Look at that photo and try not to laugh- I dare you! I discuss Dougie Freedman.
Dougie Freedman. Not like Dooooogie, like Duggy, but Dougie. This man managed us for two years.
I’ll be honest, I felt at first that he was a good manager. He’s worked wonders at Crystal Palace before resigning to ‘join the revolution’ at Bolton. We started off, on the whole, quite poorly under Freedman and in the new year many found themselves question whether things had actually gotten any better under the former Leeds and Nottingham Forest striker.
However, a wonder run largely thanks to Craig Dawson and Chris Eagles saw us rocket up the league and we only just missed out on the playoffs. Things were looking pretty good under Freedman, I thought.
Looking back on all of this, I’ve come to the realisation that a few overperforming players carried us through this transition into a winning side and once they had left/fallen out of favour for some stupid reason which no one will no, we plummeted. Freedman isn’t a transfer genius- he signed Rob Hall, Danny Butterfield and Steven De Ridder. One of them plays in League 1, another plays in League 2 and the other in the Danish League now. Point made.
While we finished 14th in the following season, Freedman can take little credit for keeping us up other than the fact that he signed Jutkiewicz and Mason who managed to work wonders. AND NO HE’S STILL NOT A TRANSFER GENIUS AS HE SIGNED LIAM TROTTER.
I genuinely feel that towards the end we had no manager. He was doing nothing right and it hurt. Our best players: Chung Yong Lee and Mark Davies had the essence that makes them special drained out of them.
I talked to Rish Baruah of eighteensixtyfive.co.uk to see pout-loving Scott was doing at Forest.
‘It is true that Forest supporters were a little underwhelmed when Dougie was appointed to replace the legend that is Stuart Pearce, and that is probably a legacy of the difficulties that he suffered whilst at Wanderers. Those of us who suspended our judgement remembered his (broadly successful) time at Crystal Palace, and gave him the benefit of the doubt as he was a player at Forest earlier on in our darker days (i.e. more or less any time in the last twenty years).
The early signs were good, in terms of results and performances, although some cautioned that his record was more or less identical to Stuart Pearce’s over the same time period. It was encouraging to see that players clearly knew their roles, and he brought confidence to players who had been looking a bit lost. The standout was Henri Lansbury – despite having a long and positive relationship with Stuart Pearce, Henri never really performed during his tenure. Under Dougie, Henri has been playing with more freedom and confidence, and has been rewarded with goals and the captain’s armband.
The real parallel between Forest and Bolton is whether the club lets the gaffer do his job; there is a general impression that any manager would have struggled at the Reebok during Dougie’s time in charge, due to changing personnel, cost-cutting and the like. Forest are obviously under an embargo, so many supporters are hanging their hopes that he will nurture youngsters such as Benny Osborn, Tyler Walker and Oliver Burke in a similar way to his handling of the young Wilfried Zaha at Palace.
However, as mentioned before, the real acid test will be whether Fawaz Al-Hasawi will let Dougie do his job; our notoriously trigger-happy owner clearly means well, but equally obviously doesn’t have a clue about how to run a football club, nor a willingness to appoint good experienced football people to help him. Dougie’s new contract will take him to the summer of 2017, but I would be amazed if any Championship club still has the same gaffer by that point.’
Many thanks to Rish for his contribution.
I think it’s clear to say that Dougie Freedman can be clueless and there have been times where I’d have preferred to have Medo managing us (to be fair, Medo’s very likeable). He has pulled a few cracking singings off such as the Juke, Dawson and Clayton, though. While I’d rather have him than Malky Mackay, I doubt that Freedman will be a name that’ll linger long in the memories of Forest fans with the same affinity as they did with Brian Clough.
Oh yeah, and Lennie Lawrence is with him too.