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Steve Clarke-- "I am happy at Kilmarnock"


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18 minutes ago, Scooby_Doo said:

I'm sure in one of his first interviews he said his home was down south now, and reading between the lines I think his intention is perhaps to see out his contract with us and head back home. 

Things might change of course, but I doubt it would be because Rangers or Celtic came calling. 

I agree as previously posted he will see out his contract and end up back down south and stay well away from those clubs

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57 minutes ago, Squirrelhumper said:

You must be a hoot when we win. 

"Don't celebrate incase we've played an illegible player"

Unless we sign guys from Khazakstan or Turkmenistan that’s unlikely. Although during the wilderness years of Johnston, Locke & Jig the tactics seemed completely illegible even on the dressing room board I’d guess O.o

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I am now delighted to have been blocked on twitter by @jimSpencesport... asked him repeatedly to pursue the real story re Steve Clarke and avoid lazy journalism route of social media... after Billy Bowie put down rumours on social media of a move I persisted and asked again why a reasonably minded(non of) journalist would ignore the true story...? BLOCKED... that kinda leaves Tom English worth listening to...?

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9 minutes ago, eurofog said:

I am now delighted to have been blocked on twitter by @jimSpencesport... asked him repeatedly to pursue the real story re Steve Clarke and avoid lazy journalism route of social media... after Billy Bowie put down rumours on social media of a move I persisted and asked again why a reasonably minded(non of) journalist would ignore the true story...? BLOCKED... that kinda leaves Tom English worth listening to...?

Tom English!?!?!?! He's one of the biggest arse haha on the radio!

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3 minutes ago, Brianstorm said:

What’s the real story?

oh come on...?... he was falling into the Clarke for other clubs nonsense etc.. I asked him to ask those that were at the club what the position was officially and not Hun Tim Facebook Scum paper Daily OF nonsense...and to be the reasonable journo to check it out...? the real story came out when BB told them he is staying... I reminded him...and got blocked

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1 hour ago, eurofog said:

oh come on...?... he was falling into the Clarke for other clubs nonsense etc.. I asked him to ask those that were at the club what the position was officially and not Hun Tim Facebook Scum paper Daily OF nonsense...and to be the reasonable journo to check it out...? the real story came out when BB told them he is staying... I reminded him...and got blocked

Did you use "Hun Tim Facebook Scum paper " in your tweet. If you did i'm not surprised you got blocked.

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1 hour ago, eurofog said:

oh come on...?... he was falling into the Clarke for other clubs nonsense etc.. I asked him to ask those that were at the club what the position was officially and not Hun Tim Facebook Scum paper Daily OF nonsense...and to be the reasonable journo to check it out...? the real story came out when BB told them he is staying... I reminded him...and got blocked

Didn't you read Spence's column in the Dundee Courier last weekend?

Damned if I can find any "Clarke for other clubs nonsense".

Here it is again:

"Ask Neil McCann or Csaba Laszlo how hard it is to find the formula for consistency. Yet, in Ayrshire, the man I said here weeks ago would be my choice for the Scotland job has his Kilmarnock side soaring skywards since becoming boss last October.

Steve Clarke is contender for manager of the season.

He took over with Killie rooted bottom of the Premiership, and looking like relegation fodder. His astute coaching and management skills have lifted them to fifth place, and resurrected the Rugby Park side.

Apart from a couple of additions, he’s achieved this with the same squad of players bequeathed by the previous boss.

While other managers bring in almost entirely new squads and still struggle for results, Clarke, who spent 30 years in England at the top level as a player at Chelsea, and as a coach at Newcastle, Chelsea, West Ham, Liverpool, and Aston Villa, has rebooted Kilmarnock organisationally and tactically.

He does what it says on the tin - he coaches, and he manages.

No public appeal to the board for cash for new faces, or bemoaning the paucity of the squad.

The Rugby park revolution has featured much the same personnel, but with the application of sound managerial nous, and experience, gleaned from working with some of the biggest names in football.

Kilmarnock are reinvigorated and renaissance is underway.

A win and a draw against champions Celtic, two wins and a draw against Rangers, shows the mental strength and robustness he’s inculcated in his team.

Motivational qualities aside, getting players to respond to instructions, so that they know exactly how they’re expected to perform their positional and tactical duties, is something which many managers struggle to achieve.

As manager, Clarke took West Bromwich Albion to eighth place, their highest ever English Premier league position, among the mega rich of English football. Now he is showing signs of achieving great success in Ayrshire.

Many tools are available to the modern manager – heart rate monitors, GPS to track the number and distances of runs made by players, video analysis, sports science, and sports psychology, to obtain maximum results from players’ minds and bodies.

All managers can use those tools, but many lack an intangible ingredient – the ability which the best bosses possess, to see and change things in players, and teams, on the coaching ground, and in the heat of the action, that lesser managers can’t, or don’t spot.

It might be a positional tweak, marking out an entirely different role for a player, or even just addressing an underlying domestic or personal issue which has been troubling someone.

It can be a myriad of minor things or one big bold thing.

The best managers possess the gift which others find elusive. Clarke is now propelling Kilmarnock to heights undreamt of when relegation seemed to be beckoning just a few months back.

Some other chairmen must surely look and wonder, as they see what a bit of bold vision has achieved, and wish they’d been smarter on the uptake when Clarke’s services were available.

Their loss is Kilmarnock’s undoubted gain."

 

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18 hours ago, eurofog said:

oh come on...?... he was falling into the Clarke for other clubs nonsense etc.. I asked him to ask those that were at the club what the position was officially and not Hun Tim Facebook Scum paper Daily OF nonsense...and to be the reasonable journo to check it out...? the real story came out when BB told them he is staying... I reminded him...and got blocked

You've chosen the wrong target. Jim Spence is one of the good guys in Scottish football.

Edited by Mclean07
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35 minutes ago, cs1 said:

Herald at it today with "Burley expects Clarke to be targeted in the summer"

Verbal diarrhea from another 'expert'.

CRAIG Burley has questioned whether Steve Clarke will be able to sustain the extraordinary success he has enjoyed at Kilmarnock on such a limited budget - and predicted his old Chelsea team mate may be tempted to move on if a larger club moves for him this summer.

Burley played alongside Clarke at Stamford Bridge for six years during the 1990s and has been delighted to see his fellow Scot resurrect his managerial career in such spectacular fashion since moving to Rugby Park back in October.

The former Newcastle United, Chelsea, West Ham and Liverpool assistant has completely transformed the fortunes of the Ayrshire outfit and taken them from bottom of the Ladbrokes Premiership table to fifth place.

 

Kilmarnock are unbeaten in five games against the two main Glasgow clubs since he has returned to this country – they have beaten Celtic at home and beaten Rangers both home and away during that time.

The 54-year-old has been linked with a move to Ibrox - where Graeme Murty has been given until the end of the 2017/18 campaign to prove he deserves to be made Rangers manager on a long-term basis - during the summer as a result of his work in the past five months.

Burley, now working as a pundit for ESPN in the United States, is at a loss to explain how Clarke, who has only brought in Leo Fasan and Youssouf Mulumbu on free transfers as well as Jasko Keranovic, Aaron Simpson and Aaron Tshibola on loan, has achieved such a turnaround with such meagre funds.

“I don’t know how he’s done it,” he said. “I remember when my old Celtic team mate Tommy Johnson went to talk to Jim Jefferies about joining Kilmarnock. He sat in the manager’s office at Rugby Park and big Jim put the offer in front of him.

 

“In that north-east accent of his, Tommy said: ‘Why aye Jim! Our lass’s shopping for the week is more than that!’ I don’t think Kilmarnock’s budget will have changed much over the years. I don’t know how Stevie’s done it. But he’s obviously coaching and organising them well.

“I am really pleased for Stevie. He did me an enormous favour at Chelsea because he was the one guy who was actually more miserable than me. You can’t underestimate that! When you have one miserable Scotsman it’s good to have another Scotsman who is even more miserable.

“Seriously, though, I loved playing with Stevie. He was a great help to me when I came into the team. He was a very underrated full-back. He fell out with Broonie (Craig Brown) and (Andy) Roxburgh. If he hadn’t he would have played more for Scotland.

“He didn’t care for the Largs mafia. Whenever I used to head up to Scotland to join up with the national team he would give me a message to pass on to the bosses that I couldn’t repeat.

“Stevie is straight to the point with people. If I had a terrible game with Chelsea he would tell me. He said to me once: ‘Get yourself home, close all the curtains in the house, have a couple of paracetamol, go to your bed and forget about it’. I said: ‘Was I that bad?’ He said: ‘Aye’. As I say, I am really pleased for him.”

 

Clarke, who spent a year out of the game altogether before joining Kilmarnock, has stated repeatedly that he is fully committed to the Rugby Park club and has no plans to leave.

But Burley, who played for Celtic for two and a half seasons, believes his old team mate will know there is a limit to what he can achieve and is certain to be targeted by clubs north and south of the border who have been impressed by how he has fared in Ayrshire this season.

“If he keeps going the way he’s going he’s not going to be there long,” he said. “What he has done, to take them from the bottom of the league to where they are, with a budget that I presume isn’t great is fantastic and will have been noticed.

“I thought he did a pretty good job at West Brom. He had a bit of a rough time for a few games and they canned him. But they finished eighth the season before.

“I spoke to him when he went to Reading. He was looking for some players and he touched base with me to see what was over here. But this is a difficult market. That went a bit south for him as well.

“I know he’s from Salcoats, but, to be honest, I never saw him moving back up to Scotland. I think Clarkey saw Kilmarnock as a way back in. I suppose the difficulty getting jobs in England means you can never turn down an opportunity.

“He won’t say this. He has talked Scottish football up. For every manager or coach out of a job a smaller club with a limited budget is a way back in.

“Everybody wants to climb the tree. People will have absolutely noted what he has done. The trick for people in his position is to understand how long he can sustain it and appreciate it can turn south.

“Kilmarnock fans probably won’t want to hear it, but it is difficult to sustain the kind of things he is doing now on a budget. From his perspective there is a shelf life. I am amazed how well it has gone. It is pretty staggering how well it has gone.”

Burley confessed that he had not earmarked Clarke, the former St Mirrendefender who won the FA Cup, League Cup and European Cup Winners’ Cup during his 11 years as a player at Chelsea, as a future manager, but recalled how he quickly became immersed in coaching when he moved into the dugout.

“It is always difficult to tell which characters in the dressing room who will go into management and make a success of it,” he said.

“Mark Hughes was at Chelsea with Stevie and I. He was an animal on the pitch. When he crossed that white line he would fight with his grandmother. But he wouldn’t say a word in the dressing room. You couldn’t get a peep out of Sparky. But he went into it, Gianfranco Zola went into it, even Dennis Wise, who would fight with the world, went into it.

“Stevie got hooked on it. I remember when he was No.2 to Jose Mourinho at Chelsea and I was broadcasting in England our paths crossed. He was big into it. He was very serious about it and learned a lot at that time. He is certainly putting his experience to good use now.”

 

http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/16128902.Craig_Burley__My_old_Chelsea_team_mate_Steve_Clarke_will_be_targeted_this_summer_due_to_his_Kilmarnock_success/

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Clarke was so keen to get back working in the game that he took a job with “a smaller club with a limited budget” while Burley does what he has always done since he retired, leeching a living off the game. 

“A pundit for ESPN in America”! Bully for you, pal!

If Clarke does decide that he has achieved all he can at Killie, at least can hold his head up knowing he had done something worthwhile in the game. 

“Pundit for ESPN in America”. Do me a favour. 

 

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The one thing that is true is that it will be very difficult to sustain out current form on our budget. Clubs with much bigger budgets don't find it easy. I don't think anyone expects the last sixteen or so games to be replicated, but hopefully, with a few additions, the standard will still be far higher than previous seasons. We've got to sell season tickets......when they eventually go on sale. I'm ready to buy on day one. Hurry up. 

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When Burley was a youngster round these parts,he was as quiet as a mouse. I recently listened to him on an extended podcast interview, and he has got truly carried away with himself. He was very disrespectful to a lot of people and I didn't think much of him. His Uncle George is a far nicer person. I was in his class at school when he left to join Ipswich Town. 

Edited by Mclean07
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