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In His 4 Years, Clough Has Delivered On All Fronts


AndyB

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Good thread this. I was, and remain a massive fan of Arthur Cox and all that he did for Derby County. As a person, and in terms of his approach, I think Nigel is more like Arthur than his dad

Arthur and Jim both did great jobs for Derby but Nigel is doing one thing neither of them did in my opinion and thats build a really powerful youth development set up at Derby. When Nigel was playing for AC hunters, and Arthur was building up Derby, local youth development and recruitment was completely dominated by Forest and Notts County. There were junior magpies and junior reds sides in all of our junior football leagues, spotting any talent that was coming through. Nigel and his brother knew all about that and how local football worked and one of the things he was determined to with his mates Wassall and Forsyth was put that right

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That's £980k in total right? You know that in today's money that somewhere in the region of £2.5 to £3.5 mil due to inflation right? Add into that the general inflation of prices in football and suddenly it doesn't seem so small, especially when Clough hasn't had a nice £3.5 mil to spend without needing to reduce the wage bill or sell players.

Well i was recalling them from memory....

i knew i'd miss a few. A couple more come to mind since.....

Williams 40k

Lewis 25k

But it was peanuts, and yet he achieved two promotions.

Good signings are the key to any good manager.

nigels record is a bit patchy there but possibly improving. Too early to tell.

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I thought Jim Smiths job was to cut the wage bill after pickering had thrown a load of money at it and failed. He got rid of a lot of players and brought in cheaper replacments like Van Der Laan, Rowett, Flynn, Williams, and youngsters like Sturridge and Carsley.He got the best our of what was left like Yates and Gabbidini and added the class in Igor.

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Well i was recalling them from memory....

i knew i'd miss a few. A couple more come to mind since.....

Williams 40k

Lewis 25k

But it was peanuts, and yet he achieved two promotions.

Good signings are the key to any good manager.

nigels record is a bit patchy there but possibly improving. Too early to tell.

£40k then is around £100k with inflation alone before taking into account the way the game has changed in recent times. The World record transfer at the time was the order of £5 mil, around £12.5 mil in today's money. Mid table Premiership clubs throw that kind of money around now, and our current record transfer is of the order of £80 mil. Citing figures from 3 decades ago is about as relevant as citing shapes from wax dripping into water.

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£40k then is around £100k with inflation alone before taking into account the way the game has changed in recent times. The World record transfer at the time was the order of £5 mil, around £12.5 mil in today's money. Mid table Premiership clubs throw that kind of money around now, and our current record transfer is of the order of £80 mil. Citing figures from 3 decades ago is about as relevant as citing shapes from wax dripping into water.

The point is how you define success on all levels.

Arthur achieved much more.

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I'd say nigels spending is comparable and represents good value but we have not progressed that far up the table......

Fielding 300k

Legzdins 100k

Deeney nil

Brayford 500k

Freeman nil

Moxey 360k

Roberts nil

Buxton nil

Barker 900k

Shackell 1m

Keogh 1.2m

O'connor nil

Anderson nil

Naylor 50k

Bailey 500k

Pringle nil

Croft nil

Cywka nil

Coutts 150k

Bryson 300k

Ward 400k

Martin 200k

Sammon 1.2m

Robinson 200k

Maguire 350k

Tyson nil

Jacobs 600k

Hendrie nil

Plus

Obrien

Hendrick

Hughes

Bennett

Seems a perfectly valid comparison......

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Blimey, delivered on all fronts. We don't expect much nowadays do we?

Maybe that's where GSE have had the most success, lowering everyone's expectations to the point of apathy.

Meh

Point is nigel has done a pretty good job with the cards dealt to him. Football is a completely different industry to the one encountered by his dad, cox and smith. Judging nigel and nigel alone, i think overall hes done and excellent job. Long may it continue.

Bear in mind the thread is about clough, and what he has accomplished and not gse and the owners...

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I'd say nigels spending is comparable and represents good value but we have not progressed that far up the table......

Fielding 300k

Legzdins 100k

Deeney nil

Brayford 500k

Freeman nil

Moxey 360k

Roberts nil

Buxton nil

Barker 900k

Shackell 1m

Keogh 1.2m

O'connor nil

Anderson nil

Naylor 50k

Bailey 500k

Pringle nil

Croft nil

Cywka nil

Coutts 150k

Bryson 300k

Ward 400k

Martin 200k

Sammon 1.2m

Robinson 200k

Maguire 350k

Tyson nil

Jacobs 600k

Hendrie nil

Plus

Obrien

Hendrick

Hughes

Bennett

Seems a perfectly valid comparison......

Uh... what? It's a completely different era, the gaps between divisions have become enormous and the amounts of money thrown around have become silly. Comparing anything now to back 3 decades ago is pointless and a waste of time as there is no meaningful comparison to be made.

You should also check your values. I'm almost certain Shackell was £750k rising to £1 mil with add ons, Jacobs was less than £600k and Hendrie was an exchange for Jordan Stewart. Almost all (or possibly all) were undisclosed as well, so the best we have is media guesses, we don't know the actual values.

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I think the article is generous to say Clough has delivered on all fronts. It's quite a resounding statement that doesn't quite reflect the reality of Clough's tenure, in my view at least.

What exactly has he delivered? A team that competes for promotion? No. A team that performs consistently? No. A team that plays with a clear philosophy? No. A group of players that he can get the best out of? No.

He deserves credit for the work he has done to enhance our youth development and his ability to find and develop players from the lower leagues.

But I think it's fair to say that while he's done a reasonable job under the circumstances, he could have done better. Especially recently where significant investment hasn't quite resulted in the progress that was expected.

A top six finish was the aim in the 2011 pre-season and 18 months on, it is quite disappointing that we are still some way from the end goal and fraught with problems that date all the way back to before Clough even arrived.

Certainly there have been signs of promise that he could yet deliver if we remain patient but I just feel after four years, we should be further along in our progression than we actually are.

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Significant investment? What "significant investment" are you taking about Jourdan. I know you don't exactly like Clough, at least from your previous posts, but surely you can explain that statement a bit more.

Also, top 6 was a desire, never the aim, and at the time most laughed off anything even approaching a top half finish. Many saw the comments about the top 6 as nothing more than an attempt to sell more season tickets capitalising on a couple of slightly more expensive signings without any particularly significant input.

Put bluntly, we're a million miles ahead of where we were after coming down and to be honest, I doubt most clubs would recover as we have after the disaster of 2007-08 and the mess we were left in from the summer 2008 spending spree. Somehow Clough has deliver a most consistent team that can now challenge in the top half of the table, despite working on a fraction of the wage bill that he arrived at in an age where most clubs merely throw more money at problems until the problem or they go away.

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GSE saves us from going to league 1 or league 2 with massive financial problems. Nigel clough was told he needs to get rid of all the over paid players while staying in the division. Therefor Nigel has succeeded. Maybe not in the eyes of some fans but he has technically succeeded. Now we have got rid of all the overpaid jokers this season is the first where the whole team was signed by clough. I.e judgment time as to wether we can get out this league with kids. We have shown we can beat anyone, but it falls back to the fact that we need some expensive away from home to take a grip on the game an get results. At home this takes care of itself as ref decisions go our way the opposition respect us too much

Nigel has definitely delivered from the objectives GSE set out for him. However the fans want the objectives to be promotion next season or the season after not in 5 years time when will Hughes is the best cm in the championship and we would waltz through the league. Finally it doesn't help that this league is rubbish and anyone can beat anyone. I mean we thrashed Watford 5-1 and now they are above us.

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GSE saves us from going to league 1 or league 2 with massive financial problems. Nigel clough was told he needs to get rid of all the over paid players while staying in the division. Therefor Nigel has succeeded. Maybe not in the eyes of some fans but he has technically succeeded. Now we have got rid of all the overpaid jokers this season is the first where the whole team was signed by clough. I.e judgment time as to wether we can get out this league with kids. We have shown we can beat anyone, but it falls back to the fact that we need some expensive away from home to take a grip on the game an get results. At home this takes care of itself as ref decisions go our way the opposition respect us too much

Nigel has definitely delivered from the objectives GSE set out for him. However the fans want the objectives to be promotion next season or the season after not in 5 years time when will Hughes is the best cm in the championship and we would waltz through the league. Finally it doesn't help that this league is rubbish and anyone can beat anyone. I mean we thrashed Watford 5-1 and now they are above us.

How did GSE do that? It was under them we spent loads when we were already down in the prem then threw loads of money at it on our first season in the champioship and why we were in the mess in the first place

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Clough has succeeded in getting rid of grossly overpaid, average footballers and replacing them with moderately paid, average footballers, which to me isn't a massive achievement. If Clough has managed to replace players on a huge salary with players on a much lower salary with higher technical ability and quality then there would be some kudos in that. Hence why we are destined to be cut adrift in mid table every season.

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If the players have a high technical ability and a low wage they'd be in the premier league. Nigel's signed championship standard players that could potentially play in the PL.

Well anyone could potentially but realistically out of this lot there is max of two or maybe 3 who will could end up being regular prem players. Our team is a bog standard middle of the road championship team.

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After four years, Clough has built a team of young potential and average to above average championship players. The emphasis is on team, I admire the team spirit and togetherness that he has managed to get. A little concerned that after 4 years, he still seems to panic about away games and I fear this mentally spreads into the players.

We are a hardworking and likeable team. Clough has done a lot of great work here, but there is plenty still to be done. I wish he would show more belief in his own team when it comes to away games.

I still fear this approach will lead to stagnation. People these days expect things instantly, they don't like waiting. Sooner or later we will need to press on. I admire the way Clough is trying to do it, I want it to work but is he fully capable?

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