Three years?
Those last four minutes at Preston lasted three years!
NIGEL CLOUGH REFLECTS ON TIME SINCE HIS RETURN AS BOSS AND SAYS ALBION ARE PLAYING BETTER NOW:
NIGEL Clough believes his current Burton Albion team are playing better football than the class of 2015-16, who were promoted to the Championship for the first time.
Today marks three years since Clough returned for a second spell as Brewers manager, replacing Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink who had moved to Queens Park Rangers.
Albion were top of the League One table at that stage and while they were ultimately overtaken by Wigan Athletic in the race for the third-tier title, Clough oversaw a historic and dramatic promotion.
The Brewers finished that season with 85 points and more victories (25) than any other side in the division.
Three years on, the Burton team of 2018-19, back in League One after two seasons in the Championship, are 16th in the division, with 24 points from an inconsistent 19 games.
So how does Clough feel this side compares with the squad he took over in December 2015?
“We inherited a team that were very confident at the time and obviously a good team that were top of the League,” he said.
“So having been relegated now and back in League One, it’s a different case.
“But I actually think we are playing better football than we did in the second half of that season.
“The only thing we’re doing is we’re making more mistakes.
“Whether that is a hangover from last year and the relegation, I don’t know.
“But in terms of entertainment and everything, I think we are playing better.”
Clough’s second stint as Albion manager has been an eventful one.
There has been the Championship promotion, a League victory over Derby County, a managerial approach from Nottingham Forest, second-tier survival, a sevenmonth winless run on home soil, the club’s first relegation in 41 years and a surge to the League Cup quarter-finals.
But does it all feel like three years for the man who originally joined the Brewers in the Southern League in 1998?
“No, it’s gone very quickly,” he added.
“I think those first few months just flew by with the promotion and then the first season in the Championship, that went so quickly as well.
“Probably that last four minutes at Preston North End last season lasted three years!”