EDIT: Removed
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Last edited by Your Usual Table; 04-11-2021, 14:36. -
Brian Clough (A Newbie Asks)
I think the question really needs to be asked about Clough and Taylor, as a partnership. Broadly, I think Taylor brought a great ability to build squads, and Clough a great ability to build teams.
Clough was of course very shouty and capricious, and Taylor was able to play good cop to his bad cop. Somehow, together, they managed to make players play for their places without thereby causing them to play in an anxious or fearful way.
It certainly wasn't about the tactics. We didn't have them in English football at the time. -
Brian Clough (A Newbie Asks)
CV, the most amazing thing about clough wasn't that he won so much but that he achieved anything at all. Read duncan hamilton's Provided you don't kiss me for an insight into his character.Comment
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Brian Clough (A Newbie Asks)
Read David Peace's "The Damned United"Comment
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Brian Clough (A Newbie Asks)
And I am the Life wrote:
I didn't get that from that book, at all.CV, the most amazing thing about clough wasn't that he won so much but that he achieved anything at all. Read duncan hamilton's Provided you don't kiss me for an insight into his character.Comment
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Brian Clough (A Newbie Asks)
I'd be the last person to denigrate in any way Clough's achievements, as they were amazing. But to place them against modern comparitors, they do have to placed in the context of that day. English football in the 1970s was still in a place where a good manager, in charge of a bunch of half-decent players, could win trophies at "unfashionable" clubs, because it was a much more level playing field. At the time Clough was winning silverware with Forest, let's not forget that Sir Bobby Robson was doing the same with Ipswich Town, and Ron Saunders was with Villa. Keith Burkenshaw led Tottenham to 4 Cup finals in 4 seasons, and with a bit more luck would have won the League and Cup double in 1982. Graham Taylor took Watford to second place in the League in 1983, then reached the Cup Final a year later.
It's extremely unlikely that any manager, at any "small" club, could achieve the same nowadays, simply because since the restructuring of the Champions League in the mid-90s, the "big 4" now have 3 or 4 times the money of every other club in the League. That situation didn't exist in the early 1980s. And the same's true for European success - even the Roma side who won the Italian league in 1983, and went on to lose to Liverpool in the 1984 Champions' Cup Final, had maybe a couple of regular Italian internationals, plus Cerezo and Falcao. In 1985, Hellas Verona won Serie A with hardly any regular internationals except for Di Gennaro and Preben Elkjaer. It's inconceivable nowadays that a Serie A champion side won't have eleven internationals, most of them being star players from World Cup quarter-finalists.Comment
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Brian Clough (A Newbie Asks)
For god's sake, taking a second division side with no major winning history to becoming champions of Europe in the span of 3 years is a major accomplishment is a major accomplishment in any era.Comment
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Brian Clough (A Newbie Asks)
Astonishing achievement any time or place. Clough was close to football genius, or at least an alchemist of the highest order.Comment
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Brian Clough (A Newbie Asks)
Well, yes. But it was possible then. It simply isn't now.Comment
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Brian Clough (A Newbie Asks)
Another vital factor in the respect that fans of the majority of teams had for Clough was the fact that his teams were good to watch. You knew that they wouldn't cheat by timewasting, they weren't dirty and they never back chatted or attempted to pressurise refs. He would sometimes fine players who were booked for dissent. His teams were always very well organised.
Clough was always the front man, the players focused on the team. It's difficult to see how he would have managed in todays climate because he would never allow a player to become bigger than the team.Comment
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Brian Clough (A Newbie Asks)
Is it important, in terms of judging Clough's (and Taylor's, of course) brilliance, whether it could be done now?
If Clough couldn't do it now, if that is the question, which it wasn't to begin with, then none of the "greats" could I imagine. So where does that leave us?
Though, in terms of a club like Forest (leave aside taking them over a couple of seasons beforehand near the bottom of the then 2nd Div)winning the title in fine style from a hitherto dominant Liverpool and back to back European Cups, it wasn't done "then" either.
They unceremoniously dumped the defending champions Liverpool out of the European Cup the season after winning the league. He also took Derby to a title and European Cup semi final in 73.
I also remember them being incredibly well organised and drilled, often playing breathtaking counterattacking fotball, which suggests they had sound tactics, rather than bunging 11 good players (often ones Clough and Taylor had either resurrected or made bigger than the sum of their parts the pitch. McGovern, Burns, Lloyd, so many in that team.
Surely it was due to some coaching or tactical awareness. They turned Burns from a volatile centre forward at Birmingham into one of the finest central defenders in Europe for a while in next to no time. Surely more than the result of a pint and a fag and a quiet word in his shell like? It is one of those urban myths that Clough had no tactics, I think. His team screamed game plan.
They also had the amazing John Robertson, who I thought for 3 seasons or so was the equal of Dalglish or anyone in at least Britain at the time.
Truly great Clough, and Taylor, who also laid many of the foundations for Brighton's Glory Glory Years. I often wonder if they'd stayed at Fortress Goldstone...Comment
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Brian Clough (A Newbie Asks)
What he said.
They're unveiling his statue in town tomorrow. That's all I have to say at the moment.Comment
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Brian Clough (A Newbie Asks)
Money and the modern era, has made the Premier League much more boring than the First Division ever was.
However there are still stories of teams coming up from division 2/3 and doing well.
Blackburn are a good example. Promoted from Division 2 in 91/92. They were the 1994/95 Premier League Champions
Even Man City were in the third tier of English Football not long ago. Only promoted from there through the play-offs. I remember most managers running a mile from them. How things have changed.
ps I think trying to compare Forest with Ipswich is a bit of a stretch.Comment
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Brian Clough (A Newbie Asks)
If you reckon Clough's Derby side didn't have a distinctly flinty edge, that more than flirted with dirty quite regularly, then you can't have seen them play very often.Comment
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Brian Clough (A Newbie Asks)
Brian Clough. In chocolate.
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Brian Clough (A Newbie Asks)
Where's the green sweater?Comment
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Brian Clough (A Newbie Asks)
I had a right good roar when that was unveiled. Gary Newbon said it was nice to be back in Birmingham again.Comment
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Brian Clough (A Newbie Asks)
The fact that it wouldn't be possible to win the league with a club like Nottingham Forest these days is merely a reflection of how shit football is these days; it takes nothing at all away from the increduible magnitude of Clough's achievements.Comment
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Brian Clough (A Newbie Asks)
By the time roy keane arrived at nottingham forest clough was really in the final straight as a manager. Duncan hamilton's book paints a very sad picture of his boozing, and his general mindset. However keane still thinks that brian clough was an amazing manager.
On the anniversary of clough's death, Keane said that he was the best manager he'd ever seen. Perhaps there may have been an element of the occasion in his statement, but What the fuck must clough have been like when he wasn't a paranoid, heavy alcoholic.
As for could it be done now, the answer obviously is no, but its also not just because of money. The increased physical demands of the game has reduced the number of available players. (John robertson just wouldn't make it now.)The need for top level clubs to have large squads also reduces the number of available players.
Then The removal of the tackle from behind, the back pass, and changes in the offside law have really made it difficult for a manager to put together the most effective defence in Europe in the second division.
Another factor would be player lifestyle. In the early eighties any club could roll into old trafford and kick the shit out of man utd if they had fewer alcoholics in the team. (3)
If Hull City were to do an Ipswich, and finish fifth, I think that would be the be the modern day equivalent of clough getting promoted and winning the league so quickly.Comment
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Brian Clough (A Newbie Asks)
I don't think the removal of the tackle from behind would've hindered Clough's sides, in fact would've hindered them much less than their rivals at the time. In that sense, the Clough team I recall most fondly is their late 80s one (with Nigel Clough, Neil Webb et al) because, though they only had two League Cups to show for it, they played such a neat, concise and clean passing game and were almost alone in doing so at the time in England. That team's tactics would have done fine in the modern era; its relative lack of resources would not have.
Nish's roaring was justified.Comment
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Brian Clough (A Newbie Asks)
A much less vaunted achievement of Clough was the second very good, if not great, side he produced at Forest in the late 1980's. They incorporated all of the good values that Clough's previous side had, and with Franz Carr, Neil Webb and Nigel Clough, they were a fine side playing lovely football. I can recall them winning at Highbury in the FA Cup Quarter Final in 1988 playing classic counter-attack football. But for the Liverpool side of Barnes & Beardsley they could have won a title and a couple of FA Cups to add to their two League Cups.Comment
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Brian Clough (A Newbie Asks)
Great minds, E10. Great minds.Comment
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Brian Clough (A Newbie Asks)
E10, I included the tackle from behind because its banning put a severe limitation on the number of defenders who could be effective at the top level. Thus making it harder for a club to come up and win the league.Comment
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Brian Clough (A Newbie Asks)
Yeah I so wanted them to win the 88 FA Cup, not just for the brilliant Highbury performance but because they only narrowly (and probably undeservedly) squeaked past us in the fourth round, in what was also an excellent game.Comment
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