In His 4 Years, Clough Has Delivered On All Fronts

[RamNut]

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.

The gap between league 1 and the championship is not necessarily huge.

Norwich, southampton, brighton and huddersfield have all come up in the last two or three years and done well, and we've been put out of various cups enough times by lower league opposition to know that we certainly can't take lower league opposition for granted.

If you prefer recent non-dcfc examples from the clough era then Paul Lambert launched Norwich without spending much at all between 2009 and 2011. He did an 'arthur cox' for norwich.

Similarly nigel atkins at southampton went thro two division with modest spending - the only really notable buys were danny fox and billy sharp in the second season - hardly silly money.

These are managers who have delivered on all fronts.

I agree with those who say nigel has done some good stuff but it is over stating his achievements to say that he has delivered on all fronts.

[davenportram]

According to this website

http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/en/southampton-fc/transfers/verein_180_2011_default_default_alle_a.html

if you look at 10\11 and 11\12 Southampton spent 7.5 million on players (4.9m in the summer before promotion to the prem)

id say that is significant investment for two seasons

[davenportram]

Oh and they spent 2.5million the year before (09/10 transfers) so that's £10m over three seasons.

that's not net spend its just expenditure on players. Has Nigel spent 10m on transfers in the past 3 seasons

[davenportram]

Oh and they spent 2.5million the year before (09/10 transfers) so that's £10m over three seasons.

that's not net spend its just expenditure on players. Has Nigel spent 10m on transfers in the past 3 seasons

just checked the same website showing we are currently at between 7 and 8 million spent on transfer fees. Still 2m behind what Adkins spent at Southampton.

[gcdcfc28]

In four years, expected better.

It's déjà vu every other season with people saying "judge Clough next season". That quote has been doing the rounds for too long. Seen it again today in another thread; "next season we are going to be a force". Dreamworld guys, dreamworld....

Which players are catergised has the "deadwood" in which Clough did wonders to get rid of anyway?

Most of the deadwood was released; Todd, Sterjovski, Davis, Carroll, Camara, Barnes, Albrechtsen, Beardsley, Zadkovich, Teale, McEveley, Connolly, Powell, Bywater, Leacock....

Varney, Mears and Nyatanga are the only ones I'd considered deadwood in which we received a reasonable fee.

The rest got sold for peanuts or we let the contracts run out.

[networker1884]

In four years, expected better.

It's déjà vu every other season with people saying "judge Clough next season". That quote has been doing the rounds for too long. Seen it again today in another thread; "next season we are going to be a force". Dreamworld guys, dreamworld....

Which players are catergised has the "deadwood" in which Clough did wonders to get rid of anyway?

Most of the deadwood was released; Todd, Sterjovski, Davis, Carroll, Camara, Barnes, Albrechtsen, Beardsley, Zadkovich, Teale, McEveley, Connolly, Powell, Bywater, Leacock....

Varney, Mears and Nyatanga are the only ones I'd considered deadwood in which we received a reasonable fee.

The rest got sold for peanuts or we let the contracts run out.

Do you go to many games?

[ramblur]

Oh and they spent 2.5million the year before (09/10 transfers) so that's £10m over three seasons.

that's not net spend its just expenditure on players. Has Nigel spent 10m on transfers in the past 3 seasons

...and of course what a lot of people refer to as spend is merely the total of transfer fees.If you take 11/12 for example one might say we spent £x,but if you examine the subsequent sales of Shackell and Maguire,these will undoubtedly have brought that total down if (likely I would have thought) the original deals had featured instalments.I reckon the best way to arrive at annual net spend is to simply look at the amounts spent and received in the cash flow statement.

Now I did some work on this in the accounts thread,but it now appears I made a mistake in suggesting that the figures re sales may have been net of amounts owed to other clubs.I've since found out that it's possible to do reconciliations on both sales and purchases that wouldn't have been possible if the sales figures had been net.Therefore it appears that any amount we received from the League (who will have deducted amounts we owed) is bulked back up on the receipts side of cash flow to enable the payments side to be accurately represented (in other words treated as though we received the gross sum and then paid the creditor).This only applies to the cashflow entries-PBSE amounts are quoted as net receipts and so will reflect any deductions.

Apologies to all for this-my mistake was in thinking that the figures were so low that they had to feature deductions,rather than thoroughly analysing.One thing about the cash flow figures though; they won't reflect any future amounts we might receive due to appearances/promotion etc (thinking of Hulse),and it appears that any balance of signing on fees due to sold players is deducted from the profit/loss on sales calculations.

[gcdcfc28]

Do you go to many games?

Enough games to realise Clough is raved about simply because of the surname.

[Pearl Ram]

Enough games to realise Clough is raved about simply because of the surname.

I don't actually think many "rave" about the manager but personally typing, I've got a lot of goodwill towards him because rightly or wrongly I honestly believe Derby County means something to the Clough family.

There's been the odd occasion this season when he's cheesed me right off but by and large I think he's on the right track.

Slowly, slowly catchee monkey. 'http://www.dcfcfans.co.uk/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' />

[networker1884]

Enough games to realise Clough is raved about simply because of the surname.

You are the perfect example of a failing education system.

[DCFCfranco]

All clough has to do is make us perform away from home and then we're sorted.

[networker1884]

All clough has to do is make us perform away from home and then we're sorted.

Oh, is that it??? Only a little problem that!! haha

[jcidaho]

Sorry but Clough has brought vastly inconsistent performances whilst he's been here with a fair bit of negativity thrown in. Steve Nicholson is an epic fan boy.

[AndyB]

Transfer fees are only part of the story. These days you can get out of contract players for "free" but they'll likely be on bigger wages. Any comparison between us and, say, Southampton will probably show that Southampton were paying higher wages and certainly weren't being asked to lower the wage bill year on year on year.

[rams71]

Seems to me after 4 years he still doesnt know team selections or tactics

[gcdcfc28]

You are the perfect example of a failing education system.

Well I attend more games than someone like Bris and Albert.

Then again, I think my dead granny attends more games than those two.

But to insult me because of my opinion AND without no debate at all? C'mon dude!

We will lose a host of players in the summer or two, whether it be contract expires or bids coming in. Then it'll be another circus getting the right players in to fit into the side/style.

I rated him at Burton, but he just hasn't had the balls often enough to change it when things aren't working. Often making ridiculous decisions like throwing your best fullback into the centre midfield WHY?! Would you see that happen elsewhere? Away from home and against a good footballing side?

[networker1884]

Well I attend more games than someone like Bris and Albert.

Then again, I think my dead granny attends more games than those two.

But to insult me because of my opinion AND without no debate at all? C'mon dude!

We will lose a host of players in the summer or two, whether it be contract expires or bids coming in. Then it'll be another circus getting the right players in to fit into the side/style.

I rated him at Burton, but he just hasn't had the balls often enough to change it when things aren't working. Often making ridiculous decisions like throwing your best fullback into the centre midfield WHY?! Would you see that happen elsewhere? Away from home and against a good footballing side?

[size=3]"Enough games to realise Clough is raved about simply because of the surname."-[/size] I didn't need to insult you after this comment, you insulted yourself. Oh, and please do point out your "debate" in that comment before you accuse me of lacking any debate in my posts.

p.s. "without no", is a double negative. Thus my post was hardly insulting, but more a piece of good guesswork.

[eranio20]

Four years of boring, mediocre football. Countless defeats to the likes of shrewsbury and Scunny in the cup.

Getting hammered by our rivals 5-2 (whilst playing a centre half out of position) and settling for draws at the mighty millwall.

Despite this, I rate cloughie more than I rated bob Malcolm.

[davenportram]

Four years of boring, mediocre football. Countless defeats to the likes of shrewsbury and Scunny in the cup.

Getting hammered by our rivals 5-2 (whilst playing a centre half out of position) and settling for draws at the mighty millwall.

Despite this, I rate cloughie more than I rated bob Malcolm.

its not countless its about 4 I think

crew, Shrewsbury, Ssausagehorpe in carling cup,Coc

and Crawley in the FA cup

we have only lost once, yes once to lower league opposition in the FA cup under Clough. The other two times were Birmingham and Manure

[Jourdan]

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.

Where do I say I don't like Clough? In my mind, I try to be as fair and as balanced as possible and I think that is reflected in my previous post, which is hardly a character assassination. I just think he could be doing a better job, that's all. Is that such an outlandish view?

Recent significant investment? As I understand it, we have spent in the region of £1 million three times in 18 months - Sammon, Keogh and Shackell. Granted that during this time, we have also made three significant sales in Shackell, Varney and Steve Davies. But more importantly, we have paid fees in the region of £100-500k for several more first-team signings which is where the accumulated spend becomes significant. Think about Fielding, Ward, Bryson, Jacobs, Coutts, Robinson and several others and it all adds up. We certainly don't spend like Leicester, Cardiff or Hull but let's not pretend we're paupers either.

If top six wasn't the aim, what was the aim? In my mind, Clough has had more autonomy in the transfer market in the past 18 months and that is clearly allied with ambitions of finishing in the top six. In hindsight, it is easy to say a top six finish was unrealistic and the club were just placating the fan base with talk of promotion. But at the time, the club were sure enough of their ambitions for Glick to come out and state them very publicly and it has been reflected in the calibre of player we have attracted too in recent times. Shackell, Fielding, Keogh and Ward all spring to mind.

I'm not suggesting Clough has done a bad job. Moderate, reasonable are the words that come to mind. I just think he could have done better.