New: Manager or not

[Andicis]

8 hours ago, Coconut said:

I said we had one good run of games under Mac 2, not McClaren overall - when he took over from Pearson he had one run exceptional run (13 games, 30 points) followed by one bad run (13 games, 12 points). Fact is once a team's form drops off under McClaren's tenure then there's little to no evidence out there to say he can turn it around. In 2014/15 he even admitted that he'd given up trying to find a solution to us conceding goals!

The bolded part of your post is pure hyperbole. We could debate whether he 'turned around' the Clough squad all day and all night, but the assertion that he'd definitely have turned the awful form back around and got us promoted 'given time' is pretty damn hopeful, at best. I'd say it's bordering on delerious myself.

Is our current poor form under Cocu "Worse than McClaren ever had" ? - No, not really. In 2014/15 McClaren had a spell where he got 3 points from 7 matches. The curent run (since Preston when we lost Shinnie, after losing Clarke against Forest) is 4 points from 7 matches.

If you individually go through the players in the squad we have available now then no, a handful of them aren't that bad, individually, but they're still much worse than either of the squads McClaren had to work with  and collectively it's massively unbalanced. It's that balance that's all important, as your point about Martin and the defensive midfield being so critical to his 2014/15 team proves.

It's impossible to say what McClaren would do with the current squad, I don't know and neither do you. He could turn up and be the McClaren who got QPR 38 points from their first 25 matches last season, or he could be the McClaren who picked up 6 points from their next 14 (including a run of 7 defeats in a row) before being sacked. Can you see a pattern forming here?

Using the "sleepwalking towards relegation' catchphrase does you no favours aside from winning a few applause reactions. It doesn't make you look more aware of the current situation than anyone else.

Personally I'm not 'praying Rooney sweeps in to save the day" I'm hoping the players returning from injury put us back on track to at least achieve the 'ok' form (23 points from 17 matches), that Rooney adds a little extra quality and we make a couple of astute signings (that, admittedly, is very hopeful!) which turn that 'OK' form  into pretty good form, and gives us something to build on for next season.

Why is 7 matches the comparison? What has 7 matches go to do with anything? Who was the 7 matches against? Give me context, if you tell me it was as bad/worse, those are the questions you have to answer before I give any kind of answer, otherwise you've just cherry picked. 

They aren't the 23rd best goal scoring team in the league, and worst in the form table bad, no. Maybe Mac did have a better squad to work with, he'd still get more out of them than Cocu, though. You say I can't know, but in two spells I've seen a good coach come in and improve the players we have. I can speak with relative confidence that Mac would improve the struggling side we have. 

We are sleep walking towards relegation. You might not agree, that's where the sleep walking part comes in. We're in relegation form, and not in a hard run of fixtures, either. We should all be aware of the situation, we've been in an easy run of games and haven't got a win since when exactly? 

What player is going to come back and save us? Seriously. I would love to know. We're not in ''OK'' form, if you think that then you're very easy to please. We're in dire form, OK is dreamland for us at the moment.

[Andicis]

8 hours ago, LeedsCityRam said:

Is Chris Hughton hipster? Hes 61 yet seems to be on most fans lists when wanting a new manager. Roy Hodgson gets plenty of gigs, so did Harry Redknapp before he wound his car window up for the last time.

The reality is outside of Derby, McClaren isnt rated very highly. I also have no idea how you can rate McClaren's sole Eredivise title as superior to Cocu's 3 titles. Interested in your reasoning on that one. Just FYI Twente finished top 4 & within 10 points of the champions in the two seasons before McClaren arrived.

Cocu's net spend is skewed by Bielik, there isnt anyone else he has bought permanently. Not really reasonable to compare with McClaren at this stage.

McClaren coached Man Utd to the treble, no? If Fergie rates him, maybe neanderthal football fans should rate him? Regardless, I don't overly care what they think, I've seen what Mac can do and I know it's top level, whether they think it or not. When did Twente last win a title before Mac? 

Did Mac even have a positive net spend? He barely spent money. He worked within his means. 

Never heard a single fan mention Hodgson to us, or Redknapp, maybe I'm not hanging around an old enough crowd. Hughton isn't hipster no, but he's a more reasonable choice amongst the older crowd. The social media generation love a hipster manager. I'm of that age, but don't buy into it. 

[Abu Dhabi Ram]

9 hours ago, Andicis said:

Because McClaren isn't trendy any more. Everyone wants young hipster managers, like for example us when we signed Rowett at the time. McClaren is better than a lot of the Championship managers. People look at Cocu winning the Eredivise, yet Mac's win over there was more impressive than Cocu's. 

You can't gate keep the term ''struggling''. When Mac took over from Pearson, we were absolutely struggling, not just underperforming. He turned us around in no time. 

Cocu has a pretty big net spend. Probably bigger than Mac ever had. Cocu is making his squad look worse with his shitty management. That's the thing.

These rose tinted glasses for Mac do make me laugh, he is not the answer at all. The only time he did ok with us was when taking over Cloughs team, a close knit group of players who just required tactical tweaking. He did not instill a change in work rate or passion with them as this was already evident. Second time round he achieved a short term turn around but completely lost his way very quickly, you could clearly see the wheels falling off. Both these Mac teams had major off days, losing heavily at pp. Furthermore, out of all his jobs, he only had any success at Derby in the last ten years 'if you can call maintaining league status, success'. It maybe unkind, but history will not remember him any differently to countless other managers. There is nothing to suggest he could turn this around if he replaces Cocu,  he has no Hughes, or Ince to light the attack, no Thorne to boss the midfield, no Keogh to manage the defence, all players that were key to his style and ones I reckon Cocu would love to have in his team.

We need a complete rebuild, something Cocu has proven he can do if given time, we just need to give him that and stop all these ridiculous fixations with managers from the past that did 'ok' with us. 

Has McLaren ever built a team? 

 

[Andicis]

Just now, Abu Dhabi Ram said:

These rose tinted glasses for Mac do make me laugh, he is not the answer at all. The only time he did ok with us was when taking over Cloughs team, a close knit group of players who just required tactical tweaking. He did not instill a change in work rate or passion with them as this was already evident. Second time round he achieved a short term turn around but completely lost his way very quickly, you could clearly see the wheels falling off. Both these Mac teams had major off days, losing heavily at pp. Furthermore, out of all his jobs, he only had any success at Derby in the last ten years 'if you can call maintaining league status, success'. It maybe unkind, but history will not remember him any differently to countless other managers. There is nothing to suggest he could turn this around if he replaces Cocu,  he has no Hughes, or Ince to light the attack, no Thorne to boss the midfield, no Keogh to manage the defence, all players that were key to his style and ones I reckon Cocu would love to have in his team.

We need a complete rebuild, something Cocu has proven he can do if given time, we just need to give him that and stop all these ridiculous fixations with managers from the past that did 'ok' with us. 

Has McLaren ever built a team? 

 

When did Mac ever get chance to spend the money the other dross managers have? Cocu has a bigger net spend than Mac ever got. You say Mac failed the second time around, he was set up for failure. Got one transfer window which he wasn't heavily backed, still brought in Nuge who had a positive impact at the time. 

Mac teams might have had off days, but he still probably had a better win percentage than any other manager. Who did better than him, even with the squad Mac had? Mac's team fell off cos they weren't that good, and I never saw people queuing up to defend him on this forum, they were happy to let him go - why? Cocu gets defended to the hilt despite never proving anything in England, Mac provides our best team in 20 years and we throw him away so willingly? Shocking. 

Mac didn't do ''ok'' with us, he gave the best football I've seen Derby produce in my life time. I'm 21, I've never seen a better manager and I won't accept Mac was only ''ok'' he made me love this club more than I ever did. He produced football we could all be proud of, people throwing Mac under the bus to try big up Cocu is embarrassing.  Yes, Mac has built teams.

[Abu Dhabi Ram]

4 minutes ago, Andicis said:

When did Mac ever get chance to spend the money the other dross managers have? Cocu has a bigger net spend than Mac ever got. You say Mac failed the second time around, he was set up for failure. Got one transfer window which he wasn't heavily backed, still brought in Nuge who had a positive impact at the time. 

Mac teams might have had off days, but he still probably had a better win percentage than any other manager. Who did better than him, even with the squad Mac had? Mac's team fell off cos they weren't that good, and I never saw people queuing up to defend him on this forum, they were happy to let him go - why? Cocu gets defended to the hilt despite never proving anything in England, Mac provides our best team in 20 years and we throw him away so willingly? Shocking. 

Mac didn't do ''ok'' with us, he gave the best football I've seen Derby produce in my life time. I'm 21, I've never seen a better manager and I won't accept Mac was only ''ok'' he made me love this club more than I ever did. He produced football we could all be proud of, people throwing Mac under the bus to try big up Cocu is embarrassing.  Yes, Mac has built teams.

Mac still got one transfer window, Cocu was dropped into it last minute and has not had this chance yet.

The football under Mac 1 was great, but it wasn't his team, the style was not as good the year after either, his reign ending in a home defeat to Reading 4-0, I would argue he was taking us backwards at this point.

To me, he did fail, but I'm lucky enough to have been at pp during the Jim Smith hey days and that is a realistic expectation for what a quality Derby manager should achieve. 

For some people, Mac did well, if you base it across the decade, he was the best manager, but nothing changed, we didnt get promoted as we never had that resilience to see it through. 

[Gee SCREAMER !!]

5 minutes ago, Andicis said:

When did Mac ever get chance to spend the money the other dross managers have? Cocu has a bigger net spend than Mac ever got. You say Mac failed the second time around, he was set up for failure. Got one transfer window which he wasn't heavily backed, still brought in Nuge who had a positive impact at the time. 

Mac teams might have had off days, but he still probably had a better win percentage than any other manager. Who did better than him, even with the squad Mac had? Mac's team fell off cos they weren't that good, and I never saw people queuing up to defend him on this forum, they were happy to let him go - why? Cocu gets defended to the hilt despite never proving anything in England, Mac provides our best team in 20 years and we throw him away so willingly? Shocking. 

Mac didn't do ''ok'' with us, he gave the best football I've seen Derby produce in my life time. I'm 21, I've never seen a better manager and I won't accept Mac was only ''ok'' he made me love this club more than I ever did. He produced football we could all be proud of, people throwing Mac under the bus to try big up Cocu is embarrassing.  Yes, Mac has built teams.

We achieved our highest league position in the last thirty years with McClaren as assistant.  We played the best football since then in 2013-14 with him as manager.  Middlesbrough won there only trophy under McClaren as manager . Man Utd are the only team to win the domestic double and European cup with him as assistant . FC Twente won there first title in 80 years with him as coach. The players at QPR reckoned he was the best coach they had prior to his first spell as manager here. I would imagine based on the above outside Forest where it didn't work and he resigned refusing a payoff he was owed he is very well regarded

Cocu was a better player .  McClaren is clearly a better coach.

[FlyBritishMidland]

16 minutes ago, Andicis said:

McClaren coached Man Utd to the treble, no? If Fergie rates him, maybe neanderthal football fans should rate him? Regardless, I don't overly care what they think, I've seen what Mac can do and I know it's top level, whether they think it or not. When did Twente last win a title before Mac? 

Did Mac even have a positive net spend? He barely spent money. He worked within his means. 

Never heard a single fan mention Hodgson to us, or Redknapp, maybe I'm not hanging around an old enough crowd. Hughton isn't hipster no, but he's a more reasonable choice amongst the older crowd. The social media generation love a hipster manager. I'm of that age, but don't buy into it. 

I’m for Cocu in as I do think we need stability and he will come good.  I know we had a great season when Mac took over but I do think your first sentence sums him up - he coached Man Utd to the treble.  Listen to Bryson talk and he says Mac was a good coach but a poor man-manager. Maybe something in the coaching staff is what we need?  

[Gee SCREAMER !!]

20 minutes ago, Abu Dhabi Ram said:

These rose tinted glasses for Mac do make me laugh, he is not the answer at all. The only time he did ok with us was when taking over Cloughs team, a close knit group of players who just required tactical tweaking. He did not instill a change in work rate or passion with them as this was already evident. Second time round he achieved a short term turn around but completely lost his way very quickly, you could clearly see the wheels falling off. Both these Mac teams had major off days, losing heavily at pp. Furthermore, out of all his jobs, he only had any success at Derby in the last ten years 'if you can call maintaining league status, success'. It maybe unkind, but history will not remember him any differently to countless other managers. There is nothing to suggest he could turn this around if he replaces Cocu,  he has no Hughes, or Ince to light the attack, no Thorne to boss the midfield, no Keogh to manage the defence, all players that were key to his style and ones I reckon Cocu would love to have in his team.

We need a complete rebuild, something Cocu has proven he can do if given time, we just need to give him that and stop all these ridiculous fixations with managers from the past that did 'ok' with us. 

Has McLaren ever built a team? 

 

Appears so . Appears he can also build a team with some balls.

A notable event in the 2005-06 season was the final Premier League game against Fulham, where 15 of the 16 squad members were from the local area (the exception being Malcolm Christie). When Josh Walker replaced Malcolm Christie after 62 minutes the 11 players on the field were all born within 30 miles of Middlesbrough and all graduates of the club's academy. It was also the first all English starting line up in the Premier League since Bradford City in 1999, the first all English match squad since Aston Villa in 1998 and the youngest starting line-up in Premier League history. [28]

Middlesbrough reached the 2006 UEFA Cup Final in Eindhoven, following two comebacks from 3–0 down in the rounds preceding

[Abu Dhabi Ram]

4 minutes ago, Gee SCREAMER !! said:

We achieved our highest league position in the last thirty years with McClaren as assistant.  We played the best football since then in 2013-14 with him as manager.  Middlesbrough won there only trophy under McClaren as manager . Man Utd are the only team to win the domestic double and European cup with him as assistant . FC Twente won there first title in 80 years with him as coach. The players at QPR reckoned he was the best coach they had prior to his first spell as manager here. I would imagine based on the above outside Forest where it didn't work and he resigned refusing a payoff he was owed he is very well regarded

Cocu was a better player .  McClaren is clearly a better coach.

You miss the part about manager... if we are talking about him being first team coach, I would gladly have him back. It worked with Jim Smith for a reason...

[Andicis]

4 minutes ago, Abu Dhabi Ram said:

Mac still got one transfer window, Cocu was dropped into it last minute and has not had this chance yet.

The football under Mac 1 was great, but it wasn't his team, the style was not as good the year after either, his reign ending in a home defeat to Reading 4-0, I would argue he was taking us backwards at this point.

To me, he did fail, but I'm lucky enough to have been at pp during the Jim Smith hey days and that is a realistic expectation for what a quality Derby manager should achieve. 

For some people, Mac did well, if you base it across the decade, he was the best manager, but nothing changed, we didnt get promoted as we never had that resilience to see it through. 

Looooooooooool so Mac comes in late and gets one window without a plan, ''at least he got one window!'' Cocu gets the same and he gets defended, hilarious hypocrisy. Good start.

May I remind you we lost 3-0 to Reading this very season ? An even worse Reading than Mac lost to. And Mac lost to Reading due to an injury and confidence crisis, after getting us to the very top playing the best football I've ever seen when he had a fully fit squad. He wasn't taking us backwards, he would have rebuilt over the summer and sorted us out. 

If you think he failed, then you think every manager after Jim Smith failed, badly. Mac was the best manager we've had since. By far. Not even close. 

We didn't give the man chance. We fired him twice when we should have stood by him and funded him, both times. And we live to regret it now with Cocu.

[Andicis]

8 minutes ago, Coolascustard said:

I’m for Cocu in as I do think we need stability and he will come good.  I know we had a great season when Mac took over but I do think your first sentence sums him up - he coached Man Utd to the treble.  Listen to Bryson talk and he says Mac was a good coach but a poor man-manager. Maybe something in the coaching staff is what we need?  

Get Mac in and get someone else who can cover his weaknesses. I like Bryson, but Mac is a coach who has coached at the very top of the game, much higher than Bryson has ever played at. I trust Mac more than him. Why give Cocu time when we would never give that to Mac?

[Andicis]

11 minutes ago, Gee SCREAMER !! said:

We achieved our highest league position in the last thirty years with McClaren as assistant.  We played the best football since then in 2013-14 with him as manager.  Middlesbrough won there only trophy under McClaren as manager . Man Utd are the only team to win the domestic double and European cup with him as assistant . FC Twente won there first title in 80 years with him as coach. The players at QPR reckoned he was the best coach they had prior to his first spell as manager here. I would imagine based on the above outside Forest where it didn't work and he resigned refusing a payoff he was owed he is very well regarded

Cocu was a better player .  McClaren is clearly a better coach.

Perfectly put, well said! 

[Gee SCREAMER !!]

8 minutes ago, Abu Dhabi Ram said:

You miss the part about manager... if we are talking about him being first team coach, I would gladly have him back. It worked with Jim Smith for a reason...

But he was manager here, Twente and Boro. 

[Abu Dhabi Ram]

6 minutes ago, Andicis said:

Looooooooooool so Mac comes in late and gets one window without a plan, ''at least he got one window!'' Cocu gets the same and he gets defended, hilarious hypocrisy. Good start.

May I remind you we lost 3-0 to Reading this very season ? An even worse Reading than Mac lost to. And Mac lost to Reading due to an injury and confidence crisis, after getting us to the very top playing the best football I've ever seen when he had a fully fit squad. He wasn't taking us backwards, he would have rebuilt over the summer and sorted us out. 

If you think he failed, then you think every manager after Jim Smith failed, badly. Mac was the best manager we've had since. By far. Not even close. 

We didn't give the man chance. We fired him twice when we should have stood by him and funded him, both times. And we live to regret it now with Cocu.

Well, every manager since Jim Smith has failed to a point if our goal is premier league football, Billy Davies being the only notable exception, but that's another story.

I guess your view on McLaren depends on what you want, for me the Jim Smith years were awesome and a top 10 premier league finish is an aspirational target the club should be setting. Look at Leicester, Sheffield United this season etc

For me McLaren has had his chances, Cocu needs the season and this transfer window as his chance. 

[FlyBritishMidland]

2 minutes ago, Andicis said:

Get Mac in and get someone else who can cover his weaknesses. I like Bryson, but Mac is a coach who has coached at the very top of the game, much higher than Bryson has ever played at. I trust Mac more than him. Why give Cocu time when we would never give that to Mac?

I get what your saying and I’m prepared to give any manager time.  I thought the same when Mac was sacked and, to be, any of them.  It’s a tough job but football culture today demands instant results.  I kinda got the first one with Newcastle, etc but I do think he should have been given more time second time round.  My view is Mel was never really bought into Mac and used the poor run as an excuse to appoint Rowett but there you go.  

I’m not a fan of the “hire ‘em and fire ‘em” approach as I do believe it’s a short-term view.  But the point about coach still stands.  Mac’s a great coach, arguably one of the best.  And maybe that’s what’s missing.  Maybe it’s something in the coaching staff.  And I still say that sometimes you move backwards to go forwards.

[Andicis]

1 minute ago, Abu Dhabi Ram said:

Well, every manager since Jim Smith has failed to a point if our goal is premier league football, Billy Davies being the only notable exception, but that's another story.

I guess your view on McLaren depends on what you want, for me the Jim Smith years were awesome and a top 10 premier league finish is an aspirational target the club should be setting. Look at Leicester, Sheffield United this season etc

For me McLaren has had his chances, Cocu needs the season and this transfer window as his chance. 

Billy Davies is an architect of the worst team in history. 

Mac didn't fail, he got most fans back in the stadium and believing more than ever. He got the media on our side, everyone knew we played beautiful football and we did it in the right way. We've never had it so good since. 

Leicester and Sheff Utd are light years ahead of us. Probably higher than we'll ever get in the next 10-20 years. We have bad recruitment, bad management (from the very top) and we've been in the Championship forever now. Cocu has had his chance. We're 20th. We'll get relegated. 

[Andicis]

3 minutes ago, Coolascustard said:

I get what your saying and I’m prepared to give any manager time.  I thought the same when Mac was sacked and, to be, any of them.  It’s a tough job but football culture today demands instant results.  I kinda got the first one with Newcastle, etc but I do think he should have been given more time second time round.  My view is Mel was never really bought into Mac and used the poor run as an excuse to appoint Rowett but there you go.  

I’m not a fan of the “hire ‘em and fire ‘em” approach as I do believe it’s a short-term view.  But the point about coach still stands.  Mac’s a great coach, arguably one of the best.  And maybe that’s what’s missing.  Maybe it’s something in the coaching staff.  And I still say that sometimes you move backwards to go forwards.

Just another one of Mel's many mistakes, in my opinion. We never really got it justified, and in return we got a man who was happy to flog Hughesy for 4 million, cheers, Mel. Mac was treated appallingly badly the second time around. He was brought in to turn us around and he did exactly that. Yet Cocu gets all the time in the world to relegate us. It would have made sense to give Mac time, we were never getting relegated, why pull the trigger? Why not back him? The reason not to back Cocu - We will genuinely go down. We aren't improving. We don't score goals. We're in relegation form. We're 20th. ducking 20th. We get 27k crowd, and we're 20th in this bag of poo league. Enough reason to fire Cocu right there.

[nottingram]

5 minutes ago, Andicis said:

Billy Davies is an architect of the worst team in history. 

Mac didn't fail, he got most fans back in the stadium and believing more than ever. He got the media on our side, everyone knew we played beautiful football and we did it in the right way. We've never had it so good since. 

Leicester and Sheff Utd are light years ahead of us. Probably higher than we'll ever get in the next 10-20 years. We have bad recruitment, bad management (from the very top) and we've been in the Championship forever now. Cocu has had his chance. We're 20th. We'll get relegated. 

Bet you £50 to any charity that if Cocu stays, we don’t go down this season

[Andicis]

Just now, nottingram said:

Bet you £50 to any charity that if Cocu stays, we don’t go down this season

Deal.

[cannable]

On 28/12/2019 at 19:48, Andicis said:

Key injuries for Cocu? Such as? Bielik who was injury prone before we signed, Clarke, Keogh which is totally unrelated to football, and who else? Huddlestone, who I don't think is actually good enough to start, maybe you can argue it I suppose. Shinnie who is a bit part. Compared to McClaren who had integral parts to the squad injured for huge lengths of time. 

Cocu has no more ''injury problems'' than any other manager in this league, whereas McClaren's squad did actually have an injury crisis. And he still got more out of them than Cocu is now. If McClaren came back tomorrow he'd get more out of these players. We'd see some more goals and a bit of creativity, too. 

Of all the excuses to make for Cocu, injuries isn't it.

Wut

Seriously?! 

We’re our first-choice centre-back pairing down and three of our four first-choice centre-mids are injured, whilst the fourth has had on/off niggles!