The strategy for progress.

[ronnieronalde]

I'm sorry but this is a ridiculous point. What was he supposed to do? Change the entire playing squad immediately upon arriving? I'm not a McClaren fan and think the Newcastle temptation ruined our chances of being a PL side, but to essentially say that what he achieved for his entire tenure, minus the last two months, was all thanks to Nigel Clough is extremely naive.

That's not the point I'm making at all. 

If he changed the whole squad on getting here he'd have been a bigger idiot than I think he is already.

Some of us could see we were heading in the right direction. some of us spat our dummy.

All he needed to do was tweak it and he couldn't even do that.

What I would expect is that over nearly a two season period such a genius manager and his newly established recruitment team would have found one or two permanent signings to dislodge the players he was left with, players who would take us to the next level.

Did he?

Did they?

Has the money spent been spent well?

If you can say yes, fair enough. I've got no comeback to that.

In my opinion the money we've spent since Nigel was sacked hasn't seen enough improvement on the squad he left behind.

For goodness sakes, the recruitment team are so advanced and so on the ball, they're even going back and signing his old signings.

I think we've pretty much shpunted millions up the wall to stand still.

As Curtains said earlier, only time will tell.

 

 

 

 

[curb]

That's not really true though is it. Nigel brought in Grant, Martin, Russell  in his last season in charge and had them for 9 games. That's not 33% in the previous year now is it?

In fact overall apart from the squad left behind, I wasn't talking about the previous manager. You were. 

I keep my points to facts. If you can tell me I'm wrong I'm fine with that. McClaren took a squad that took him to within 30 seconds of play off glory and he made it worse.

9 of the 11 who started the majority of the season weren't his signings. Once he introduced his signings EVERYTHING went pear shaped.

Let's have a look shall we, and you can tell me whether I'm overly positive in my bias, or whether you're overly negative in yours.

Clough players who impacted last season?

Grant - free
Forsyth - 150k
Buxton - free
Keogh - 1.2m (bought with the 1.5m he for for selling Shackell to Burnley)
Bryson - 400k

Eustace - Free
Hendrick - Academy
Hughes - Academy
Ward - 300k
Coutts - 200k
Russell - 450k rising to 750k (bought with the fee he recieved for selling Steven Davies to Bristol City)
Martin - free from Norwich reserves (that 25 goal a season striker.

Sammon  - and this is the duffer that people want to hang him with....

McClarens permanent signings? and I'll leave you to work out the fees.

George Thorne 
Ryan Shotton
Cyrus Christie 
Raul Albentosa 

Warnock
 

You can defend that if you want Curb. You can criticise Clough if you want. I prefer to look at  it pound for pound.

Steve McClaren didn't make one permanent signing that impacted the squad last year. He was unlucky with Thorne, who I must admit looks to be a very good signing.

Other than that EVERY SINGLE player he brought in permanently disrupted what we had.

I'm happy to list Nigels signings  and state that he left the squad in better shape and it seems you're happy to defend Steves and say he left the squad in better shape.

Who is right? Neither of us will back down.

 

I acknowledged on page 4 of the thread that Clough made some god signings (although he also made some duffers as well) - 'Clough recruited some very good players, who were happy at the time to take lower wages', so I'm not arguing that point, although as you said yourself he signed a few duffers as well (not just Sammon), I also said that he left us with some very good players, Hughes, Martin, he was unlucky with Barker. I also think we've done well to come out of the McClaren era with a couple more very good players, Thorne as you say (if he can steer clear of injuries) and Tom Ince will play a big part over the next few years.

You're also arguing a different point, what I'm saying is that he couldn't coach the players he's got into a team capable of challenging for promotion. He left us in a better place than his predecessor, but so has McClaren. We're now expecting play offs at the minimum, we're used to seeing better football, the atmosphere around the club has completely changed, we're averaging 6k more at home. There was a reason we regularly took under 500 to away games, because of the way we were set up to play for a draw. We now get triple the numbers at away matches.

 

 

[Mostyn6]

The debate is digressing. I'm not asking whether or not someone bought good or bad players, just whether the answer is to buy more players, or expect better coaching.

[Tombo]

a few people missing the point here. If the massive recruitment in the summer hasn't strengthened us, then recruiting players is obviously the wrong way to go. Instead of buying seven players, maybe we should've bought two or three. But some people want to buy more, well the reality is that there are NOT players like Will Hughes and Chris Martin out there, so every new player will be deemed as a lesser player, and the feeling will always be that we need new players to improve, It's a vicious and miserable circle.

 

People are forgetting what McClaren, SImpson and Steele did when they first arrived. They proved that the current crop could play better with better coaching. My opinion is that if this current coaching setup has anything about it, they should be able to get a lot out of the current squad.

So give them time to do that. All we're saying (curtains aside) is that we need to find cover in CM with Hughes out and Bryson picking up knocks all over the place. Whether that's just a loan or what but it's what we need.

Nobody is saying that our squad isn't good enough, except a few ******. People just want to look after that midfield as it's where all our football comes from.

[Mostyn6]

So give them time to do that. All we're saying (curtains aside) is that we need to find cover in CM with Hughes out and Bryson picking up knocks all over the place. Whether that's just a loan or what but it's what we need.

Nobody is saying that our squad isn't good enough, except a few ******. People just want to look after that midfield as it's where all our football comes from.

so you think we should bring more players in?

[Tombo]

so you think we should bring more players in?

Just one more. Central midfield. If Hughes and Bryson had one time injuries that'd keep them out for a week or so it wouldn't be a problem but Hughes' season is basically over and Bryson hasn't been able to stay fit all preseason, and he seems to be mildly injury prone anyway. We need more bodies in midfield.

[Srg]

The debate is digressing. I'm not asking whether or not someone bought good or bad players, just whether the answer is to buy more players, or expect better coaching.

Depends on the timescale you want to achieve the end goal. 1 or 2 years, then you simply have to buy.

[The Scarlet Pimpernel]

The debate is digressing. I'm not asking whether or not someone bought good or bad players, just whether the answer is to buy more players, or expect better coaching.

I think the answer is both. If you can afford to bring in better players within FFP then you do so. Once they are here you provide (hopefully) world class coaching to get the best out of them. Its not an either or situation.

[RadioactiveWaste]

It's a balance of both, bit not always the same and not always in the middle. At the moment we have brought enough, we need to become a team once again.

[Mostyn6]

maybe it's time to cut our losses and bring in Big Sam right now.