derby’s costs.

In 2006-07, the Premier League wages bill cost over £1.5bn for the first time, a 13% increase on the previous season. Chelsea’s outlay was the highest in the Premier League, exceeding £132m. That money didn’t buy the ultimate success for the Blues of League title or Champions League glory, whilst poor Reading doubled their wage bill - and the players have now rewarded their club by getting it relegated.

Despite a £50m future beckoning our club through defeating West Bromwich Albion in the Wembley play-off final, the lavish celebrations with a bus parade through the city and civic reception, all was not sweetness and light at Derby County in RamsWeek 22 last year.

The joyous aftermath had been immediately soured by Billy Davies’ combative comments regarding his future at the club.   "I'm not saying I don't want to be Derby manager, I'm saying that I don't think in life anything is 100% guaranteed… I've never said I'm leaving but it was always my intention to get to the end of the season and have a discussion."

Managers as well as players usually benefit financially after success but Davies’ oppositional tone and brash insistence was worrying for fans and divisive internally. Relations with director Mike Horton were reportedly strained though Horton had always declared that his appointment would not be a long-term one.

There was plenty of activity on and off the field in staff changes at Pride Park Stadium and even if Davies remained as manager, the club ultimately had an unstable and inadequate summer in terms of preparation for the toughest league in the world.

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