Talking about the potential appointment of Steve McLaren with friends over the weekend at my team, Nottingham Forest, a lingering doubt still stifles the air when talking about this particular man. The most damning aspect about the virtues of Steve McLaren is that he, apart from that short spell as England manager, has had moderate success wherever he has been. Of course, when we talk about success we have to look at this objectively and at least with an air of cautiousness, but when we look at Steve McLaren here is a man who, at least at club level, has always managed to extract everything possible from his teams.
It is an exciting prospect to have at the helm someone who has won a major European league title with an unfancied and unfashionable club side from industrial surroundings (ring any bells?) Looking at this appointment from a purely club-level point of view, this really is a fantastic coup for a club such as Forest. For sure, Nigel Doughty has a proven track record of backing his managerial appointments with timely investment (albeit through the much-maligned transfer acquisition panel) and this is something, with the summer break in its ascendency, which McLaren will surely make good use of, but monetary backing is not all that is needed in this sense.
McLaren will have to move quickly to ensure that he retains the backbone of the team which is so fundamental to Forest’s immediate future. If he can indeed keep the likes of Lee Camp, Wes Morgan, current player of the year Luke Chambers and Lewis McGugan then he will go a long way to at least maintaining Forest’s position of playoff certainties.
During his time at Twente, McLaren doggedly stuck by his preferred 4-3-3 formation, even when injuries suggested that he may have to fall back onto something more conservative. It is this gallant approach, mixed in with using the wealth of talent already at the club and stamping his own name onto the team which could prove to be a recipe for success and push Forest into the Premier League for the first time since 1999.
What Steve McLaren certainly cannot be accused of is hiding away. After the disaster which was his England reign, many managers would have hidden away only to reappear years later to do the odd media guest appearance paired with the hideous tedium of the television commercial, maybe advertising the latest umbrella’s. Steve McLaren though, despite the inevitable overly-vicious backlash within the English press, went looking abroad and found his island of serenity in the form of FC Twente who, despite finishing in a respectable 4th place the season before he arrived, had never won a Dutch League title in their history.
Its Steve McClaren!
He’s a good manager, despite the England blip on his record, but let’s face facts…the Three Lions are a poor side. Look at Capello’s CV, he can’t get anything decent from the same bunch of perennial time wasters either.
Why dont you look at a certain Billy Davies record and compare the two?
We lost a good manager and gained a yes man McClueless!David Pleat will be over the moon the bookies have dropped us from 4-1 to 14-1 what else do you want to compare???
Lack of season ticket sales maybe compared to last year