Another Clough era ends at Derby as long-serving Tisdale earns plaudits against big-spending Fleetwood.

And so another Clough era at Derby ends in controversy. 
Nigel Clough, until Saturday the fourth-longest serving manager in England’s professional leagues, was unceremoniously booted out of the club following a row with chief executive Sam Rush in the wake of Saturday’s 1-0 defeat by Nottingham Forest.
Three defeats in a week were given as the official reason, but with one of those coming in the Capital One Cup and with Derby sitting in mid-table the decision looks knee-jerk rather than measured, flying in the face of every message of calm and patience that has been coming out of the club since Clough’s appointment in January 2009.

Booted out: Derby County manager Nigel Clough was sacked after Saturday's defeat at Nottingham Forest

Opinions on Clough’s departure range from, ‘he’s done nothing, he only got the job off the back of his father’s reputation and the club has been standing still for years,’ to ‘Clough has done a fine job on a small budget, who could have done any better?’ 

As with most of these things the truth probably lies somewhere between the two, but the latter argument holds more weight.

Firstly, it is important to point out that to use Brian Clough’s career as a barometer for Nigel’s is grossly unfair. Anyone well versed in the goings on at Derby in the last four-and-a-half years, or at Burton beforehand, will be well aware that Clough Jnr is far from a chip off the block in terms of his personality or managerial style. He has never sought to cling to his father’s coat-tails nor could he, as - unlike with the Ferguson’s - the father had retired long before the son tried his hand at management. So, with that myth dispelled, what of Nigel the manager?
It is true that Derby have never put together a serious promotion challenge under Clough, but never really being threatened by relegation either in what is now one of Europe’s biggest leagues can be classed as an achievement in itself, especially given the financial restrictions placed on him from day one.
Relegation into League One was something that was a very real possibility when Clough took over in January 2009. Paul Jewell’s reign was nothing short of a catastrophe. The club were relegated back into the Championship with a record low number of points just two months after Americans General Sports and Entertainment took over in January 2008. No side has ever been relegated so early in a Premier League season.

Father and son: Clough Jr is a very different manager to his dad, Brian, who also managed Derby County

Derby came within four days of going a year without a league victory in September 2008, and when Jewell resigned three months later, Clough was left to pick up the pieces. He inherited the largest wage bill in the Championship - something that would cast a shadow over Clough’s reign for its entirety and something that should not be forgotten.
That being said, Derby have hardly been the Championship’s paupers in the last four-and-a-half years, but balancing the books after Jewell’s ill-fated tenureship mean that Clough’s league finishes in three of his four full seasons as manager - with the exception of 2010-11 - were all higher than Derby’s standing in the budget table.
What’s more - again with exception of 2010-11 - Derby were clearly making steady progress under Clough. He saved them from relegation in 2008-09, eventually finishing 18th, before a 14th-placed finished the following season. Then came the 2010-11 blip when Derby finished 19th, but since then consecutive 12th and 10th-placed finishes show a club moving in the right direction.
Sure, the progress has been steady rather than rapid, but in a league where year-on-year most promotion contenders are of a calibre - and budget - higher than a lot of sides in top flights across Europe, Derby’s progress is a credit to their former manager.
Of course, there is the counter-argument.

Long-serving: Clough was appointed as the new Derby manager in January 2009 and steadily improved the side

LEAGUES ONE AND TWO

League One review
League Two review

Derby’s owners will point to the fact that in the last four-and-a-half years several sides with similar budgets have gone up - namely, Burnley, Blackpool, Reading and Crystal Palace - but the vast majority of promoted teams, and indeed those who have finished in the top six in recent years, have been spending in the millions rather than the hundreds of thousands that Clough has been.

Attendances have been on the slide in the last few years, but Derby are not the only ex-Premier League club to have found that in the Football League. Clough’s brand of football - bringing through youngsters and encouraging them to play a high-tempo passing game - certainly cannot be blamed for that. 
The uproar over Clough’s departure will soon wane should the man he replace prove a success. That is the nature of football. Just look at Southampton, or to use a Football League example, Watford. Nigel Adkins and Sean Dyche were both harshly sacked by those respective clubs but the success of the men that followed them - Mauricio Pochettino and Gianfranco Zola - has meant they were quickly forgotten about.
Whatever the outcome, a slanging match on a bus clearly was not the right way to get rid of a man who had picked Derby up off their feet when they had become something of a laughing stock.
Steve McClaren was on Monday announced as the successor to Clough. He will do well to improve on last season's 10th-placed finish without significant backing in the transfer market. If that backing does come then that will only beg the question, why was it not afforded to Clough?
He certainly did enough to warrant it.

In the frame: Steve McClaren has been linked with the vacant Derby post, while former Stoke Boss Tony Pulis (right) watched the Rams in action on Saturday

 

Victory for long-serving Tisdale against big-spending Fleetwood
With two of the Football League’s longest-serving managers coming into this season now gone in Clough and ex-Carlisle boss Greg Abbott, it was perhaps rather fitting that the man second only to Arsene Wenger in those stakes masterminded a poignant victory on Saturday.
Exeter City, owned by their fans, with nine of their squad of 22 having coming through their academy and not a single once having cost a penny in transfer fees, turned over big-spending Fleetwood in League Two with both goals coming from local lad Scot Bennett.
Paul Tisdale and Exeter are English football’s great anomaly.

Unique: Exeter City manager Paul Tisdale has spent seven years with the club and is aiming for promotion

Over seven years in the job now, Tisdale has turned down numerous approaches from bigger clubs and Exeter have always stuck by their manager through sticky patches.
The last couple of years have not been easy for Grecians fans as they have had to watch their side slide from eighth in League One to mid-table in League Two after losing almost their entire starting XI following a remarkable season in 2010-11, but the shoots of recovery are there for all to see.
Promotion is the aim this season and if results like Saturday’s keep coming along then there is no reason why that can’t be achieved.
Good luck to them.

Good week for...
Mansfield Town. The newly-promoted side have now gone eight games unbeaten in League Two following Saturday’s 1-0 win at runaway league leaders Chesterfield. The gap to the Spireites is still four points but with Fleetwood losing too the Stags find themselves in the automatic promotion places. With two consecutive home games coming up Paul Cox’s side are turning into unlikely promotion contenders. 

Bad week for...

Sheffield United. David Weir - a man interviewed for the Everton job in the summer - just cannot buy a win (or a draw for that matter). New managers always need time but no-one at Bramall Lane would have envisaged the club sitting bottom of the League One table after nine games given the talented squad Weir has at his disposal. Saturday’s 2-0 loss at Wolves made it six defeats in a row for the beleaguered Blades.

TALENT SCOUT : PATRICK BAMFORD - MK DONS

Chelsea have an entire squad of youngsters out on loan across the globe and few are more exciting than Bamford (below centre). 
The 20-year-old forward - signed from Nottingham Forest for £1.5million in January 2012 - scored twice as Karl Robinson’s MK Dons side moved into the League One play-offs with a 4-1 win over Stevenage on Saturday.
That double took his tally for the season to six but he is more than just a goalscorer. Standing at 6ft 1in Bamford is already an able target man, while he has the pace to play wide and the touch to drop deep and receive the ball.