What loyalty should we expect from a manager?

[Carl Sagan]

The character Lord Henry Wotton in Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray famously says: "There is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about".

I have always maintained that as fans we should want our players and managers to be speculated about. It means we have good players and managers who are coveted by other clubs. It is the price of success. Yet it seems to me that the fans and latterly the board have proved unable to handle that price. There was a clamour for McClaren to go because he was being talked about for the jobs at QPR and Everton and Sunderland and West Ham and, apparently fatefully, Newcastle. I said "good". It's always been clear that no decent manager with options would ever go to work for Mike Ashley - they don't need the grief. Sadly, it might end up as a self-fulfilling prophecy that McClaren now has no option but to go there.

What happens if Paul Clements does join and starts the season really well with Derby? Immediately he will be touted as the saviour of clubs struggling at the lower end of the Premier League. Is that his fault? What's to stop him wanting to go there? With Mac we had a far better guarantee of keeping a great coach because he was much more invested in the club, having played for us and then successfully coached us before, as well as Derby being the place he had to thank for rebuilding his reputation in English football.

I hope Clements or whoever comes in maintains this new and unusual tradition of the Derby Head Coach being wanted by other clubs. This time, I hope other fans welcome it and hold their nerve a lot better. But I have less confidence that someone without Mac's deep connections to Derby County will be more committed to us as a club than he was.

[eddie]

None.

If you get loyalty, that's fine, but loyalty and contracts are double-edged swords.

[ChaddesdenRam]

If Clement comes in and we are top by January then struggling premier league teams will be desperately wanting to take him.

No one knows what would happen in that situation until we are there. You would hope then Clement would learn from Mac's error and say I am here in until the end of the season and confidently deny any rumours. 

[nookiebear]

Lets just hope if he is successful then he deals with the speculation a little better (in the eyes of the board anyway) 

[Dale The Ram]

Rather be 7th all season then a sudden win streak at the end to get us top

[t'oldu]

It wasn't that he was wanted. It  was the verbal shilly shallying about a tap up behind  the door.  It is surely written into any manager's contract that he will be allowed to talk to any Premiership Club who is seriously interested in acquiring his services. But there is a proper , open  way of   going about this.    And it is through the board/owners.

The other  factor  was the disastrous  final months of the season that would have brought about the demise of virtually any manager. Whatever the underlying reason he was unable to stop it. which raised big questions about his true ability  and just why he had lost the dressing room.

Add the 2 together and his situation was untenable.

[Ewe Ram]

Of course it's flattering if other clubs are interested in our coaches or players. 

McClaren didn't commit to Derby and to the aim of promotion. He didn't say 'I'm going nowhere', even if his agent said otherwise behind Newcastle's closed doors. He was like a bloke who flirts with other women behind his wife's back. She would never trust her hubby again and we would never trust SM again. He had to go, nobody to blame but himself. No good blaming the board. 

[YouRams]

If they dont have a Ram tattoo on their forehead within a week they need hounding out. 

[eustonstation]

2 million (don't know how to add the pounds sign) a year's worth!

I saw this number being bandied around as our offer to Clement, for four years. 

Anyone have any idea how that might compare to a mid/lower-table Premier club? I've got to think it's high even for that level of club, no? 

[Chris Mills]

None - its a job and when they get a better offer I'd expect them to take it, just like any other person in the world at work.

Never understood why people expect loyalty.

[Dimmu]

Loyal professional footballer/manager is synonym of unambitious loser.

Don't want them in my club.

[TobyWanKenobi]

My loyalty to my job is that if someone offers me more money for doing the same job I'm gone. I expect no different from anyone else.

[DesertRam]

He must have lost the dressingroom, as the capitulation was really bad,  but could he have won it back?

I don't think so, not without a major clearout, and we have probably avoided that with a new head coach.

[mcsilks]

My loyalty to my job is that if someone offers me more money for doing the same job I'm gone. I expect no different from anyone else.

​

Then you my friend are sadly one of our new generation.

I come from a generation when loyalty meant something. 

I used to work for schools and I was loyal to my employer. I was headhunted on more than one occasion and offered significantly more money, less hours, less stress but I didn't take it because of those loyal values that lie very deep within me. 

I stayed loyal to the employer I was with and happily stayed there until I decided to go into ventures of my own. 

Now football management is a whole different ball game (no pun intended). How any employee can expect to stay loyal to employers who throughout the game, show nothing but a consistent lack of loyalty. 

This is why I am in favour of year-to-year contracts for all football managers. The contracts are renewed on a yearly basis with expectations written into that contract. If they meet the expectations, the employer is legally binded to offer said manager another contract. 

Football managers may argue there is no job security with the above proposition but when the average stay of a manager is less than a year, how could that be the case.

 

How McClaren must be regretting staying loyal to DCFC and saying no to Ashley when offered the NUFC job a few weeks back. He would be sitting pretty just now with a very large Premiership club and a fat salary to boot.

[Alph]

There's no loyalty either way. If a player isn't good enough he's sold, released. 

If a manager isn't good enough he's sacked. 

Do clubs care what happens to these people? 

Everyone in football knows it. You have to take what's there more often than not. Sometimes it pays to stand still so when you take a step it's a big one. But it's gamble. 

 

[Ashz09]

In short from what I've heard from what people inside the club have told someone I know he had fall outs with around 5-6 players and them being the key ones. Kind of makes sense with the peformances and some of the decisions.

 

(Yes I know it can be from the dogs friends dads best friend etc).

[Ewe Ram]

Loyal professional footballer/manager is synonym of unambitious loser.

Don't want them in my club.

That's fine but I'm not thinking about loyalty to the brand I.e. Derby, I'm talking about loyalty to the commitment of the success of the club. He dropped that like a hot potato for his own gain. 

I for one think that 21,000 season ticket holders who commit good money deserved better. He took his eye off the ball so to speak. He's a self serving self obsessed tosser. 

[Woodypecker]

Plenty of truisms and reasonable points - but I also think that those on the field, committing such gaffes and producing such poor results through a dozen 'Jekyll-&-Hyde' performances, after more or less storming the top 6 for 6 months, are just hapless chokers.

Whatever distractions existed, they short-changed themselves, club and fans in that appalling late-season run of results - and should have at least got Derby 'over the line' into the top 6 with something to spare.

I trust some of the players now as little as I trusted Mac to carry it forward, though that's of little value, I know.

Here's to progress over 46 games next season!

[TobyWanKenobi]

​

Then you my friend are sadly one of our new generation.

I come from a generation when loyalty meant something. 

I used to work for schools and I was loyal to my employer. I was headhunted on more than one occasion and offered significantly more money, less hours, less stress but I didn't take it because of those loyal values that lie very deep within me. 

I stayed loyal to the employer I was with and happily stayed there until I decided to go into ventures of my own. 

Times change pops. Just because you remember when all this was fields and you had to ride to school on your dads wooly mammoth it doesn't mean that it's any worse these days.

[RLACML]

That's fine but I'm not thinking about loyalty to the brand I.e. Derby, I'm talking about loyalty to the commitment of the success of the club. He dropped that like a hot potato for his own gain. 

I for one think that 21,000 season ticket holders who commit good money deserved better. He took his eye off the ball so to speak. He's a self serving self obsessed tosser. 

Was this when he continually said that he wanted to stay or when he kept turning down the Newcastle job?