The Brian Clough Challenge

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Linecoigne1998

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One of the greatest success stories in football: Brian Clough
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View attachment 145267
View attachment 145266Brian Clough was an English manager who was mostly known for taking Championship side Nottingham Forest to the Premier League title in 1977 and two back-to-back Champions League titles in 1978 and 1979. Before that, he managed Derby County and also got them promoted from the Championship before winning the Premier League and going all the way to the Champions League semi-final. I've been seeing a lot of Sir Alex Ferguson challenge threads lately and I thought why not start another challenge but not with Ferguson because that one is so common. Brian Clough's story with Nottingham is probably the most incredible story in English football after Sir Alex Ferguson in terms of how impressive his achievements were so I decided to start this challenge. I've seen a few threads from a couple of years ago who had their go at this but I'm going to change the rules a little bit.
Rules:

[TABLE="class: outer_border, width: 400, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD]- Simulate until the 6th of January (he took over at Nottingham on the 6th of January 1975)

- Take over the team in 13th place in the Championship (Nottingham were 13th when he took over)

- Win the Premier League within 3 and a half years

- Win the Champions League within 4 and a half years

- Win back to back Champions Leagues

- Do the Premier League-Capital One Cup double when winning first Premier League[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

It's going to be a tough challenge, especially to get a double just 3 and a half years into the save so it'll require a lot of work but if Brian Clough did it in real life, who says I can't in Football Manager! Without further ado, let's get started.

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UP NEXT: THE CLUB I'LL BE TAKING OVER ALONG WITH A SQUAD OVERVIEW
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I'm interested to see which team you get :)

good luck mate, sounds like a great challenge especially with the time constraints.
 
Never seen someone attempt this challenge before, but am liking the sound of it!

Will be following :)
 
Sounds awesome!
Don't know if you know the movie "The Damned United" but saw it again recently, absolutely loving the Clough story!
Good luck!
 
View attachment 144804

Meet the team:

View attachment 144803
Goalkeepers

[TABLE="class: grid, width: 250, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD]View attachment 14479720
Maarten Stekelenburg
33 years old
Dutch
197 cm
84 kgs

View attachment 144763[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Backup: Marcus Bettinelli[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

Centre-backs

[TABLE="class: grid, width: 500, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD]View attachment 1447956
Essaid Belkalem
27 years old
Algerian
191 cm
88 kgs

View attachment 144792
[/TD]
[TD]View attachment 1447945
Richard Stearman
28 years old
Irish
188 cm
78 kgs

View attachment 144791
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Backup: Tim Ream, Nikolay Bodurov, Michael Madl, David Wheater[/TD]
[TD]Backup: Tim Ream, Nikolay Bodurov, Michael Madl, David Wheater[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

Full-backs

[TABLE="class: grid, width: 500, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD]View attachment 14479013
Tim Ream
28 years old
American
186 cm
73 kgs

View attachment 144788
[/TD]
[TD]View attachment 1447897
Ryan Fredericks
23 years old
English
182 cm
70 kgs

View attachment 144787
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Backup: Sean Kavanagh, Kay Voser[/TD]
[TD]Backup: Michael Madl, Kay Voser, Ashley Richards[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

Defensive and centre midfielders

[TABLE="class: grid, width: 500, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD]View attachment 14478515
Michael Madl
27 years old
Austrian
182 cm
77 kgs

View attachment 144783
[/TD]
[TD]View attachment 1447848
Scott Parker
35 years old
English
180 cm
70 kgs

View attachment 144782
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Backup: Scott Parker, Lasse Vigen Christensen, Emerson Hyndman[/TD]
[TD]Backup: Lasse Vigen Christensen, Emerson Hyndman, Tom Cairney[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

Attacking midfielders (and wingers)

[TABLE="class: grid, width: 750, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD]View attachment 14477817
George Williams
20 years old
Welsh
172 cm
73 kgs

View attachment 144772
[/TD]
[TD]View attachment 14477644
Ross McCormack
29 years old
Scottish
175 cm
88 kgs

View attachment 144770
[/TD]
[TD]View attachment 14477523
Chris Burke
32 years old
Scottish
176 cm
69 kgs

View attachment 144767
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Backup: Luke Freeman, Ross McCormack
[/TD]
[TD]Backup: Luke Freeman, Emerson Hyndman[/TD]
[TD]Backup: Ross McCormack, Tom Cairney[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

Strikers

[TABLE="class: grid, width: 250, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD]View attachment 14476216
Cauley Woodrow
21 years old
English
184 cm
78 kgs

View attachment 144760[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Backup: Ross McCormack, Moussa Dembélé, Adam Taggart[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

View attachment 144757
A very strong side already in what looks like a very decent tactic to keep for now. Our first game against Reading will give us a good reason to try out some things and hopefully get a win. Woodrow and Ream have been in fantastic form this season already so I intend to use them to their full ability and potential so we can really get this season started and bring some cheer to the fans. Next up, the rest of January and maybe some transfer updates if we make any moves in the transfer window!
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View attachment 144577A good start to my Fulham career and we manage to advance to the next round of the FA Cup which is satisfying. I was really expecting a win though so it's good that we got one in my first game in charge.

A disappointing defeat for my first league game in charge but we were very good on the field out there and Wolverhampton basically won because Afobe is an amazing striker. Congratulations to him he played really well but now we just need to look ahead and work hard for our next game.

A very solid win to make up for our loss last week. Luke got some game time today since McCormack got a small injury and he did really well. I'll definitely consider playing him in the future and again, great away performance from the lads today. Cauley getting injured is a big blow for us but Moussa Dembélé can come in now and prove me why he deserves a place in the first-team.

Absolutely smashed em'! Really good performance from the lads again and I can't believe Richard of all people got 2 assists! When I came in I said we had one of the strongest teams if not the strongest team in the league in my opinion so it's really good to see that we can actually show people that now. The fans were really happy about the result and so was I so happy days.

Well, at least we tried. It gives me a lot of hope for the future if we get promoted to the Premier League at some point and I'm just very proud of the boys today, they gave it their all and gave Swansea a really tough time so I can't wait till we face another Premier League team again.

So we've gone up 2 places in the league table since I took over on the 6th of January which is definitely promising. We're not that many points away from the promotion spots so I'm excited for the next few months at this club and see how far we can go!

View attachment 144545A pretty good month for us if you don't include the loss to Wolverhampton. Really great performances against Hull and Huddersfield though and those are the kind of matches that make me think that we really are a great side capable of great things in this division and even the Premier League.

View attachment 144543So our player of the month is Ryan Fredericks . He's been working really hard down the right-hand side as our right-back and has definitely been our best performer this month. A 6.8 minimum rating really does go to show how good he's been and now I just can't wait till next month to see how else is going to play so well and bring us some points.

 
I'm a massive die hard Nottingham Forest fan so I will enjoy reading this. Sounds like a good challenge, Watch the I believe in miracles film it's based on Brian Clough's success.
 
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