Nigel 'cup run' Clough

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I can’t understand the bile and vitriol aimed at Nigel Clough. I would put him above Adkins, Weir, Wilson, Speed, Adams and Blackwell.........?

Wilson played decent football, the first season back in League 1 was superb until the Ched episode.

Clough never, NEVER played good football. It was dull as dishwater. His relegation saviour, whilst effective was based on not conceding and snatching the odd goal.

He turned a potentially promotion competing side into a god awful side (how we even managed to get into the playoffs is a mystery) as a result of actually ignoring what he said...

"We need 2 or 3 quality additions"........ then proceeded to bring in about 20 shit ones.
 
I honestly don't understand the "awfully bad in the league" bit - he did well in the league for us, arguably very well

I view his tenure a bit like Kendall’s. Both came in at a time of recent new ownership and when we were staring relegation in the face, but very quickly turned things around while making a lot of changes in personnel. They both played good football and got good results between joining and the end of the season – and had the season been a little longer you’d have expected a playoff run. That spell also coincided with heroics in the FA Cup. In the summer they both lost key people key to the success (Ablett & Cowans for Kendall, Maguire, Brayford & Coady for Clough) and the football suffered. Having raised expectations with their initial results and performances, both were expected to challenge for the automatic spots. Finishing in the playoffs was a disappointment, as was the manner of exiting them.
 
I thought Clough was far from perfect and made some fundamental errors in both his tactics and recruitment whilst at Utd but him getting the club to 2 semi-finals shouldn't be forgotten. The semi-final v Hull was one in my top 3 days supporting Utd (the others being Darlington and Leicester).
I'd love to know what was said in that infamous board meeting.
I think Clough is much more suited to managing underdogs - the style of football he prefers never got us on the front foot.
He also needs better transfer advice - he let the CB issue rumble on all season until ultimately it cost us vs. Swindon.
 
I hope he gets the Wednesday job on the back of this cup run....




......Then everyone on here can hate him as much as I do.

I get the sentiment but I hope their next manager has 0 united links, if I have to read anything containing the term “agent.....” then I’m clocking out.

Bad enough them tramps banging that drum without ours following suite
 
If someone mentions Nigel Clough to me
I basically have a zero reaction... Neither positive or particularly negative
if someone mentions Nigel Adkins I have this strange impulse to shout like a banshee and run down the street stark naked and shout obscenities to everybody I meet...
Don't know if this helps as a yardstick.....
 
I've never understood why some Blades hate Clough. Can those that do, please explain?

Because when we went 3-0 down at Swindon he was stood there with a great big fucking grin on his face.

His persistence with the ‘we start with a point, let’s not lose it’ attitude whilst playing Oldham at home.

His desire to settle for the play-offs rather than to actually grow some balls and play in a way that might actually enable us to challenge for automatic promotion.

The fact that he used to give some of the most moronic interviews I’ve ever heard.

And let’s not kid ourselves that he ‘saved’ us from going down. He came in in October after one of the worst managerial performances in all of our lifetimes. It was hardly the great escape we just needed a manager to steady the ship and that’s all he did and it’s all he was capable of.
 
I'd love to know what was said in that infamous board meeting.
I think Clough is much more suited to managing underdogs - the style of football he prefers never got us on the front foot.
He also needs better transfer advice - he let the CB issue rumble on all season until ultimately it cost us vs. Swindon.
Didn't they dismiss Nigel for non footballing reasons?
 
Wilson played decent football, the first season back in League 1 was superb until the Ched episode.

Clough never, NEVER played good football. It was dull as dishwater. His relegation saviour, whilst effective was based on not conceding and snatching the odd goal.

He turned a potentially promotion competing side into a god awful side (how we even managed to get into the playoffs is a mystery) as a result of actually ignoring what he said...

"We need 2 or 3 quality additions"........ then proceeded to bring in about 20 shit ones.
Well I did hesitate when I added him and the Ched thing was unfortunate. But I think Clough just shades it for me.
 
Clough is a strange character, his record being full of contradictions.

To give just one example: He's taken third tier sides to Cup semi finals 3 times. Has anyone else done this more than once? I don't think so. That's impressive. In these cup runs his teams have beaten clubs miles above them in the league...and yet he can't get a football league team promoted unless it's handed to him on a plate.
 
Clough though was probably the most outgoing trying to crack jokes. He even made a wisecrack about my son's surname, which whilst not exactly funny, at least showed he wasn't as dour and dull as I maybe expected.

He strikes me as the sort of character that quite likes to make his own jokes, but if ever someone tries to make one at his expense then he’ll make them an enemy for life.
 
I've said this before but I think one of the areas where Wilder is a better manager than Clough can be summed up by comparing the first game of the 2014-15 season and this season.

Both times we came into the game with optimism. Both times we were greeted with an odd team selection. Wilder had no Sharp and the Evans/Lundstram midfield axis, and Clough had that defence he seemed to have picked out of a hat and a midfield rammed with scrappy midgets.

Wilder lost the first two games with that team: he recognised the problems, changed it, and we've never played as badly since. The same thing happened in 2016-7, of course.

Clough was still messing around with the defence in the last game of the season, when a back four featuring four full backs conceded 3 goals in the first 15 minutes.

Wilder will face the fact he might have been wrong, or there may be a better way, and try to deal with a problem straight away. Clough doesn't seem to have that in him.
 

Nothing to this day can explain what his transfer ‘policy’ was during his last pre-season.

The only thing more misdirected than that was the total lack of supervision.

Are you sure signing 12 players to end up with no recognised centre back is what we need?
 
The only manager that has made me angry enough to phone Praise & Grumble in nearly 50 years of being a blade. This was after putting the most negative team out ever at home to bloody Gillingham!!!!
 
I can't hate Nigel. He gave us some great moments. In terms of Nigels who have managed us, he's maybe my favourite (I liked Spackers too. Adkins is a knob).
Adkins is not a knob!!, I refute that statement, Adkins is a CUNT, or if there are any words worse, he's one of them!!
 

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