All speculative comments above. We simply don't know the details. Good luck to Davies, now let's all move on.

can understand Derby see us more of a threat.. or it's a case of our illustrious Mr Clegg not having a clue in the communication department 'needs to remove his own head from his backside.' That may help!

Something wrong on here Phil, pp's 2 & 3 are the same and it took ages to land Page 2! It has struck me all the way through these protracted negotiations that Derby didn't want to sell to us so I reckon Davies has hit the nail on the head. Me thinks the problem is of historic proportions and might be 'like father like son'. The person I feel sorry for is not us but Davies. COYB

Surely the key quote here is " but I'm not too sure Derby were keen on doing a deal with them."
Sounds like maybe Derby were the problem ??, not Clegg or Evans. Once again a lot of people jumping to conclusions without all the facts.

We don't really know the ins and outs of this one enough to comment in detail. It just seems strange to me that he signed for Bristol City if he wanted to move closed to London for "genuine family reasons", when Bristol is just 11 miles closer than Derby.

Greenkingtone - you summed it up perfectly.

"but I'm not too sure Derby were keen on doing a deal with them." is the focus area of this article.

Has it not occurred to anyone that PJ is not exactly 'mr pouplar' at Pride Park? The fans detest him (ok it's only a straw poll of derby ST holders I happen to know, but they are clear in their opinions) and I can't imagine the board are particularly well endured to him.

Look, it's gone, we (NONE OF US) know all the facts, so move on and look forward to our first win in 16 attempts at Watford tonight.

The big question here is ia ME being tight with the purse strings so he can finance a possible new manager,PJ is i think in the last few months of this contract,if need be around Xmas??

Why the criticism towards Derby? We did agree a fee with Ipswich, we lowered our valuation of the player in order to do the deal. Seemed to us that Ipswich were dragging their heels for weeks, PJ was quoted several times in the press as saying that they weren't going to get anywhere near our valuation and it was down to us to move the price down, not him to raise the bid. It was obvious that someone else was eventually going to come in for him, City were touted a couple of weeks ago as a potential bidder so it didn't exactly come as a surprise to us when he went there and not to you.

The deal was there to be done. For whatever reason, Ipswich didn't manage to make it. But it's not like you've lost out on signing Kaka, so let's all not make too big a deal of it, eh?

RFIP- Interesting what you have said. I spoke to a friend who is also a rams fan, who said something similar but also said that the Derby board and Davies, were getting fed up with us for dragging this deal/interest out since May. My friend also said that he feels that the Derby board were reluctant to do a deal with PJ, as they still hold a grudge about his time as manager with you and the money he wasted?

The whole 'moving closer to London' is that didn't specifically want to be closer to london, he simply wanted out of Derby altogether for 'family reasons', with the rumours up there is that Mr Shackell was naughty with Mrs Davies, which is also why Shackell went on the cheap to Burnley in the summer? But you guys got Sammon so a good replacement for Davies.

I do reckon that we were probably Davies first choice of location, but we simply dragged this saga out too long. It's a big shame as he would have been a good signing for us, and if he keeps fit and injury free he will score goals at Bristol. We simply have to move on and presume/hope that PJ has other targets as we need another striker ASAP!

Sir_Limps_Alot _ITFC - Given the money PJ wasted while at Derby, I'd have thought the board would have been quite pleased to get some of it back from him by selling Davies to Ipswich. But of course the price had to be right and Ipswich took too long getting there. Must be quite demoralising for a player when a club says, "We want to buy you, but we don't want you that much" - not exactly firing the enthusiasm of the player, is it, especially when PJ knows the player and went to the trouble of going through a tribunal to sign him when at the Rams? City saw their opportunity and seized it.

Davies is still young, only 24, if he can stay clear of these extraordinary injuries then he's got a long time ahead of him playing at a good level. Interesting quote from Davies to the Bristol press :- "The manager has told me that I will be playing as a striker and that was one of the key factors in me coming to the club." - almost made it sound like he didn't get that message from PJ. I know when we signed him from Tranmere he was supposed to be a left winger, but he never looked the part on the few occasions when he did play there for us. Telling a prospective new signing that he's going to play in his preferred position is always a good move, since he's likely to feel able to make a good impression there on the new club's fans rather than playing out of position in an unfamiliar role.

Derby didn't want to sell to us as a rival club in terms of ambition, that's what I read from these comments, nothing else. I can't understand the Clegg or Evans bashing here at all. Plus whilst I don't profess to no too much about Davies his goal scoring record is far from prolific, I will also say that as PJ has worked with this player before I'm pretty sure he is better qualified to place a valuation on the player than any of us and if we didn't want to pay above that then so be it, I support that.

Also if he had been that keen and wanting to come to PR he could have turned down terms offered at BC and held out for the move here ! Derby did not want him to come to PR because of the chances of us heading them in the league . Clubs will always try to avoid selling players to perceivedthreats to their position and ambition !

Wish him well like we wish all players and negotiations that full to the wayside. What we need to do in concentrate on the players we have and support them well and hope we get the results.Young side playing well at present (1 game in ) say the least but lets get a few games under our belt and christmas is coming we may have some more pressies . UP THE TOWN shoot them hornets down COME ON YOU BLUES :)

750k for a striker with a scoring record worse than what we already have would've been too much of a financial gamble.
I agree we need someone who offers something different up front but there are far better target men for less money about.
I still would be looking to Henderson at Millwall, great scoring record, a lil out of favor so wont break the bank. Only down side is his age but we wont find a decent young target man for the kind of money we have.

RFIP --- Some interesting comments there about the position he would be playing in, but from the information we have here, I doubt whether it actually got as far as talking to the player in that much detail.

I also like your angle on what Davies must thinking, e.g PJ brought me to Derby, he wants me at Ipswich but not that much!

I can't believe that the Derby board wopuld be that petty to hold grudges against an unsuccessful manager, I still wonder whether the whole deal broke down, not on final fee, but the level and number of instalments we wanted to pay. A monkey down and 5 bob a week probably didn't sit well with the Derby board.

Typical JEWELL & CLEGG had months to sort this out get rid of both of them

...and now all is quiet on the transfer front again (hello is Edu their?) not holding any hope of him coming here.

After all this Davies ongoing saga we have now lost Baldock to Bristol city as well ,, they certainly got a move on Davies 3yr.contract on Mon. Baldock 3yr. contract on Tues.
and beating Palace 4-1 tonight they certainly are on a high ????

I can tell you now, as a Derby fan, the deal will have had nothing to do with Paul Jewell's history at Derby. Granted, he was possibly the worst manager we've ever had and left the club with awful players on massive contacts and huge wages but the board we have now we not in place during Jewell's time. They have taken over at Derby after Jewell left and to be perfectly honest, they're only interested in taking money out of the club and not interested in football whatsoever. So therefore, had your bid been what they were holding out for, they most certainly would have accepted it.

Super_Rams - GSE bought Derby during "that" season, PJ was effectively their appointment (brokered by Adam Pearson for sure, but they still over-saw it). But I agree that it's very doubtful that history had anything to do with our negotiating position with Ipswich. If it got around the grapevine that we were wanting 1 price from Ipswich and another from everyone else, clubs would be wary of dealing with us. Actually, I remember that when PJ was boss we had a number of clubs complaining about the way we went about our transfer business (amongst them Tranmere when we signed Davies!), whereas under Clough it's been a completely different story.