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Thread: A decade of Derby managers.

  1. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by swaledale View Post
    Is it not catch 22? If a manager is successful, that is the performance of the team is largely in accordance with what the Board expects he will be given time and there will be stability? In all the examples provided, the managers ahve stayed in post I would argue, largely because they have achieved what was expected of them.

    Now if Sheff Utd keep the faith with Wilder even if Sheff Utd go dwon then that would be a rare example of faith being shown in the manager. By the way i'm surprised you haven't put forward Dyche at burnley as an example.

    As for Derby well in that last 13 years we ahve been in 4 sets of play offs including two finals and generally finished 10th or higher (there might be the odd blip in there) so given thats within what a club of Derby's stature would be expected to achieve, then the turnover of managers hasn't been that negative overall.

    Yes Clough's reign was stable period and everyone knew where the club would finish up, mid table at best so it was a stable if rather dreary period for the club.
    Yes, I agree it can be a Catch 22 situation.

    You’re absolutely right, I should have included Dyche but by the same token, haven’t Norwich just shown that ‘rare example of faith’ you speak of?

    Are four sets of playoffs in the last 13 years really the best we can hope for these days? We are surely a club of at least the same ‘stature’ and potential as Southampton, Palace, Burnley, Fulham, WBA, Leicester, Wolves and Sheffield United?

    Clough stabilised the club and made some great signings. It was a bit ‘dreary’ but, again with the benefit of hindsight, one has to wonder - thinking of all the money spent since on players and compensation for sacked managers - what would the difference be now if he’d stayed?
    Unanswerable I suppose, but I think I’d back a team of cast offs from the last nine or ten years against the current crop.
    Last edited by ramAnag; 10-11-2020 at 07:23 PM.

  2. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by ramAnag View Post
    Yes, I agree it can be a Catch 22 situation.

    You’re absolutely right, I should have included Dyche but by the same token, haven’t Norwich just shown that ‘rare example of faith’ you speak of?

    Are four sets of playoffs in the last 13 years really the best we can hope for these days? We are surely a club of at least the same ‘stature’ and potential as Southampton, Palace, Burnley, Fulham, WBA, Leicester, Wolves and Sheffield United?

    Clough stabilised the club and made some great signings. It was a bit ‘dreary’ but, again with the benefit of hindsight, one has to wonder - thinking of all the money spent since on players and compensation for sacked managers - what would the difference be now if he’d stayed?
    Unanswerable I suppose, but I think I’d back a team of cast offs from the last nine or ten years against the current crop.
    Yes they have, and if Sheff Utd do the same then they would be another example. I would say that Norwich clearly had a policy which was do what you can in the prem your not getting much investment in players, so it would be difficult to lay the blame at Farke's door and so far he has had to stand losing some players and is doing OK back in the championship, but it hasn't stopped a board pulling the trigger on a manager before (lack of support that is).

    I'd tke issue with Clough making some "great" signings, I struggle to think of one he made that I'd bestow that description but no doubt you might come up with a name that will change my mind!

    What would have happened if he'd stayed? We'd have bumbled along in mid table, I mean he went to the Blades and hardly pulled up any trees there, back to Burton where admittedly he had limited resources and is now at Mansfield - a good manager to work within a budget and improve a team over time in the lower leagues IMO. Would he do better with a bigger budget? Not sure but it doesn't look as if he is going to get a chance.

    After Clough well we became a top 8 side making a realistic challenge for promotion most seasons and on the odd occasion the football has been worth watching. I doubt that would ahve happened under him, but its not possible to prove that obviously.

    Its difficult compare Derby with the clubs you mention, I mean there are some good sized clubs languishing in league 1 - Sunderland and Ipswich being but two examples. Wolves are a unique case in that they were big decades ago and a change of ownership has pumped money into the club, together with a clear strategy, involving player recruitment, a top class manager and the involvement of an agent. Leicester have never been "big" but again have had a change of ownership and money pumped in with a clear strategy for success. Maybe its our turn next?
    Last edited by swaledale; 10-11-2020 at 10:53 PM.

  3. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by swaledale View Post

    I'd tke issue with Clough making some "great" signings, I struggle to think of one he made that I'd bestow that description but no doubt you might come up with a name that will change my mind!
    Well, at their best...Martin, Bryson and Keogh. Pretty sure he also brought Wisdom to the club...albeit on loan, and if he didn’t bring in Will Hughes he certainly gave him his debut.

    Maybe ‘great’ is pushing it a bit...but in the context of the last decade they’re up there with the best bits of business we’ve done.

  4. #14
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    Martin Keogh and Bryson your correct, Wisdom joined on loan after he had left. I had actually forgotten that in his final season, Clough did have the purse strings loosened a little. Good championship players I would say.

  5. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by swaledale View Post
    Martin Keogh and Bryson your correct, Wisdom joined on loan after he had left. I had actually forgotten that in his final season, Clough did have the purse strings loosened a little. Good championship players I would say.
    Will Hughes too, who we signed from Mickleover in 2011 and John Brayford, who is still only 32, and probably at least as good as any fullback we’ve signed since. Shaun Barker and Forsyth were also Clough acquisitions if I remember correctly.

    ‘Good Championship players’...maybe that’s all they amount to but they’re certainly amongst the best and most influential signings of the last decade. Of course he’ll never live Connor Sammon down, but in terms of legacy, although I was no fan of his football or post match style, NC probably left us in a better position than anyone else has since.
    Last edited by ramAnag; 11-11-2020 at 09:59 AM.

  6. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by ramAnag View Post
    Will Hughes too, who we signed from Mickleover in 2011 and John Brayford, who is still only 32, and probably at least as good as any fullback we’ve signed since. Shaun Barker and Forsyth were also Clough acquisitions if I remember correctly.

    ‘Good Championship players’...maybe that’s all they amount to but they’re certainly amongst the best and most influential signings of the last decade. Of course he’ll never live Connor Sammon down, but in terms of legacy, although I was no fan of his football or post match style, NC probably left us in a better position than anyone else has since.
    And he was given time to build a team, those signings were made over a number of seasons whilst our league position didnt improve dramatically.


    So the question is, why with that time and having signed some good players was Clough not able to get Derby a fixture in the top 6? One could argue that alone amongst our more recent managers he was truly given the target to improve the team over time, which he did, but with no significant impact and no indication that he was going to get tot he next level.

  7. #17
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    No significant impact other than stopping a dramatic freefall and stabalising the club for years to come.

  8. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by AdiSalisbury View Post
    No significant impact other than stopping a dramatic freefall and stabalising the club for years to come.
    Yes he stabilised the club, sorted out the chaos that had ensued following our prem debacle, but he was in charge for 5 years! In that period both Southampton and Norwich went down to league1, came back up and got promoted to the prem.

    Clough did no more than a host of other managers had done, made derby a stable mid table championship team and tbh the football was dire and there was very little hope of anything happening, at least in the post Clough ear we ahve had hope and anticipation msot seasons and some of the football has been eminently watchable.

  9. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by swaledale View Post
    And he was given time to build a team, those signings were made over a number of seasons whilst our league position didnt improve dramatically.
    Hmmm...isn’t that the point I’ve been making elsewhere for a while?

    Anyway...with that crucial old friend, ‘hindsight’, it might appear that Clough (Jnr) made the best signings of the last decade or so but needed McClaren to get them to play together...a suggestion given credence by the fact that only Wisdom and Bamford (for all of three minutes) were, I think, McClaren’s additions to Clough’s squad that played at Wembley in 2014.

    Just goes to show how different managers have different qualities. Can’t say I’d want NC back but it does make you wonder what might have been and quite how much we’ve wasted since.

  10. #20
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    What might have been is that (ignoring covid) we'd have crowds in the region of 13k, never made the playoffs and would probably not be worried about relegation to league 1 as we'd already be in it.

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