In a football kind of way http://www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk...-clough-is-managing-fine-on-his-own-1-6524979
Very interesting read. Thanks for posting the link, mate. It's difficult to argue too much against either Clough or Barnwell, either.
My favourite line is this: "So when people analyse the turnaround in Sheffield United" What turnaround is this? When they sacked Danny Wilson less than a year ago they were 5th in the table, virtually assured of a play-off place, and if they'd won their two games in hand they'd have been in the automatic promotion places. They now sit 10th, 7 points off the play-offs and 28 behind the automatic promotion places. There hasn't half been a turnaround. Backwards at great ******* knots. Not Clough's fault, I know, but it's very misleading. It's an interesting article, but it's showing deference to the wrong club who ****** up a promotion campaign because they're idiots and are now reaping what they sowed.
Good article that. I broadly agree with the principle as well, with one caveat. The powers that be at the club need to have the strength of conviction to back their chosen 'football man' through good times and bad. It seemed when we appointed Keith Hill that there was a change of strategy within the club. Statements from the club cited an emphasis on permanent signings as opposed to short term loanees and the intention to bring through young players as 'assets' to sell on and move the club forward. That was pretty much abandoned when Hill was sacked and the stream of loanees we've seen since. I'm not saying sacking Hill was a mistake, I never took to him and it looked like it was ending in relegation regardless of the good intentions. Again, under Flicker his 'assurances' we're met by all accounts in pre season only for him to get to boot when things were looking bleak. Ultimately, results are going to determine the life of a manager. I'm happy for the manager to have relative autonomy re. running the club but I think it's important to have a football philosophy filter down from higher up the tree. I think West Brom, Southampton, Swansea are quite good examples of this model. These clubs have changed managers along the way but the principles of the club remain the same.
