It never fails to amuse me when bulletin posters proclaim that Nigel should buy this player or that player.
Granted that many of us are frustrated would-be football managers and that the nearest that most of us ever get to managing a real-life team is our son’s Under 11’s but many of these posters show a dismal lack of understanding of how the transfer system really works.
On the surface it looks easy. You like a player and you think he will do a job for you and so you go out and buy him. The truth is it’s an endless escalator, either going up or down.
Let’s take a fictional example. Jimmy Miggs (not a real person) plays for a League 2 side and does well and since he is only 17 is quickly snapped up by a Championship team. He fails to settle so by the age of 19 is out on loan to League 1 teams and suddenly finds a manager who understands him and gets rave notices.
The Championship side, knowing that he is unlikely to ever fit in with their culture or their footballing style, indicate to his agent (most likely his dad at that age) they wouldn’t stand in his way if the Premiership comes in for him.
Next transfer window, he’s off to bigger money, the potential of Europe and for two or three years he does quite well. There’s even a bit of paper talk that he’ll play for England (or if he’s from one of the other home countries, has already got a few caps). But then he starts getting some injuries, nothing too serious but these slow him down and he starts to become a squad player instead of a first teamer and his agent begins to look around for a more lucrative deal.
The agent (by now someone who has a stable of players) ensures that he moves on in fairly quick succession to a few clubs with commensurate remuneration and suddenly he’s in his thirties. Now he’s back in the Championship with a club looking for some experience for their young lads for a play-off push. But it doesn’t work out and he drifts around and downwards until he finally hangs up his boots, and there’s some talk about getting his coaching badges.
Most footballers are on this kind of escalator – going upwards and then for a few years they have reached their zenith before going downwards again.
Clough has made it very clear that he wants to buy players on the way up. Not for him are the likes of Jimmy Miggs looking for a nice little earner before he manages a pub or gets his coaching badges. If it is an oldster – it has to be someone who is hungry enough to want to play the game and isn’t too bothered about buttressing his pension and even then this will be a short-term arrangement.
Hence my view that most of the posters are wasting their time, although there is, and always been, a certain kind of pleasure to be got from speculating ‘what if?’ What Clough will be looking for are players like Moxey or Barker. Someone who is on the way up (hopefully with us) but if not, then we can sell him on for good money to buy others.
Having overseen a ruthless clear-out of over-paid underachievers, he will not be looking to take on more of the same. What he will want are people who give their all in training, day in, day out, and who subscribe to his beliefs and values.
It is also part of his credo that he works with a squad of manageable size and it is unlikely that he will buy another player to add to the squad in case of injuries. The expectation will be that most, if not all, the injured will come back and he will then work with those to create a stable and functioning team.
If he does buy another player – it is likely that this will be matched with an outgoing transfer. From what little we know of Clough – he is still an unknown entity to most of us – he is methodical (Savage backs this up in the latest edition of “The League paper”) and has very clear views of what he wants to achieve. That makes it unlikely that he will buy just to add to the squad.
He will buy when it suits him and because it fits in with his philosophy. And it is more than likely to be a player from a lower league, rather than an established name. But of course he is not working in a vacuum, there are other Championship and Premiership sides that will have more financial clout (or are willing to risk more) and it could be that the player refuses to move as they want a more prestigious club. Or the club wants a bigger transfer fee. Or a Premiership side sees the player for their development squad and gazumps Nigel.
The way Nigel operates is incredibly incremental and too snail-like for most of us. We’d like to see flurries of action but the truth is, if we’re honest with ourselves, our heads tell us that is exactly what our club needs at this moment while our hearts look for the exciting signing.
It’s not going to happen, Nigel is not Brian - and times have changed. What we need is the slow, sober, methodical and often boring progress even if it results in only being one point better off than what was achieved last season. That’s probably the minimum that NHC is looking for on the pitch while he sorts out the football side of the club.