Nigel Clough admitted that he would have been less nervous playing against Manchester United last night than he was facing the biggest media throng Derby County have attracted . . . well, possibly since Brian Clough walked out of the club in 1973. Yet even as he sat in the crushed press room at Pride Park, with pictures of Derby’s most famous manager looking down at him from the walls, Clough Jr insisted that he would not be overawed by following in his father’s footsteps.

“People talk about all the photographs here but we have them at home,” the new Derby manager said. “It’s something to embrace. The history of the club is part of it [the decision]. It may be 35 years ago but fans talk about those times as if they were yesterday. Many are affiliated to the club because of those days.”

Clough has no wish to distance himself from his father’s legend. Asked if he would know that he has arrived as his own man when people no longer talk of him as “son of Brian”, he replied: “I don’t think that will happen. In some ways, I hope it doesn’t, because that means that some people will have forgotten about my dad.”

So what would his father’s advice have been about leaving Burton Albion? “I haven’t got the foggiest,” the 42-year-old said. “He would probably have said, ‘Don’t be so stupid.’ I hope it would have been something positive. I just wish he was around for a bit of advice.”

As if loath to mention Nottingham Forest — the club where he made his name as a player under his father’s guidance and the side that Derby play host to in the FA Cup fourth round in a fortnight — Clough played down his inexperience at Coca-Cola Championship level.

“The principles stay the same,” he said. “What we’ve tried to do over the past ten years, and the way we were brought up at certain clubs, will be brought into play here.”

Family will continue to come first even as Clough takes his first full-time role in management. “We’ll try to keep the balance right because my wife and two children are the most important people in my world,” he said. “No job will change that.” From the picture on the wall, Clough Sr seemed to be nodding in agreement.