Cloughie wisdom

I'm of the personal opinion that Brian Clough is the greatest manager in the history of English football.

I often think of the unique respect Cloughie's teams had for officials when I see some of the pathetic antics of the modern day footballer. I'm talking about continually answering back, questioning everything the referee does, fraudulently claiming throw-ins, corners and free kicks, exaggerating the impact of fouls and so on.

Anyway, there are a couple of Cloughie quotes which I think inform the current situation at Bolton Wanderers.


I think this is true.

We spend a lot of time discussing 4-4-2, 4-5-1, and this kind of thing, but Coyle is either picking or signing the wrong players, or those players aren't good enough or trying hard enough. If the players play to the right standard pretty much everything else is academic.

Does anyone disagree with Cloughie? He did manage at a different time I suppose.


If Coyle ends up being sacked, that will be three managers appointed and sacked by Gartside. He said in the fans' forum he took personal responsibility for relegation, will he take responsibility for three failed managers in this eventuality? Time may tell.

Can anyone make a case for Gartside staying if Coyle is sacked?

largehat wrote:I'm of the personal opinion that Brian Clough is the greatest manager in the history of English football.

I often think of the unique respect Cloughie's teams had for officials when I see some of the pathetic antics of the modern day footballer. I'm talking about continually answering back, questioning everything the referee does, fraudulently claiming throw-ins, corners and free kicks, exaggerating the impact of fouls and so on.

Anyway, there are a couple of Cloughie quotes which I think inform the current situation at Bolton Wanderers.

"Players lose you games, not tactics. There's so much crap talked about tactics by people who barely know how to win at dominoes."

- Brian Clough

I think this is true.

We spend a lot of time discussing 4-4-2, 4-5-1, and this kind of thing, but Coyle is either picking or signing the wrong players, or those players aren't good enough or trying hard enough. If the players play to the right standard pretty much everything else is academic.

Does anyone disagree with Cloughie? He did manage at a different time I suppose.

"If a chairman sacks the manager he initially appointed, he should go as well."

- Brian Clough

If Coyle ends up being sacked, that will be three managers appointed and sacked by Gartside. He said in the fans' forum he took personal responsibility for relegation, will he take responsibility for three failed managers in this eventuality? Time may tell.

Can anyone make a case for Gartside staying if Coyle is sacked?

There is one obvious reason 400k per year salary, he will not resign anytime soon.

I disagree in some respects because tactics do matter. We all know the difference in our teams when they play one way as opposed to another, even with the same 11 on the field. Even small details like every man back on a corner have a degree of impact.

When I used to play football I was a good player (at my standard) and played in a team with several other good players. We won several leagues. Then several players, about half my team including myself, joined forces (for a few friendlies) with half of another team of players of an equally good standard. They had also won several competitions.

We had all not played together before and, although we were decent successful players we struggled to beat teams who were considered to be a lower standard opposition than ourselves. Whilst we all had the ability we lacked a plan and a direction. Half the team are pulling in one direction, half the other. I suppose it is a very similar story for tactics.

And it's those little things which make the difference. Just look at the way a well drilled and organised team of "lower ability" players can compete against the best if they are coached the right way and play as a unit.

All very true Biggie, but it's down to the players to carry out instructions they are given. Nobody would argue (well maybe Natasha, but nobody sensible) that Coyle used to instruct Paul Robinson to stand around pointing, or Chris Eagles to only show up every 5-6 games, or Ngog to miss at least one sitter every game. It's up to the players to follow instructions, work hard, be motivated to win and so on. They are highly paid professionals.

I'm not saying it automatically follows that all managers are innocent victims when the team performs badly on a consistent basis, and there are of course less and more able managers, but if the players aren't motivated or don't follow instructions, they never get sacked. Maybe we have one or two who know there is interest from the Premier League and just don't fancy it in the Championship.

I think its a change in times to be honest. Clough was fantastic for his time, could build good squads and motivate them, but don't forget he also got a team relegated from the top division later in is career, possibly because of the increase in tactical ability of other squads.

He was also very erratic and often had outbursts just like the tactics one you showed. Both bad tactics and poor players can lose you games.

We discuss the 4-4-2 4-5-1 also because there was a definite and obvious increase in our quality of play and results last season when we played 4-5-1, and it certainly wasn't because the players were trying harder.

Lofty_Love wrote:I think its a change in times to be honest. Clough was fantastic for his time, could build good squads and motivate them, but don't forget he also got a team relegated from the top division later in is career, possibly because of the increase in tactical ability of other squads.

That's a good point. In his autobiography Cloughie admits he should have resisted his chairman's pleas to carry on for one more season, he'd had enough the season before and lost his mojo I think. He also declined to replace a couple of injured players when he had the chance, he placed a bit too much faith/was too arrogant about the ability of a couple of the kids he had to promote. Plus, he was losing his battle with alcoholism at that point.

But maybe he WAS so good at motivating players he could still achieve great things without being very tactically astute.

Cloughie is my manager of all time, absolutely loved the bloke.
Do think though that peter taylor played a big part in his success.
It was a magic partnership that worked perfectly as a team.
Still think about the time that he twatted that fan on the pitch and the fan apologised to him .

Many memorable quotes from Cloughie of course including -

"I wouldn't say I was the best manager in the business. But I was in the top one."

and

"Rome wasn't built in a day. But I wasn't on that particular job."

A quote Coyle and our lack of a midfield might like to concider from Clough -

"If God had wanted us to play football in the clouds, he'd have put grass up there." On the importance of passing to feet.

Loads more quotes here -

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