Steve McClaren 'set for formal talks' with Newcastle United

[uttoxram75]

​It's just a shame they didn't believe him.

I realise this is the first post in which we've discussed it but I've been going back and forth all day with a few people so I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with almost everything you've said and try to bow out. 

​I'm not after an argument here RLACML. 

I really am struggling with this concept that you, Mostyn and maybe one or two others have of somehow its the fans fault that Steve McClaren has been sacked.

Sam Rush has stated that Steve was sacked because the ownership group didn't agree with him on the "direction".

We should be discussing what the "direction" is rather than blaming the one stakeholder section of the club that has had no say in the sacking.

[TuffLuff]

I wonder whether one factor was whether he had lost the dressing room. I put it this way to someone earlier, but imagine being a player who signed a long term contract last summer, when there was maybe a bit of prem interest in you. You then had McClaren, Rush and the management saying to stay as if we keep everyone together then we will get promoted. You have belief in them and confident you will be promoted and sign on. So then when your boss gets a bit of interest in a prem role and cant really give a convincing answer to whether he's interested, then what does that say? It can be argued they kept you playing championship why he leaves at the first opportunity? (i know McClaren signed a contract last summer too, but I just wonder whether his unconvincing answers broke the camaraderie which was in the club previously) 

 

Bit presumptive maybe, but i think its just a relevant as thinking online fans got him sacked.

 

[I Am Sheep]

It's a big factor, he did lose the dressing room.

[Mostyn6]

Why are people saying he lost the dressing room?  

He didn't. He just didn't have good players available who had the mental strength for big games and pressure!  

You don't claw back the games against Huddersfield and Millwall with lost dressing room! 

I don't blame the fans for the end decision of sacking him, I blame fans for ruining the good thing we had going which set the wheels in motion, culminating in sacking him!  

We were romping it, five points clear of third, yet all people were taking about was him going to Newcastle. 

[maydrakin]

Let's put this into context as a fan, shall we?

Let's say you are a Derby fan managing Fleetwood Town, however you still live in the Derby area.  As you are getting plaudits for amazing football and Derby are showing interest in you and make an approach, can you honestly say you would say that you were sorry as you have a job at Fleetwood?

Can you say why you wouldn't try and come up with a way to go to Derby? (Most likely on better terms too).

[TroyDyer]

I think saying that the fans are to blame is a bit arrogant. Unless the fans talk with their feet like they did with Clough,  we really aren't that important to a business. 

The Newcastle talk was in the media and wouldn't go away because it had legs. We fans didn't give it legs. We didn't email Ashley and tell him to formally interview mcclaren. 

He flirted with them, the players could see it. I believe he lost certain aspects of the dressing room for sure. Maybe not all of it, and certainly not the loan players, but many others simply weren't playing for him. The fans didn't do that. 

Mcclaren did that, and now he will get his wish to manage a 'big club'. Until he is sacked and disappears again. 

[cloughandtaylor]

The sacking of Mac had nothing to do with speculation of toon, that speculation started in January, we were top end of Feb. No, if you have a successfull coach and are not in the prem, clubs will always be linked to the coach.

If we managed to get Clement and he is a revelation and we are at the top, there will be speculation from the struggling prem clubs again next season, what would we do sack him as well, just because there was speculation, what if if becomesan official approach and he rebuffs it because he has a job to do at Derby, do we sack Clements?

No, toon stuff only an excuse by the board, complete nonsense!

 

[Mostyn6]

Let's put this into context as a fan, shall we?

Let's say you are a Derby fan managing Fleetwood Town, however you still live in the Derby area.  As you are getting plaudits for amazing football and Derby are showing interest in you and make an approach, can you honestly say you would say that you were sorry as you have a job at Fleetwood?

Can you say why you wouldn't try and come up with a way to go to Derby? (Most likely on better terms too).

​If I wanted the job, I'd take the job. Football is a very quick industry with short shelf life. You could be favourite to be England manager 1 year, and then 2 years later, unemployed. Fact is, this accusation of flirting etc, prove it! He didn't leave, twice he had the chance, but didn't.

[Ashz09]

I'm not going to say to much but a few of the players have been quiet honest with the fans not on twitter etc but face to face.

 

I've heard from a few people who see them now and again that a few players who we're pretty obvious fell out with him you can guess who a good 1/4 of the 1st team.

 

It was so obvious as well with the way they played no desire near enough you don't lose quality over night.

[Mostyn6]

I'm not going to say to much but a few of the players have been quiet honest with the fans not on twitter etc but face to face.

 

I've heard from a few people who see them now and again that a few players who we're pretty obvious fell out with him you can guess who a good 1/4 of the 1st team.

 

It was so obvious as well with the way they played no desire near enough you don't lose quality over night.

​as I say, it says more about the players character. If they'd fallen out with one manager and decided not to play for him, then you'd say perhaps there's something wrong with the manager. But the same players didn't really do it under the last manager either, so maybe it's that they are not good enough mentally. 

You'd hope players play for the fans and the club more than the fans. I've heard players say they didn't like Brian Clough, but they still played cos they were professional.

Maybe the ambitions of the club, the (then) manager, and the fans are just too much for the players.

[uttoxram75]

​as I say, it says more about the players character. If they'd fallen out with one manager and decided not to play for him, then you'd say perhaps there's something wrong with the manager. But the same players didn't really do it under the last manager either, so maybe it's that they are not good enough mentally. 

You'd hope players play for the fans and the club more than the fans. I've heard players say they didn't like Brian Clough, but they still played cos they were professional.

Maybe the ambitions of the club, the (then) manager, and the fans are just too much for the players.

​Which of the players do you have in mind, the last few games where we tailed off miserably mainly consisted of

Grant, Forsyth, Shotton, Raul, Keogh, Warnock, Hughes, Hendrick, Bent, Ince, the others like Russell, Ward, Lingard, Christie, Bryson, Martin, Hanson, Thomas had cameo roles while Buxton, Eustace, Mascarell, Thorne, Whitbread were out injured for the vast majority of the poor run.

Isn't it more likely that Shotton, Raul and Warnock are not quite good enough (maybe not quite ready enough in Raul's case) defensively and Mac was unable to find a Plan B to cope without the CDM's and Martin rather than established players not being mentally strong enough?

You are looking for excuses for Mac rather than accept that he upset his bosses somehow.

We can only guess and give our own opinions of what happened unless Sam comes out with a definitive, detailed reason why they turned against Mac in the end.

Personally i don't think it was due to the fans or the players mental strength.

 

 

 

[Mostyn6]

​Which of the players do you have in mind, the last few games where we tailed off miserably mainly consisted of

Grant, Forsyth, Shotton, Raul, Keogh, Warnock, Hughes, Hendrick, Bent, Ince, the others like Russell, Ward, Lingard, Christie, Bryson, Martin, Hanson, Thomas had cameo roles while Buxton, Eustace, Mascarell, Thorne, Whitbread were out injured for the vast majority of the poor run.

Isn't it more likely that Shotton, Raul and Warnock are not quite good enough (maybe not quite ready enough in Raul's case) defensively and Mac was unable to find a Plan B to cope without the CDM's and Martin rather than established players not being mentally strong enough?

You are looking for excuses for Mac rather than accept that he upset his bosses somehow.

We can only guess and give our own opinions of what happened unless Sam comes out with a definitive, detailed reason why they turned against Mac in the end.

Personally i don't think it was due to the fans or the players mental strength.

 

 

 

​well the thing is, I can only think of a couple/few really bad performances, the rest were points lost on individual errors and not "lost dressing room" etc. So if you are talking about the poor performance of Reading at home, then the question you ask answers itself.

[61GT]

All these comments about certain players not performing for the manager, if that is the case then they should feel absolutely ashamed of themselves.

What about playing their best and giving their all for the club and then fans who turn up to support them week in and week out?

[ramsbottom]

 

 

How do you know he didn't loose the dressing room?  Are you ITK with half the squad?  I don't care if we managed to salvage a draw against Millwall, they're utter toss, hence why they were relegated.  I'm sure them being crap had nothing to do with scraping a draw on that day.  As for Hudderfield, I'll use your excuse of "you get those types of games during every season".

He had enough good players to beat the likes of Millwall, Brighton, Huddersfield & Reading but didn't because he steadfastly refused to alter his thinking.  If you've played the game you'll know that the players form their own opinions about who should, and how, you should play against certain opposition.  So when you have a manager who can't see you wood for the trees and continues to play a certain way you can become frustrated and begin to resent them.

The fans aren't to blame.  All the fans wanted since the rumours started was a simple "No I'm not interested in the Newcastle job".  Instead we got "It's pure speculation" & "I have a contract with Derby" ****** so we continued to look for reassurance, which he didn't provide until it was too late.

[TheDeadlySaul]

If players don't perform because of tabloid speculation then they need a hard look at themselves. Why, when they are on the brinks of promotion would they stop playing, 2 months into all this speculation is just beyond me and sounds pretty unbelievable.

I highly doubt Steve McClaren lost the dressing room, the man who was criticised for being too nice to players. Also why would the speculation affect the players if they had already fallen out with Mac, surely they should all be happy that he could be leaving?

If you don't think fans have any influence to the board then you are insane. We have a local man on the board in Mel Morris, who is a fan himself, who will talk to fans and discuss problems. So of course the board will be  influenced by fans, probably not to the extremes of being able to sack a manager.

[McRamFan]

Rumours start about the Newcastle job, now being formally approached.

I like Steve,  however he hasn't covered himself in glory

 

 

[Sith Happens]

The way i see it is the reason McClaren was sacked was nothing to do with the fans, do we really think Sam Rush et al are going to be swayed by the opinion of a minority of fans on here/twitter?

McClarens seeming refusal to rule out the Newcastle job may have been a factor, but as Sam Rush said it was done after a review of the season, possibly even reviewing why things worked so well in his first season.

First Season - McClaren demonstrated his excellent coaching skills by improving a team which had talent but wasnt working aswell as maybe it could have, added a couple of decent loans to improve things. But Derby were an unknown that season and largly clubs allowed us to play our system (i'll come back to this) and we were very lucky with injuries and were able to have long spells of being unchanged, or just minor tweaks.

When a team did set out to prevent us playing as we wanted, we lost, Millwall at home, QPR in the final are the two clear examples i can think of.

I should add at this point, that a work colleague of mine is a good friend of an ex england player who was around at the time McClaren was manager and his comments to my colleague were that he is an excellent coach/number 2 but a poor manager/number 1.

Second Season - This was the season McClaren really had to start being a Manager/Number 1/First Team coach, whatever you want to call it....and this is why he got sacked in my view and some of the reasons are:

Derby were favourites and clunbs set out to stop them playing - we struggled with this and rarely were able to repeat the performances of the first season.

We had no plan B for Chris Martin - We bought in Leon Best and let Connor Sammon go on loan, now im not a massive Sammon fan but i dont think he was worse (and probably better) than Leon Best was.

We bought in Bent as a Plan B but when Martin got injured (and even bent) we tried to carry on with Plan A but with Bent/Russel in the Martin role - didnt work.

We did try Plan B/C etc at times but it became very disjointed, what formation were we playing at the end of the Reading game?

The Holding Midfielder Role - Ok so GT got injured, that was bad luck, but we didnt have a great start to the season and its no coincidence that John Eustace wasnt playing, we were trying to make it work with other players. and Omar never seemed right for the role - a good player but not that role - not in the championship. When we did play Eustace our record was excellent.

January loan window - ok bringing in Bent and Ince seemed a good idea, and they scored goals to keep us in it....so im not arguing too much with this, but bringing in lingaard - i have no idea why we did this. We had money to spend on wages so surely because Eustace was out injured, no guarantee on Thornes return (seemed we were relying on it) and mascarell clearly not the solution in the holding midfielded role - this should have been addressed - warnock maybe, but the evidence shows us not.

So to sum it up - First Season - able to get by on coaching abilities, Second Season having to manage the team more, manage buying players, manage plan a/b/c, manage injuries etc etc..and this is where we failed and why we are looking for a new Coach.

 

 

 

[FrostedRam]

If players don't perform because of tabloid speculation then they need a hard look at themselves. Why, when they are on the brinks of promotion would they stop playing, 2 months into all this speculation is just beyond me and sounds pretty unbelievable.

I highly doubt Steve McClaren lost the dressing room, the man who was criticised for being too nice to players. Also why would the speculation affect the players if they had already fallen out with Mac, surely they should all be happy that he could be leaving?

If you don't think fans have any influence to the board then you are insane. We have a local man on the board in Mel Morris, who is a fan himself, who will talk to fans and discuss problems. So of course the board will be  influenced by fans, probably not to the extremes of being able to sack a manager.

The players not performing brings back memories of the Ipswich game after clough had been sacked.

It seemed in the first half they were trying to prove a point to the CEO that he shouldn't have got rid of clough. Once they had got their point across it was a different second half.

it appears the players have more control over matters than we see. If they wanted a manager out so much is it beyond questioning that they might go on a poor run of form

[Will Hughes Hair]

 

So to sum it up - First Season - able to get by on coaching abilities, Second Season having to manage the team more, manage buying players, manage plan a/b/c, manage injuries etc etc..and this is where we failed and why we are looking for a new Coach.

 

 

This.

​

[StockholmRam]

​If the penalty had gone in the whingers would not be moaning  right now, - Injuries cost us last season.

Mac has been the best coach Derby has had since he was here last time with the eagle, we have played the best football in the last 2 years than we had for decades, full houses - even top of the table going in to March, then the injuries started.....Yes, some on here have very short memories.

Remember sometimes the grass is never greener........

I think even if the penalty had gone in we would have lost 1-3. I did not see anything in the players pre match warm up body language, start of match or reaction to missing the penalty to suggest otherwise. 

And talking of " short memories" only 12 months earlier we looked polar opposite warming up for Brighton game and the whole feeling. Something had clearly happened Super Rams mate to put the players into that state for the Reading game. It could be one thing or a combination of things as has been discussed through many threads on this forum. I don't claim to know..but what I do know is that I saw with my own eyes that Reading game.

Two schools of thought or opinion are to either let McLaren have a go at fixing it or deeming enough is enough. I'm in the latter. Not jumping for joy about it all by a long chalk. Quite sad it ended so poorly after such a great start.  But for me the game was up by Reading.