After the Rams' defeat last night, rumour spread like wild fire that Nigel Clough had resigned or been sacked. He confronted the media to deny the speculation. Most media outlets found it newsworthy, except the club's official site
Nigel Clough stood firm after his teams defeat at the hands of Sven’s reinvigorated Foxes and talked like a man determined to continue against the tide of opposition.
The official site continued its recent tactic of not mentioning or carrying comment regarding deeper issues at DCFC but Clough’s comments were reported widely by other national media:
"There are a lot of rumours around at the moment.”
“I haven't resigned and I haven't spoken to anybody but the players and the good gentlemen from the media in the past 35 or 40 minutes so if it has been done I haven't been told about it."
"We are trying, (to bring players in), we have been close for a few weeks, there have been one or two times when we have been promised players and it's not quite materialised.”
"We will keep trying, it's not a financial issue at the moment, there is money there to bring players in. It's just getting clubs to agree to it.”
"We think we can survive, we've got enough in the dressing room and we are not done yet, we will let you know when we are rather than the rumours."
"We (management / coaching staff) will probably take responsibility for that, we set up in a certain way to try and stop Leicester and it turned out we were far too negative and tentative. Probably the formation combined with a bit of tension and nervousness around the place at the moment wasn't the best way to go today.”
"I think the timing of the second goal really did knock the stuffing out of us, we had too much to do in the second half. If we could have got through to half time at 1-0 anything could have happened in the second half but two quality finishes were enough for them.”
"When we put a few balls forward earlier we had a bit of joy but we can't play like that for 20 minutes or half an hour, we have to be like that from the first minute. We did a bit of work yesterday on trying to stop them but we forget about the important think which is the ball.”
"It's very hard to break the downward spiral. When you are losing games it's very hard, we have to grind out a win in the next two or three games. We all know the situation but it's no excuse. We haven't won enough games, and that's our job, if we can't win them we certainly shouldn't be losing as many."
The comments are as honest as you could hope for and Nigel did part of what fans are constantly calling for by accepting the blame in his team selection and formation.
I am not sure about you but I don’t see what the club is trying to gain with a ‘positive message only’ mentality on the official site by not reporting the manager’s response to an issue every Rams fan would want to hear.
I am sure they will have one reason or another for not doing so but they should be the first to jump to their staff's defence. Anything published now will seem reactionary and if ignored altogether that is even slightly worse.
Last week's handling of the Cywka issue was bad enough with no official statement from the club or manager but surely their manager holding firm and showing he is determined to see out the work he has started is the type of news they should be splashing across the front page.
I know official sites have a tendency to run fluff over content but surely promoting the manager and being determined and strong in the face of growing uncertainty would be a far better ‘positive message’ than nothing at all.
That is of course unless they know of something that is coming that Nigel does not.
I would no longer expect any better from those running DCFC.
Watch your back Nigel.
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