Wilson v Clough

[BushBlade]

Good OP but I don't agree that Clough inherited a decent squad. It's easy to blame our league position at the time on Weir's ineptness but that's only half the story. The squad was poor and a lot of his recruiting was crap.

How many of his signings are actually playing well at the level we needed them to, either for us or for another team?

Contrast that with Wilson's first season. How many of that team are now playing at a higher level?

KM didn't fuck up when he sacked Wilson, he fucked up when he didn't give him full backing in the first year, to build a squad with depth and youth We had a great first team but they were, in the main, massively overpaid, meaning we had the highest (or close) wage bill in the division but spread over a small number of players. We had no cover for key playersositions such as Evans and McDonald.

Had McCabe really gone for it we would have gone up first time and earned £15m + in TV money by now.

But it's easy with hindsight. I just hope we're not posting the same stuff next year, comparing Clough to Russell Slade or Kevin Keegan or whoever we'd end up with and saying 'McCabe knows he got it wrong sacking Clough but we can still make the playoffs'.

 

[Jim Chimmerney]

Good OP but I don't agree that Clough inherited a decent squad.

I agree he inherited some crap and maybe decent was a tad kind but just shuffling his 1st match day squad, he had what seemed to be a half decent 3rd division team with reasonable back up:

Howard
McMahon, Maguire, Collins, Hill
Flynn, Coady, Doyle, Murphy
Baxter, Miller

Subs: Long, Cuvelier, Brandy, McGinn, Taylor


​

 

[Darren]

It wasn't really a slump, we took 13 points from 18 in February including winning away at Bournemouth and 7 from 12 in March.

Although we were averaging 2 points a game which is promotion form, it was the home form that did for him, as McCabe stated. Three consecutive 0-0s going into Crawley and after losing that one and with 2 home games to follow, McCabe made his move.

As it turned out, Bournemouth had that fantastic run at the end of the season and we (Wilson) would have needed needed 5 wins from those last 5 games so it would have been unlikely but we didn't know this at the time and to me, it was a harsh decision and too late to have a major effect. The football had been dull at home but had our form been the other way around, winning at home and picking up 0-0s away (the Clough way ), would the same decision have been made ?

The "slump", such as it was came in April, a 0-0 draw at home to Carlisle followed by a (decent)1-1 draw at Walsall and then than Crawley defeat - so 2 points from 9 in April prior to the sacking. He had to go*

* Irony alert - that still gave him 22 points from 39 in the 2.5 months prior to the sacking. I can't recall any United manager so succesful prior to being sacked.

 

[Darren]

Good OP but I don't agree that Clough inherited a decent squad. It's easy to blame our league position at the time on Weir's ineptness but that's only half the story. The squad was poor and a lot of his recruiting was crap.

How many of his signings are actually playing well at the level we needed them to, either for us or for another team?

Contrast that with Wilson's first season. How many of that team are now playing at a higher level?

KM didn't fuck up when he sacked Wilson, he fucked up when he didn't give him full backing in the first year, to build a squad with depth and youth We had a great first team but they were, in the main, massively overpaid, meaning we had the highest (or close) wage bill in the division but spread over a small number of players. We had no cover for key playersositions such as Evans and McDonald.

Had McCabe really gone for it we would have gone up first time and earned £15m + in TV money by now.

But it's easy with hindsight. I just hope we're not posting the same stuff next year, comparing Clough to Russell Slade or Kevin Keegan or whoever we'd end up with and saying 'McCabe knows he got it wrong sacking Clough but we can still make the playoffs'.

Seriously?

McCabe funded a 2nd tier squad in 2011-12 in an effort to get us back up in one. As has been said ad nauseum, Evans' possible incarceration was covered by the signing of 3 cover strikers - Beattie, Hoskins and O'Halloran. Two of them turned out to be shit and one got injured, but McCabe can hardly be blamed for that.

You can't seriously say that Wilson did not get financial backing in 2011-12. The main reason we didn't go was because of one man's actions in a Welsh hotel room. Even then we would have still made it had Wednesday not gone on the run one only sees once a decade :-(

 

[Grecian2000]

There are two ways to react to the evidence provided in the OP if you're sat in the boardroom (presuming someone thinks about these things with any logic at all).

1. My God, Clough is no better than Wilson let's out him now.

2. We shouldn't have sacked Wilson, let's not make the same mistake again now.

I'm hoping 2 is the result and we were wrong to sack Wilson when we did and we'd be just as wrong to do the same to Clough now.

 

[BushBlade]

Seriously?

McCabe funded a 2nd tier squad in 2011-12 in an effort to get us back up in one. As has been said ad nauseum, Evans' possible incarceration was covered by the signing of 3 cover strikers - Beattie, Hoskins and O'Halloran. Two of them turned out to be shit and one got injured, but McCabe can hardly be blamed for that.

You can't seriously say that Wilson did not get financial backing in 2011-12. The main reason we didn't go was because of one man's actions in a Welsh hotel room. Even then we would have still made it had Wednesday not gone on the run one only sees once a decade :-(

No, I'm not saying he wasn't backed, just that with hindsight a little more backing we might have made it regardless. The high wage bill was mainly taken up by a relatively small number of players.

I don't disagree that events conspired against us, if it had been in a book you wouldn't have believed it.