Nigel clough post match - Salford (A)

[Mansf1eld]

Obviously I need to be careful not to provoke anyone into an angry response but..

Christ on a bike. It's the first game of the season and already the knives are out.

I can 100% guarantee we will lose again. Is it going to be like this every time?

It maybe the 1st game of the season but nothing has changed , that performance was reminiscent of not only Wembley but the pee poor start we had last season . Has NC not learnt anything? What a dogs dinner of a performance that was and tactically looked like a audition for some Chanel 4 reality show ..

Try and keep things in perspective. Salford away is not the easiest of fixtures.

Dog and duck fc

[bigalstag1]

Don't worry. We'll have Pym playing up front next, with Bowery in goal and Hawkins playing an attacking midfield role.

[stagmanrob]

Signed Bowery as a striker. Albeit one who doesn't score many goals but does the donkey work so others can.

He played three positions today, one of which was at centre half.....with number nine on his back?!?!?

It's only right Clough gets questioned on team selection for that alone, never mind the rest.

[yorkshire stag]

Obviously I need to be careful not to provoke anyone into an angry response but..

Christ on a bike. It's the first game of the season and already the knives are out.

I can 100% guarantee we will lose again. Is it going to be like this every time?

Genuine question

As a follower of Clough Jnr

has he ever excepted he was to blame in a defeat, i’ve only his time in charge of us to judge, & i’m pretty certain in that time the answers no

[jeevesthestag]

When I have to question if a post is written by a true Stags supporter or a troll something is wrong. It's the first game of the season for God's sake. Funny thing is, sometimes teams don't play to the best of their ability, especially at the beginning of a season when they might be a bit rusty. To criticise Clough for this performance is absolute nonsense. Every team has off days. This was one of ours. Are the same set of players who won most points per game than any other team from Oct 21 to May 22 suddenly useless? Has Clough lost the plot and made these same players underperform and turn into liabilities?

No, we had a bad game. Nothing came off. We missed a few chances that on another day might have gone in. Comme ci comme ca! Salford will probably be up there at the end of the season and we lost to them. Big deal!

[Martin Shaw]

Careful what you say today, kids. Bear73 will be taking notes about whos naughty and nice to use against you when we win two games in a row

a reminder of the request from at least two other threads:

Subject: It’s not like me but …. looks like a promotion-winning squad

and viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40300&p=961070#p961070

users who continue to post off-topic, or arguing, or about other users, etc etc, are risking being removed from the site. We've had enough.

Don't come complaining if it turns out to be you.

And you don't need to argue with this either!

So, users who continue to post about other users are risking being removed from the site. We've had enough.

Don't come complaining if it turns out to be you.

And you don't need to argue with this either!

[bmthstag]

Must deliver this season
I like Nige but results are more important than personalities and so if we don’t get there this time around might be all change again
Today was a full a strength team as possible really so nobody missing from first choice

Perch was missing, Hawkins was missing. Law was missing.

We should have coped better than we did but we weren’t at full strength. I think we definitely need 2 more players in (even if none go out)

[broomo]

Obviously I need to be careful not to provoke anyone into an angry response but..

Christ on a bike. It's the first game of the season and already the knives are out.

I can 100% guarantee we will lose again. Is it going to be like this every time?

Genuine question

As a follower of Clough Jnr

has he ever excepted he was to blame in a defeat, i’ve only his time in charge of us to judge, & i’m pretty certain in that time the answers no

Yes and he has here as well. At least 3 times last season.

Thankfully he gets it right far more often than he gets it wrong.

[stagmanrob]

Must deliver this season
I like Nige but results are more important than personalities and so if we don’t get there this time around might be all change again
Today was a full a strength team as possible really so nobody missing from first choice

Perch was missing, Hawkins was missing. Law was missing.

We should have coped better than we did but we weren’t at full strength. I think we definitely need 2 more players in (even if none go out)

I would have been more terrified if Hawkins was playing today personally. That Thomas-Asante would have destroyed him.

[jeevesthestag]

Must deliver this season
I like Nige but results are more important than personalities and so if we don’t get there this time around might be all change again
Today was a full a strength team as possible really so nobody missing from first choice

Perch was missing, Hawkins was missing. Law was missing.

We should have coped better than we did but we weren’t at full strength. I think we definitely need 2 more players in (even if none go out)

I would have been more terrified if Hawkins was playing today personally. That Thomas-Asante would have destroyed him.

To say that those three players missing was the difference is a joke. Perch was out for most of last season and is at the end of his career, Hawkins isn't pulling up any trees out of his preferred position and Law is a bit part player at best.

[stagmanrob]

Must deliver this season
I like Nige but results are more important than personalities and so if we don’t get there this time around might be all change again
Today was a full a strength team as possible really so nobody missing from first choice

Perch was missing, Hawkins was missing. Law was missing.

We should have coped better than we did but we weren’t at full strength. I think we definitely need 2 more players in (even if none go out)

I would have been more terrified if Hawkins was playing today personally. That Thomas-Asante would have destroyed him.

To say that those three players missing was the difference is a joke. Perch was out for most of last season and is at the end of his career, Hawkins isn't pulling up any trees out of his preferred position and Law is a bit part player at best.

Agree, although I am a huge advocate for Law getting more of a chance. Never put a foot wrong everytime he's played. Excellent range of passing and has been one of our best creative sparks in pre-season.
Definitely deserves a shot when fit.

[adamstag]

Given cloughs fixation wifi akins when he’s clearly done i’d be half expecting him to start in goal next week so he can play.

[bobbystagsfan]

Given cloughs fixation wifi akins when he’s clearly done i’d be half expecting him to start in goal next week so he can play.

Clough could certainly use some good connections right now

[lifestags]

If key defenders are out then why not go back to the back 4? Why are we only considering 1 formation. I do not get it.

[yorkshire stag]

If key defenders are out then why not go back to the back 4? Why are we only considering 1 formation. I do not get it.

you are absolutely not alone, to implement a new system when he didn’t have the players available was just bonkers

[diablo]

Obviously I need to be careful not to provoke anyone into an angry response but..

Christ on a bike. It's the first game of the season and already the knives are out.

I can 100% guarantee we will lose again. Is it going to be like this every time?

Broomo... its not that we lost , its the way we lost ..with the strange team set up with arguably our best players
Gordon, Lapslie , Clarke , Hewitt sat on the bench.. I personally prefer a 4-4-2 set up with the current players rather than the three centre backs but what do I know ! A lot of fans are also upset that Clough never takes responsibility for losses and continually names players for making mistakes.. Maris loses a ball near the Half way line and Salford break and score , Manager blames Maris....apparently we made schoolboy errors! well if you play a schoolboy at centre half that's what happens... I think Clough is an ok Manager for this division and that is exactly what he is ..a League 2 Manager, he has openly declared he is happy with the current Squad...I beg to differ

[gazza1988]

The thing is in training sessions and training games (ie friendlies) players can look good out of position, because there's less pressure. However once the season kicks off and the chips are down some players can be found wanting.

[yorkshire stag]

STOP playing square pegs in round holes, buy a quality CB, striker & cover for LB

it’s really that simple

[MTFCMusings]

The weirdest thing for me about yesterday is that Clough is going to sign another midfielder, despite the fact we currently have five for three positions plus O’Toole. It only makes sense if one is due to leave. Clough said he would only sign someone who could improve the team, and then said one of the options was Ryan Stirk. He may improve the squad but I’m not sure he improves the team, and is more of what we already have. If we’re going to sign another midfielder it needs to be a number ten.

We can’t seem to find a striker but there’s five weeks of the window left yet. Don’t blow the budget on a position we don’t need to strengthen.

[Cleveland_Stag]

The weirdest thing for me about yesterday is that Clough is going to sign another midfielder, despite the fact we currently have five for three positions plus O’Toole. It only makes sense if one is due to leave. Clough said he would only sign someone who could improve the team, and then said one of the options was Ryan Stirk. He may improve the squad but I’m not sure he improves the team, and is more of what we already have. If we’re going to sign another midfielder it needs to be a number ten.

We can’t seem to find a striker but there’s five weeks of the window left yet. Don’t blow the budget on a position we don’t need to strengthen.

100% agree. A proper striker is what we should be focusing our remaining budget on and after that a centre back who’s played in a back 3 regularly before (although this is somehow a complete pipe dream judging by Clough’s recent interviews regarding who he wants to bring in). Another centre midfielder is genuinely the last thing we need but yes let’s go and spend a big chunk of the budget we’ve got left on yet another CM

[stagmanrob]

Clough said in his post match interview that Hewitt has only played half an hour of football so that's why he couldn't start.

He is managing Gordon's minutes too after his injury.

I think if both were 100% fit though, Akins would probably still have been starting at RWB and we's still be playing three at the back.

[victor A block]

So we lever Johnson out who doesn't "suit our style of play". Replace him with an untried kid from Forest and play Bowery at centre half with our other striker Akins drowning at RWB. Go figure.
We had chances yesterday where a goal poacher who has the instinct to get in the right places would have scored. Akins is like the Pronto bus. Never there on time.

[BH_Stag]

The weirdest thing for me about yesterday is that Clough is going to sign another midfielder, despite the fact we currently have five for three positions plus O’Toole. It only makes sense if one is due to leave. Clough said he would only sign someone who could improve the team, and then said one of the options was Ryan Stirk. He may improve the squad but I’m not sure he improves the team, and is more of what we already have. If we’re going to sign another midfielder it needs to be a number ten.

We can’t seem to find a striker but there’s five weeks of the window left yet. Don’t blow the budget on a position we don’t need to strengthen.

Completely agree. Some bizarre comments and decisions at the moment that leave you scratching your head. It’s a striker that we need primarily…all this ‘just sign another good player’ stuff is no good whatsoever unless it’s in a position that we need to address. We’re pretty stacked with good options in midfield already - Just imagine if Oates picks up an injury and we hadn’t addressed the gap in the forward line.

On another note, I’m still not actually sure why Clough has felt the need to change his primary formation after we played so well generally for two thirds of the season after the bad run. He said himself we picked up more points than anybody in that time, and we did that by playing a back 4 with a diamond or 433. Now all of a sudden that’s not good enough and he wouldn’t pick it even if it meant playing 3 of the back 5 out of position. Why?

For me we should have just focused on fine tuning and strengthening the systems we were already strong at. We had a chance to hit the ground running with a settled squad and system against teams that need to integrate new players etc. but now we’re having to get used to a new system we don’t have that same advantage.

[gazza1988]

Akins has been described as a striker/forward wherever he's been (also he is Burton's all time leading goalscorer) although Broomo and/or Bear say he's best at right wing or wing back. he's listed as a forward on the club website. Hawkins is the same, although it has been mentioned he can play CB too.

So forwards wise (strongest position) we have: Oates, Swan, Hawkins, Bowery, Akins, Gale. Do we need any more? That's 6 players for 2 slots.

I will argue we don't need to find a striker, we let the current league 2 top scorer leave so can't be that desperate for a striker (see what I did there? ). We, yet again, need proper defensive options.

RWB: Gordon
CB: Hewitt, Perch, Harbottle, O'Toole, Cooper
LWB: Macca

That's 7 players for 5 spots. And people wonder why we look so disjointed at the back. Forgive me if I am wrong but I'm fairly certain that all those players were available yesterday, bar Perch. So that side did NOT pick itself. Certainly down our left.

[stagmanrob]

According to Clough, Hewitt and Gordon were not right for 90 minutes, could only be used off the bench.

Makes it more baffling that he stuck to a back 5.