Steve McClaren claims he was left with no choice but to walk away from Nottingham Forest after realising that he was the 'wrong fit'.
Former Forest boss reflects on his ill-fated stint at the City Ground
Steve McClaren claims he was left with no choice but to walk away from Nottingham Forest after realising that he was the 'wrong fit' for the club.
The former England boss was handed the managerial reins at the City Ground in the wake of Billy Davies' departure.
His arrival was expected to see Forest build on two successive play-off finishes and push for promotion to the Premier League.
He was, however, to last less than four months in the job, as he quit on 2nd October, with broken promises at board level forcing him through the exits.
"I just felt after that [Birmingham] game with what was going on, something had to change drastically," McClaren told
The Independent.
"I couldn't see that with the relationship I had by then [with the board] that I could affect that. For the benefit of the club and fans I thought [leaving] was the best decision.
"Ultimately the chairman has stepped down and I think in the long run the club will benefit, Frank Clark coming in was a very good decision. Steve Cotterill [his successor] has got experience of the Championship and generally I had no problem with the players. They will prosper going on now within a more settled environment which I never had before."
Disappointment
McClaren admits he went into the Forest job slightly underprepared, with his failure to land the Aston Villa post ahead of Alex McLeish having left him frustrated.
"That [Villa] was a big disappointment," he says.
"I didn't do my due diligence [on Forest] well enough. I was disappointed [with the rejection from Villa] and wanted to show people. I thought it was a great opportunity - great club, great fans, great history and tradition. Unfortunately I knew very early from going in that we weren't on the same wavelength. I was set to move my family [to live near to Forest] and I stopped that one.
"We were the wrong fit. In the end other things were going on behind the scenes. For the first time in my life I thought it would be best for everybody, for the football club, the fans, the players of Nottingham Forest... that something had to change. The club had been crying out [for that] before I got there. [For] change in everything within the club. We didn't, by then, have a long-term plan and vision. I didn't have a relationship with the board."
McClaren is keen to return to the dugout in the not too distant future, but admits the recent offer of a job at Belgian outfit FC Bruges came at the wrong time.
"I think it was too soon [after Forest]," he says.
"I know that come the summer I will have opportunities. So was Bruges definitely the right one? No, but it was very interesting. I felt I would be jumping from one job to the other. I wanted more time."
