Clough did not "coach" his players, more often than not being a little worse for the bottle. His team around him carried out most of that. He simply inspired people and gave people the freedom, within his limits - which usually meant a certain type of player in the first place -, to express themselves. At least that's how someone who played under him explained it to me. He was certainly offbeat, encouraging training sessions to be 99% driven by use of the ball rather than running around for hours without one.
I still can't see how P Smiths hole in his body has anything to do with his Manager. It happens to good keepers, just not very often. For us it's been happening too often with too many. A season in Division 4 convinced us we could defend, I think this in actual fact bollocks. I now believe we have had a shit defence for going on 4 seasons at least. Under Sturrock it seemed less evident maybe, probably because he went for a rigid defensive direct style beyond the defence. Malpas has tried to open us up a bit and bring in more passing. Maybe the lesson is we should just go to a direct lump it forwad style and stick 6/7 defensive minded people infron of the keeper and hope for 1-0, 2-1's. It would require fans who don't moan at the ball spending more time in the air than on the floor though.
Now, I have memories of Gary Sprake. A better keeper than given credit for.
Clough gave his players freedom absolutely true, in his book he explains how to win games. He gave his players freedom by letting them focus entirely on games, he ensured that any worries they might have outside of football were put away before games. He had a totally low stress approach. His players had to be relaxed and in a positive frame of mind. Everything was dead simple, keep the ball in their box not ours, design a team with a spine, and so on.
What happened last season was that Sturrock had the team optimized for their abilities, arguably that is what Clough also did. When M.M. came along, he tried to play it more on the deck, the players didn't adapt and the results weren't good until the last few games of the season when it didn't matter. Common sense dictates don't fix when not broken, but that's not what happened. On a few occasions, the team have produced great stuff on the deck, but the opposing scouts are not going to let that happen week after week.
This season nothing much has changed, the fans appreciate the attempt to play attractive football on the deck, but the team does not appear capable of it week after week, especially against opposition with a strong midfield. Some teams are getting points off of Leeds this season. Cheltenham did the double over them last season, I think that's correct. I think it all comes down to players being asked to play in a manner that they are not capable of.
