The first day of the season and we’ve won for the first time since when? 2002? Allied to the fact that most of our pre-season games have been victories and it is starting to appear that we are just about beginning to banish the doom and gloom that has pervaded Pride Park for so long.
Indeed Clough himself went on record to say that he felt the “hangover has almost cleared”. But perhaps more importantly is the sense that most fans are getting is - here at last is someone who knows what they are doing and is going about it in the right way.
This was a feeling that Jewell – for all his experience – never managed to generate or even after a feel-good match, sustain. It is hard not to escape the conclusion that Jewell was very much a ‘hit and miss’ merchant – buy a player and ‘suck and see’….
Clough seems to be the exact opposite – he knows what he wants and he goes after it. I have a suspicion that the transfer activity is not finished – there is after all still another 21 days before the closure of the transfer window and I would imagine that he will be pushing a few more out of the door.
We know who they are – Albrechtsen, Stewart, Carroll and of course, Davis whose departure must be the most protracted in the history of football. The mystery that is Zadkovich remains at this time unknown to most of us but no doubt Clough knows exactly what he wants – either he goes or he remains a member of the squad and gives his all.
The other – for me – notable difference between Jewell and Clough is the style of football played. Once again, it’s hard to escape the sense of ‘suck and see’ with Jewell – pass it, pump it forward, pass it backwards – and if it doesn’t work, kick it towards Hulse and something might happen. Sometimes it did but more and more often towards the end of his tenure, it didn’t and Jewell seemed to lose whatever composure he ever had and railed at anyone within earshot.
Clough, by contrast, appears to have inherited his father’s belief that most footballers are as thick as pig manure and so things have to be as simple as possible which in this case means keep the ball on the floor and pass it to the next Rams shirt. And you play to a system. The end result is there for all of us to see – football that is good to watch.
Of course, there will be many people who will still have reservations – can Clough actually make the step up from the Blue Square to the CCC? There are other questions – will he jettison members of his backroom team as and when necessary? In my opinion, it is far too early to even think about these things and perhaps this thought from Wenger is appropriate – it went along the lines of “people think getting players in is the most important thing – it isn’t”.
It was a rejoinder to those disgruntled about his lack of transfer activity. But it applies equally to Clough – buying players doesn’t always solve everything. It is the change of training techniques, the imposition of necessary discipline, individual and collective, and the development of cohesiveness that brings about real change.
Hence the ruthlessness with which people have been dispatched – the list includes Fotheringham, Randall, Kisnorbo, O’Keefe, Nyatanga, and probably a few more besides. This kind of hard-hearted cutting has probably not been seen at Derby since the days of Peter Taylor when he used to go around chortling about going through the team like a ‘dose of salts’.
Which brings me back to the point that I suspect there is more activity to come; once those big earners have gone, then there may well be one more signing along with those loans that didn’t materialise last week.
And then the hard work continues - every day, every week, every month - on honing, practising, being together, maintaining discipline, and playing football. And of course, there will be bad days, poor games when despite all the week’s work, passes go astray, tackles are mistimed (instead of brilliantly executed a la Moxey), and tempers fray, and fans bay for blood.
The true measure of the squad and their manager will then emerge – the need to have the will to face adversity, maintain their cohesiveness and discipline, to get back on track.
Under Jewell that never happened – the team fractured all too easily with rumours of fights in the showers, players banished to the youth team, and probably a lot more that has never been disclosed publicly.
With Clough that test has yet to come and then we will see the real measure of the manager and his backroom team – and then we can begin to assess his success in turning the club around. For too long it has resembled a stricken tanker heading inexorably for the depths, unable to change course or stop.
The pre-season and the first game have shown indications that Clough’s backroom team have been successful in the first phase of stopping that slide, changing the mentality, slimming down and becoming a leaner and fitter club.
Whatever happens, at least we have the promise of some decent football, the likes of which we have not seen since the days of George Burley and so it is hard not to feel some sense of euphoria and hope.