He had enough backing in the summer to do far more than he did. He chose to bring in about 12-15 poor players, many on good contracts.
We were title favourites and finished about 30 points behind the league winners. We were a much worse team than the one that ended his first season. We failed miserably in the play offs. We had assembled a squad that is still hindering us to this day. How that season could be considered anything other than a failure is beyond me. The fact he tried to tell us it was acceptable sums up his mentality.
Cup performances are largely irrelevant. They're just a bonus. We never set out to get to a league cup semi final. We set out to be promoted to the Championship, and failed spectacularly.
The situation he inherited doesn't change the fact there were some good players in that squad. We still had the Maguire/Collins partnership, Doyle was still decent, Coady, Murphy and Baxter too. We still had a stronger squad than most. Then Brayford, Harris and Scougall arrived. No denying he got a lot more out of certain players though. Shame he could only do it for a few months.
I'm all for giving a manager time if he shows enough promising signs, but Clough took us backwards in his second season and out of 20+ signings only one could be sold for a profit. The football was negative, tedious and embarrassing. His standards and expectations were totally out of line with what they should be at this club in this league. It's hard to make a case for a manager like that to continue.