William Henry Foulkes You're certainly one of the most positive posters, and I enjoy reading your contributions - even though I'm of a far more pessimistic persuasion myself.
You write above that "There is some evidence of Clough's shortcomings" - if you'll permit me to style you King of Clappers, and in an attempt to start to try to breach the obvious gap between the two schools of thought on here, what would you see as those shortcomings ?
Two (related):
Holding on to 1-0 Leads or More Accurately Not Holding on to 1-0 Leads
For me the most obvious and significant shortcoming is going 1-0 up and then trying to defend that lead when it seems clear as daylight to me, and others, we are incapable of doing so.
It's not totally straightforward though because there are times when either we don't do it, or it's not noticeable to me at any rate.
The most frustrating example was Walsall away where Baxter scored a wonderful goal (which we were lucky enough to be standing right behind) then from memory with Turner in net, and possibly McEveley at centre half, we tried to defend. It was never going to work. They inevitably equalised and then to some extent we came out of our shells. And it was more evenly matched we were more of a threat attacking than counter-attacking. This is often the case.
I've seen this scenario played out a number of times. Possibly even Chesterfield at home, when I pointed out to Foulkes Jr Sr that there was no way we weren't going to concede. We'd been on the front foot, outplayed them enough to get a deserved 1-0 lead and then just basically invited them to score.
I think the theory is that we are equipped to pick off teams as they come at us, and that has worked (noticeably against Southampton* when although we only got 1 we were almost constantly (counter-)attacking them). This may work (next season?) with a solid back four - and I have heard Clough say a number of times the opposition weren't troubling us, so I take it this counter-attacking is/was the theory, but particularly since the turn of the year we were too insecure at the back for it to work.
*Looking back at the Preston home League game it looks very similar with Murphy breaking and setting up JCR. There may be others.
The Aimless Hoof (Related to the Above)
This is a total mystery. There have been times when we just give possession to the opposition for extended periods of the game. This has been less apparent when Davies has been playing but I've seen plenty of times when we were playing long balls up to McNulty, and even Done, neither of whom had any chance of retaining possession and the ball kept coming straight back. Done ran his socks off chasing lost causes, but it all looked very tiring and ineffective. And if we ever did get the ball Done in particular would've been offside, knackered, or both. I'm not saying that there wasn't some grand plan - just that it wasn't apparent to me what it was.
Possible Evidence Against This
Someone posted some stats site about leads at half-time. You could play with it and see how good we were at holding on to 1-0 leads. There was some fancy stacked(?) bar chart. I thought it would show us to be not very good at all, but if I read it right it didn't turn out that way. don't have the details to hand.
On a more Clappy note I think the main criticisms I see against Clough are generally wrong. I'd say these are:
- Negativity (I don't think this conflicts with the above - I suppose because I don't think we're trying to win 1-0: It's not a Park the Bus it's Spring the Trap. Given the resources we've had if anything this is wildly optimistic
)
- Inflexibility (We play a dizzying array of systems, sometimes even 4-4-2.)
- Arrogance (Utterly baffling. He's calm, reflective, and responsive in interviews - that don't take place 5 minutes after an emotional rollercoaster/trainwreck of a game.
Fwiw that's basically the way I see it.
