Where do we go?

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him behind you

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Had time to calm down after yesterday and have been giving plenty of thought about our manager who, this time last year, I thought was destined to become a blades legend over the next few years. Now, however, I'm seriously concerned about him. My biggest concern is not the style of play, the way it's never his fault, or even the rumours about his management style and how he doesn't mix at all with the players.No, my major concern is his ability to sign players who not only are no better than we currently have, but have an amazing ability to do so little during a game that you can't even say that they're not very good.

Yesterday, and not for the first time in recent weeks, Holt (ok he scored but did sod all else other than run around like a headless chicken), Coutes and S Davies fitted perfectly into this category. Add this to the number of other players out of position and it's easy to see why we struggle in most games currently. I just can't see how the manager thinks that this will work.

But this leads me to the thread title. Where do we go? If we sack the manager who do we get in? Do we believe there is anyone out there who would be interested other than the normal journeymen who make a living via the managerial merry go round without actually achieving much at all? I can't think of many and if not, would it improve anything?. Maybe we hand the job to someone internal such as Morgan - god forbid. Or do we stick with him in the hope that he has a long term plan which actually comes to fruition?

I don't know the answer and the board are on a hiding to nothing whichever way they go. But I do know one thing for sure, and that's that I'm completely sick of the current level of entertainment being served up and things simply have to improve on the pitch.

Over to you Mr McCartney and the prince.
 

Where do we go? Heading for another season in this league it would seem.

May as well let the season run it's course with Clough and then look for someone else in the summer.
 
Had time to calm down after yesterday and have been giving plenty of thought about our manager who, this time last year, I thought was destined to become a blades legend over the next few years. Now, however, I'm seriously concerned about him. My biggest concern is not the style of play, the way it's never his fault, or even the rumours about his management style and how he doesn't mix at all with the players.No, my major concern is his ability to sign players who not only are no better than we currently have, but have an amazing ability to do so little during a game that you can't even say that they're not very good.

Yesterday, and not for the first time in recent weeks, Holt (ok he scored but did sod all else other than run around like a headless chicken), Coutes and S Davies fitted perfectly into this category. Add this to the number of other players out of position and it's easy to see why we struggle in most games currently. I just can't see how the manager thinks that this will work.

But this leads me to the thread title. Where do we go? If we sack the manager who do we get in? Do we believe there is anyone out there who would be interested other than the normal journeymen who make a living via the managerial merry go round without actually achieving much at all? I can't think of many and if not, would it improve anything?. Maybe we hand the job to someone internal such as Morgan - god forbid. Or do we stick with him in the hope that he has a long term plan which actually comes to fruition?

I don't know the answer and the board are on a hiding to nothing whichever way they go. But I do know one thing for sure, and that's that I'm completely sick of the current level of entertainment being served up and things simply have to improve on the pitch.

Over to you Mr McCartney and the prince.

Paul McCartney has invested! Now that's what I call game changing!
 
I'm pretty sure if we don't go up clough will be gone.
Albeit the players need to take some of the flack, we have a good squad but unfortunately a lot of that squad have poor attitudes.
Mix that with cloughs strategic strangeness and we are in wilderness.
A lot of me thinks that the team are more than capable.
A lot of me also thinks the manager has too thicker skin to change his ways.
 
I'm pretty sure if we don't go up clough will be gone.
Albeit the players need to take some of the flack, we have a good squad but unfortunately a lot of that squad have poor attitudes.
Mix that with cloughs strategic strangeness and we are in wilderness.
A lot of me thinks that the team are more than capable.
A lot of me also thinks the manager has too thicker skin to change his ways.

Given half a chance I think most of them would opt back north of the boarder whether NN stays or goes
 
We would get someone else who is probably also very average. However, I am prepared for this clown to leave at the end of the season. I do not like his tactics, I do not like his excuses and I do not like his general ineptitude in the transfer market. Don't give me the rubbish either 'oh but you weren't complaining on Tuesday'. Just because we won on Tuesday did not change my opinions. The cups have been great but we want a manager to take us up and on what I have seen in the league, I am skeptical if Clough is good enough.

And the vitriol directed at Blackwell is laughable, do people honestly think Blackwell is worse than Clough?

IF we get into the play offs and IF we happened to win them, I am happy to eat my words. However, I've got a feeling I won't have to.
 
Just a hypothetical question, if a fan could manage just for the next match who on this forum do you think would do a god job.
Reading posts from various users who I might add have good tactical knowledge, I think Sitwell has what it takes. Good honest views and great knowledge of the game.
 
Just a hypothetical question, if a fan could manage just for the next match who on this forum do you think would do a god job.
Reading posts from various users who I might add have good tactical knowledge, I think Sitwell has what it takes. Good honest views and great knowledge of the game.

I'd give Bergen a go.
 
Clough has been astute. He is well entrenched and has loads of power at the club.

He has his pal Brannagan as Chief Executive, his brother as Head Scout, all his own coaching and fitness staff apart from Morgan, 6 or 7 players who would not be here but for him and would be pissed off if he was sacked.

The consequences of sacking Clough would be to trigger the settlement of so many contracts it's frightening. Every ex-Derby player Clough has signed has further cemented the manager's position in the club as the expense of moving them on will be horrendous.

So, compensation for the manager, Garner, probably 4/5 or 6 other cronies in the fitness and coaching team, Brannagan, Simon Clough who no doubt has a few of his cronies signed up in the scouting team, plus 6/7 players - all totalling loads of money. There will be a temptation to bury heads in sand and keep fingers crossed. For us fans the danger there is that they will not give him a big budget and ask him to justify all his existing expenditure.
 
Clough has been astute. He is well entrenched and has loads of power at the club.

He has his pal Brannagan as Chief Executive, his brother as Head Scout, all his own coaching and fitness staff apart from Morgan, 6 or 7 players who would not be here but for him and would be pissed off if he was sacked.

The consequences of sacking Clough would be to trigger the settlement of so many contracts it's frightening. Every ex-Derby player Clough has signed has further cemented the manager's position in the club as the expense of moving them on will be horrendous.

So, compensation for the manager, Garner, probably 4/5 or 6 other cronies in the fitness and coaching team, Brannagan, Simon Clough who no doubt has a few of his cronies signed up in the scouting team, plus 6/7 players - all totalling loads of money. There will be a temptation to bury heads in sand and keep fingers crossed. For us fans the danger there is that they will not give him a big budget and ask him to justify all his existing expenditure.

Agree with that. Fans keep saying "sack Clough and get someone else in" as though that would be an instant fix, but it would be a huge internal upheaval.

We've invested heavily in Clough, and in my opinion we need to stick with him until Christmas even if we don't go up. With a couple of decent additions in the summer, there's a better chance of his team finally gelling than there would be with a new manager, new tactics, disenchanted players and a backroom staff who would probably follow Clough to his next port of call.

People who are calling him Negative Nigel, a Clown and an idiot on forums and Jim Phipps' FB should be careful what they wish for. Just because a manager's had success in the past at a different club doesn't mean they will succeed all their careers. Ian Holloway and Lee Clark are recent examples. There's no guarantee that Warbuton, Rosler, Adkins or any of the other names being mentioned would do any better than Clough. And given our record of replacing managers, there's a fair chance they'd do a lot worse
 

True. But what about a manager who has had no success in nearly 20 years - at three clubs - as a manager?

Depends how you define success. Two promotions, one FA Cup semi final, one League Cup semi final, various Manager of the Month awards, an FA Cup Manager of the Year award, and no relegations. His management career is closer to 15 years than 20 isn't it?
 
Just a hypothetical question, if a fan could manage just for the next match who on this forum do you think would do a god job.
Reading posts from various users who I might add have good tactical knowledge, I think Sitwell has what it takes. Good honest views and great knowledge of the game.
bergen is very tactically aware
 
Depends how you define success. Two promotions, one FA Cup semi final, one League Cup semi final, various Manager of the Month awards, an FA Cup Manager of the Year award, and no relegations. His management career is closer to 15 years than 20 isn't it?

Started as a manager October 1998, so around 17 years. I'll give you the FA Cup and League Cup semis but the promotions go back 13+ years and they were out of the sixth tier. Only runners-up twice, as well. ;) But he was Champions with Burton in 2001-02, his only ever trophy (unless you include the 'unfinished' one in 2008-09). Oh, and the 'various' Manager of the Month awards was actually just the one Football League Division One Manager of the Month - Feb. 2014 which, if you look at past winners, hardly inspires confidence.

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I'm as concerned as everyone else that we're not challenging for automatic.

I'm also fully aware what tends to happen to the Blades when we sack one manager and hire another. It tends not to work out well.

Even if we don't go up, I think we'll be best sticking with Clough for at least the first part of next season. If we don't see a significant improvement in results and performances by Christmas, and we're adrift of automatic, I'll admit I'm wrong.

However, if we fail in the Play Offs or fail to win them I can see enormous fan pressure on the management to make a change during the summer. If we were to do that, it should be immediately after the season ends to give the new man plenty of time to settle in. Hope it doesn't come to that.
 
But for a miraculous upturn in form and results, somehow leading to a play off win (inc. a 2-legged victory over Swindon or MK Dons with the 2nd leg away from home), I think NC is a dead man walking. Furthermore, I suspect he knows it.
It will however be a big decision for the Board to dispense with his services as the cost of making another change will not be insignificant given that he and his backroom staff all have >1 year remaining on their contracts. I would expect Mal Brannigan to stay no matter what happens as he was recruited independently of NC & co and appears (from an external perspective) to be doing a decent job i.e. recruiting targets and running the club to budget.
There is of course a fair way to go but given the levels of expectation at the start of the season, I don't think many will argue that the season to date has been massively disappointing.
I think it was fairly clear what NC was trying to do over summer - replace Doyle & Coady with Basham & Wallace (which all things being equal sounds fairly sensible), but as well as that failing, his real undoing was holding out too long for Brayford and O'Grady and perhaps also expecting Maguire to stay, all of which when they didn't go according to plan have resulted in him making a lot of decisions reactively and even out of desperation. Some of the recruits made (Higdon, Alcock, McGahey, Coutts etc) have been poor and we are currently left with no natural CBs, no physical presence in central midfield, no natural scorer and an overall lack of size, physicality and cohesion. Hindsight is of course 20/20 but to not even bid for Coady looks like a shocking error as we desperately miss his contribution, energy and engine (not to mention goals).
Throw in several disagreements/differences of opinion/mystifying decisions (Butler, Collins, DdG, JCR) and the season starts to look even worse, the only bright points again being the cup runs.
I was desperate for NC to succeed and bring glory and pride back to the club and until he goes I will support him and the players 100% during games. However, I think the writing is on the wall and I just hope that with the stability and business sense brought to the club by HRH and his reps, a suitable replacement is installed. My personal choices of the available and/or realistic options would be Adkins, then Cook.
 
Just as a matter of interest then, are we saying that whilstever we are in this Division, a manager only gets one full season to get promoted and if they can't do it they're out?

I'm not sure that's a long term strategy we can live with.



Nothing wrong with getting rid of poor managers. The problem for a long while has been with our not appointing the right man in the first place.
 
Just as a matter of interest then, are we saying that whilstever we are in this Division, a manager only gets one full season to get promoted and if they can't do it they're out?

I'm not sure that's a long term strategy we can live with.
It was made abundantly clear that promotion was the KPI for this season and NC was equipped with the budget he requested in order to make that happen. 2 of the 3 opportunities to achieve this have already passed (they actually were long gone with over 10 games of the season remaining) with only the lottery of the play offs remaining. I for one am not convinced that we'd go up next season either if NC were afforded more time so I'm firmly of the opinion that a change is required.
 

Could it be that Clough has misjudged the type of player / team required to do well in this division and if so, should he be given the opportunity to show that he can learn from that and put it right next season?

For me the answer is no because it was clear before the JTW but we didn't sign many different types of player did we (O'Grady apart)?
 

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