Jose Mourinho told there'd 'only be one winner' if he faced legendary Brian Clough as Nottingham Forest icon opens up on Roy Keane similarities

Crossley was among those to enjoy the privilege of working under Clough at Forest. Speaking to GOAL while piecing together a Bally Bet All-Stars squad, Crossley said when asked if ‘Old Big ‘Ead’ versus ‘The Special One’ would have been box office - with a fellow former Reds star delivering similar drama for television audiences in 2026: “It would, yeah. But I know there would have been only one winner!

“I've seen interviews with top interviewees, Parkinson, and there's Muhammad Ali and all that. There's only ever one winner when Brian Clough's involved. But oh God, it would have made great television.

“That's why I love [Roy] Keane, because he's got the traits of him [Clough]. I can watch a game of football on a Sunday afternoon and if it's boring, I can turn it off. But I turn it back on at full time because I want to hear what Keane's saying. And I think that would be the case with Brian Clough.

“Brian Clough would not lose in an argument with anybody. He once told us he was going to be Prime Minister and we believed him. I just wish he was around today to be involved in those battles with the managers. But there would only be one winner. We all know that.”

Crossley is getting his own taste of management at present, as he is charged with the task of assembling a Bally Bet All-Stars Vets squad that will face a team of Forest legends at the City Ground in May.

Asked how he has set about following in Clough’s iconic footsteps, Crossley said: “I've made a few notes and I'm constantly doing it on a daily basis. It's going okay. And the vets can sign up via the club page and they can still do that right up to the 24th of March. The chance to play at the City Ground and a chance for me to pick those players.

“But I am going to be leaning also on a few surprises that are playing vets football that I might have to draft into my squad. I once got fined for playing as a ringer for Clough's son’s team. The FA can't fine me for doing that now, in charge of the vets, so I can draft in who I want! So watch this space. People can still sign up and we'll be choosing players at random to play at the City Ground. What a great opportunity.”

Crossley got the chance to grace that venue on countless occasions across his 12 years as a Forest player. He savoured the end of Clough’s historic 18-year tenure, with emotion spilling out across Trentside when a teary farewell was bid in 1993.

Asked why modern bosses struggle to enjoy such longevity, Crossley said: “Personally, I think that a manager walks through a door now and there's that much pressure instantly from up above the manager. Go back to like [Arsene] Wenger, [Alex] Ferguson, even Mourinho when he came to Chelsea and your Brian Cloughs. They were called the manager of the football club. They weren't called head coach. There wasn't a head of recruitment. So they ran the club from top to bottom. So they signed the players that they wanted to fit into their team. They picked the youth players that were coming through. Nobody else. They did it. And I believe that that's where the game's completely changed.

“Now - I want to say manager - now a head coach is put in charge of a team to coach the team, but someone else signs the players. I really don't get it. And then there becomes confusion where the manager might go: ‘Well, I don't want that player. Yeah, well, you're having him. You do the best with him because we want to then sell him on, whether it's a young one or whatever’. So I don't get it because I don't believe you can get success like that.

“I believe managers go into a football club… I say managers again, a head coach, should I say, goes into a football club now and the instant he goes in, he fears for his job because if he loses three or four games on the trot, he's under pressure from up above, from supporters, from whoever it may be. And in today's modern game, it always seems to be the manager's fault. I never hear the players mentioned, whereas back in the day, it was the players that got the stick if the team weren't doing well, not the manager. But now it's, I hear this quote - ‘He's lost the dressing room’. I still don't really know what that means. How do they know when they're not in it?

“So I think everything put into one, and maybe I'm being a little bit old school here, but in the 90s, when I thought football was great - great players, bad pitches, you could tackle, you could kick people and pick them up, you could talk to a referee, you could talk to the press, you could talk to your manager, you could go and see your manager and talk about things that were going wrong. I think that's drifted away.

“I was just watching a bit of the Overlap the other day and Gary Neville mentioned about the FA Cup. Why has the FA Cup lost its buzz? Because every kid's dream when we were kids was to play in the FA Cup final. You didn't speak about winning the league. You spoke about winning the FA Cup final. And then Gary Neville said that to get to the FA Cup final, the club gets £1.7 million or something. To get one place in the Premier League, it's £3.1 million. So that's why they're resting players to get ready for a Saturday, because it's worth more money to go one place up in the Premier League than it is to win it. I mean, come on. What's that about?”

Clough famously never got his hands on the FA Cup, suffering defeat to Tottenham in the 1991 final. Mourinho did capture that prize during his first stint at Chelsea, with modern coaches seeking to emulate the achievements of larger-than-life characters that went before them.

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