In his four years, Nigel Clough has delivered on all fronts for Derby County
NIGEL Clough was appointed manager of Derby County four years ago this week.
He is the club's longest-serving manager since Jim Smith, who had the job from 1995 to 2001, and only nine managers in the country have been in their jobs longer than Clough.
The simple way to showcase the progress made in the past four years is to turn the clock back to January 2009 and remember where Derby stood at that time and the mess Clough inherited.
The Rams had fallen out of the Premier League in embarrassing fashion at the end of the previous season, 2007-08, with a record low number of points.
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Burdened by a huge squad and wage bill, life back in the Championship was proving extremely difficult and a run of one win in nine League games signalled the end of Paul Jewell's reign.
Clough's first League game in charge should have been away to Cardiff City but the fixture was called off due to a frozen pitch and so Queens Park Rangers at Pride Park were his first opponents in the battle for much-needed points.
Derby sat 20th and a demoralising 2-0 defeat at the hands of Rangers confirmed the scale of the task ahead.
Boos rang out at half-time and again on the final whistle, although by then the ground was virtually empty as thousands of disappointed fans had already trudged away.
"The same old symptoms and problems resurfaced and that is not something that is going to be eradicated in a week or two," Clough said afterwards.
There were no promises, no suggestions of a quick-fix, no timescale.
Turning a club around, building foundations and instilling a new ethic was going to take time – and quite a lot of it.
A thorough shake-up was needed and such shake-ups are not completed in months, they take years.
Clough's remit was firstly to keep the club in the Championship and then reduce the size and average age of the squad, slash the wage bill and develop young talent while remaining competitive in the division.
He has delivered on all fronts.
Four years on from being unveiled as Jewell's successor, Clough and his staff have pieced together and moulded a team that is in better shape than any Rams side since the promotion season of 2006-07.
This has been achieved while working to a tight budget.
The achievement is all the more remarkable given his meagre net spend in the four years, way below the amounts spent by a number of Championship clubs, including the Rams' East Midlands rivals, Leicester City and Nottingham Forest.
The January transfer window has only been open a matter of days and Leicester have forked out £2m to sign striker Chris Wood from West Bromwich Albion.
Clough has overhauled the squad inside only seven full transfer windows and dramatically cut the wage bill at the same time, no easy task.
Gems have emerged from the Academy and some are playing lead roles. Will Hughes, at only 17, and 20-year-old Jeff Hendrick have become key players.
They are assets, Hughes a particularly valuable one, but there are others because a number of Clough's signings have increased in value, John Brayford being an example, Paul Coutts another.
Derby signed Coutts from Preston North End for a fee of around £100,000 rising to £150,000. What is he worth now on his performances in the first half of this season?
Other signings have not worked – Chris Maguire, David Martin and Chris Porter, to name three – but no manager can have a 100% success rate in the transfer market and shopping in the £200,000 to £500,000 market is far more difficult than having the resources to splash millions.
Supporters are now seeing a vibrant group of players who play with determination and desire and have a thirst to learn.
A touch more quality in certain areas would be welcome at times – that is the next step – but the efforts of the players cannot be questioned.
They have shown, certainly at home, that they can take on the best the division has to offer and, given the performances in general this season, their current position of being only three points adrift of the play-off places is not a false one.
There have been low points in the past four years.
A 4-1 home defeat by Scunthorpe United three years ago was a juddering moment as was the 5-2 hammering by Nottingham Forest and the FA Cup exit at the hands of Crawley Town, a non-League outfit at the time.
Lengthy runs without a League win, like the eight-match sequence early in 2011 that included five consecutive defeats at Pride Park, was a testing spell.
But for those examples, there are more memorable moments.
Four victories over Forest at the City Ground, one of which was gained while playing with 10 men for virtually all of the game.
A string of wins against Leeds and a purple patch in 2010, when a run of eight victories in 11 matches lifted Clough's team to fourth, are right up there along with the four successive victories at the beginning of 2011-12, Derby's best start to a season in 106 years.
Another sequence of four straight wins later that season saw Derby climb to seventh and although they ended the campaign 12th, it was their highest finish in five years and their third best in 13 seasons.
This season, the Rams have been as consistent as at any time under Clough and their home form has been impressive. They have won six and drawn one of their last eight matches at Pride Park.
Derby are a work in progress under Clough. The team have developed and improved in the past 12 months and, while there is still work to do, the signs are encouraging.
If anybody is in any doubt about that, just think back to that first game against QPR.
Comments
by Earl_
Friday, January 11 2013, 3:06PM
“Don't know what form the investment is in. There are are loans from a parent company which could be part of the investment and be the board, but other than the fact that they're secured on future revenue, I don't know what the terms are, interest etc.
My opinion is that Clough has done a good job so far, could he have done better, yes, this goes the same for the board.
Nothing has been proven or disproven yet.”
by the_pimpernel
Friday, January 11 2013, 1:19PM
“good post earl but isn't all the money they have put in just loans to the club, which they will be looking to re coup, you have hit the nail on the head there though, if they can bring a few players on and sell them like they will Hughes for say 8-10 million, they will soon start to re coup there money whilst the club flounders mid table in the 2nd division and they more than happily pay themselves huge salaries just for running the club….
Football is changing the prem is moving away from us fast and unless we get some proper owners in prepared to attempt promotion we are not going anywhere, despite what board stooges like derwentx will say and the totally deluded like ibelieve, clubs relegated from the prem are going to have huge budgets despite this dopey fair play nonsense that big spending clubs will just ignore and swallow the fines…”
by Earl_
Friday, January 11 2013, 10:27AM
“Without wanting to get involved with personal riffs, Derby County Football Club Limited have made a loss every year whilst this board have been running the club, do people really believe the board want us to remain in the Championship?
Personally the only way I think the club could make any money whilst remaining in the position we're in, is to become a selling player club and I don't count any of the sales so far to be in that context.
Huge tests coming now whilst we have players other clubs might actually want. Not always the clubs fault if a player goes though.
Mmmm, difficult to keep fans happy unless you're prepared to throw money at the club with what I can see, no chance of getting it back.”
by WIKLOW
Friday, January 11 2013, 9:39AM
“I should settle for first place, of course...anybody who would settle for less is crackers”
by the_pimpernel
Friday, January 11 2013, 8:26AM
“derwentx the boards stooge
you will be spouting the same old nonsense as long as GSE are here, its so easy to talk from behind a keyboard, how is your office at pride park,if you let me know which one i will come round for a chat
you are like a cracked record wait and see hold on steady progress, all things these owners want... they like you dont really want promotion as that would mean they would have to really dig deep into with their short arms into their deep pockets...
much better to be mid table in the 2nd division and keep promising jam tommorrow...”
by DBRAM
Friday, January 11 2013, 1:55AM
“Great to read so many positives on here, we have improved greatly and have so much potential. He [N.C.] is not perfect but a job well done so far and so much more to come. Most managers would not work with the constraints he has had to, and there are very few who have the ability to do so. Well Done Mr Clough and Thank You for at least showing the light at the end of 35yo dark, black tunnel.”
by derwentx
Thursday, January 10 2013, 6:51PM
“Obviously Tadley you feel its important that we challenge for the top six spot now, I don't. Rome wasn't built in a day and I have no desire to go into the Premier League and suffer the same humiliation as last time. At the moment we have a very young side who need another year under their belts. You have totally missed my point if you think another season is 'drifting by'. The early seasons were about getting rid of about 30 unwanted players whilst maintaining our place in the Championship, last season was about stabilising and improving, this season is about continuing that improvement. You mentioned Coventry and Portsmouth, they failed to stabilise and improve, hence they are looking up from the First Division. Finishing in tenth place isn't 'accepting mediocrity' as some people put it, its just another step towards the top of the pyramid, having built the secure base.
It doesn't disappoint me that we won't buy two or three players in January because in the last two summers we have done very good business, I expect this summer to be the same. Nor does it bother me if we have to do some horse trading, so long as we are stronger at the end of it. I really don't believe for one minute that we will sell Hughes and use the money to pay off more debt, if that was the intention we wouldn't have given Clough the Shackell fee back to buy Keough and Jacobs and the extra money to buy Sammon. Shackell was a bit of horse trading sanctioned by the manager, not a financial necessity forced on him by the owners.
I would just say to people 'be patient, lets not judge the team on a game by game basis'.”
by Peeps
Thursday, January 10 2013, 6:41PM
“Can't believe people are worried about selling ex Crewe and academy players .the derision met when these players came in .but the truth is mr clough has made these players sort after by bringing them through and having the guts to put them in the arena .”
by BlacknWhite
Thursday, January 10 2013, 5:56PM
“by WIKLOW
Thursday, January 10 2013, 9:55AM
.
"In 4 YEARS Derby County Football Club has achieved mid-table in the second flight of English football...
Time For Change"
Ok then Wiklo'
Tell us what and who you would change then, which manager, which coaching staff, which players, who's going to suddenly propel us into Premiership candidates, (and make sure we can stay there).
You must have thought this one through or are you on here to just try and disrupt things?
Can't wait to hear.”
by staffsram
Thursday, January 10 2013, 4:24PM
“I think that's a fair summation Yor_kie. What happens with WIll Hughes, Brayford & Hendricks in the transfer window could be key to not just enticing those missing fans back to PP but to maintaining the current level of support.
Whether one or more of the young players are sold, providing it's the managers decision, we have to accept it but the acid test of ambition then becomes a case of how much of the money brought in is given back to NC for investing in key areas of the team. If most of the fees go to reduce the borrowings then I seriously fear for the response next season as far as season ticket sales go.
Much as I would love to see these young players develop with Derby County, we need to be realistic. A talent such as Will Hughes doesn't come along very often so it's obvious the big clubs will want him on board as soon as they can. In my view, even at his tender age, he wouldn't look out of place on the big stage now. With the current owners looking unshakeable as far as providing 'substantial' funds in this window, the only way we can bring in the 2 or 3 players we need is by selling one of our prize assets, much as it disappoints me to say so.”