Success in market such a family affair
NIGEL Clough says Burton Albion have to be “a little more creative” in the transfer market than other clubs, because of their smaller financial resources.
Clough has been explaining how the Brewers’ player recruitment works and the senior role played in it by his brother, Simon.
Simon Clough tends to stay out of the limelight but much of the credit for the Brewers’ and, in the past,
Derby County and Sheffield United’s successful transfer raids in Scotland, particularly, have stemmed from his recommendations.
Nigel Clough laid out how it works in an in-depth interview with the Not The Top 20 podcast.
“My brother is the head of recruitment and that’s purely for practicality, not just because he’s my brother,” said the Burton manager.
“He started with us at Derby. In the last 40 years or so we’ve watched so many games together, at all different levels.
BURTON ALBION MANAGER NIGEL CLOUGH
“When you’ve watched games together from European Cup finals to the Dr Martens League reserves, which we have, you get a feeling for all levels of football so, based on that, we thought he’d be as good a person as any to start identifying the talent. He’s done that for the last sort of 10 years.”
Assistant manager Gary Crosby, rarely seen at Burton’s matches these days, is also still part of the recruitment process, along with the coaching staff and former Derby County defender Michael Forsyth.
“Gary Crosby has been assistant manager for the last 21 years but he’s out on the road, he doesn’t come to the games,” said Clough.
“He’s excellent in that. We have a part-time scout, Michael Forsyth, the ex-left-back from Derby, who works with us.
“Apart from that, it’s myself and the coaching staff. We’re all tightknit, we have conversations daily and we have a very good analyst (Matt Ash).
“If we’re keen on a player, we’ll all try to go out and see them, at different stages, home and away, and if we all come back with a tick, we know we’re on to a good thing.
“We have to do something different because we can’t sign players purely on attracting them for financial reasons.
“We can’t pay big fees, or any fees, the majority of the time. We haven’t paid a fee this season.
“You have to be a little more creative, you have to try to out-think others and you have to find different things in players.”
Craig Bryson is widely regarded as Clough’s most successful recruit from Scotland, arriving from Kilmarnock at Derby for a reported £350,000 in 2011 and giving the club eight years’ service, being named the Rams’ player of the decade.
“I remember when we were trying
IPSWICH Town’s Freddie Sears has conceded that automatic promotion may be beyond the Tractor Boys this season.
Ipswich take on Burton Albion at Portman Road today (3pm) with both sides having faltered in their promotion push in recent weeks.
The home side are looking for their first win in five games and the Brewers their first in six. to sign Craig Bryson. Anybody could have signed him for £450,000,” he said.
“One of the owners at Derby said ‘why didn’t someone else sign him?’ I said ‘I don’t know, I don’t know what the others are looking for.’
“I’d been up to see him, Gary had been up, Simon had been up. I’d have left after 20 minutes if I’d been nearer to home because it was a yes straightaway, you could just see it.
“I stayed and watched the whole game because it was a long drive home!”
More recently, Burton have brought Jackson Irvine, Liam Boyce, David Templeton, Scott Fraser and Ryan Edwards down from Scotland, while Jamie Murphy is currently in on loan.
Irvine, Boyce and Templeton have all moved on and selling players, says Clough, is a reality for a club of Burton’s size.
“If a player gets the chance to go to a higher level, they have always been sold here,” he said.
“Ultimately, if players are ambitious, they want to move on.”
When it comes to bringing players in, Clough has always insisted on being careful with the money of the clubs he has worked for.
“It is hard to be level-headed in football,” he said,
“There’s pressure from outside, from supporters and everything. You’ve got to sign players.
“Everyone thinks the answer to your problems on the pitch is just to sign more players. If they’re not very good players or they’re not the right players, it’s not the answer and we’ve never done that.
“We might have missed out on one or two players over the years because of that approach. We’d rather do that than waste money. It’s not our money.
“Supporters are coming in and paying money every week. You have
Ipswich made an electrifying start to the season, going 12 matches unbeaten, but have been less successful since.
“It’s mad how things can change in a week,” said striker Sears, who is back to fitness after a cruciate ligament injury but has yet to start a League game this season for the club he joined in 2015.
“Three or four games ago, we a responsibility to look after their money, the owner’s money or whatever. We’ve always taken that very seriously.” were top of the League and, if we’d beaten Rotherham United, you probably would have said we were going to win the League hands down. Now we’re probably looking at the play-offs.
“We would love to be in the automatic promotion mix but it’s no good talking about what we want because if you don’t win games you don’t deserve it.”