THERE is a chapter in Brian Clough's autobiography that is modestly entitled, "How To Manage A Football Club". In it, one of English football's most mercurial minds outlines his blueprint for assembling a successful side.

There are suggestions for instilling discipline, hints for improving technique and a section that underlines the importance of blending youth with experience. But with a nod to his long-term assistant, Peter Taylor, Clough spends most time extolling the virtues of the most under-rated player on the park.

"Taylor convinced me about the true value of the goalkeeper," wrote Clough, who won two league championships and two European Cups during a celebrated managerial career. "It's hardly surprising, seeing as that's where he played.

"'No point in you scoring three if our bloke's letting three in', he'd keep saying, time after time, day after day. 'There are key positions in any side where real talent is vital. If necessary, you can fill in everywhere else'.

"So I signed good goalkeepers. In fact, I've never fathomed why top keepers don't cost as much as top strikers. A save can be as important as a goal, but a mistake by a keeper is often more costly than a miss by his team-mate at the opposite end of the field."

It was a philosophy that Clough was to stick to for more than two decades, and one that reached its apogee in 1977. Newly-promoted to the first division with Nottingham Forest, Clough spent the first half of the summer assembling a collection of cut-price journeymen who were derided by the critics. Then, just as the season was about to begin, he broke the British transfer record and paid £270,000 to sign Peter Shilton. Twelve months later, Forest were crowned English champions. Two years later, and Shilton was lifting the European Cup.

"We were 'mad' in many people's eyes to spend a record fee on him, but Taylor and I knew our history in advance," explained Clough. "History now tells us that Shilton was worth twice the price. We weren't mad at all; we were magic."

Thirty years later, and Sunderland manager Roy Keane is hoping to work that magic again.

Just as Clough committed the majority of his transfer budget to the purchase of Shilton, so Keane has gambled the bulk of his fortune on the £9m acquisition of former Hearts goalkeeper Craig Gordon.

Gordon became the most expensive goalkeeper in British footballing history when he signed a five-year deal at the Stadium of Light on Tuesday, and Keane became a manager whose abilities will be called into question if his purchasing policy unravels over the course of the next nine months.

Clough might have believed implicitly in the value of a good goalkeeper, but the majority of football fans continue to regard a striker as the only player worthy of such lavish expenditure.

Keane, on the other hand, is willing to trust his mentor. The Irishman spent the first three years of his professional career playing under Clough, and his time at the City Ground continues to colour his judgement.

So when the ESPN sports channel started running footage of Shilton's exploits with Nottingham Forest over the summer, something significant began to stir in his memory banks.

"They were showing the old games and Forest were on when Shilton played," said Keane. "They spoke about his role in the team and I was thinking 'Yeah'.

"Brian Clough spoke about that many a time, about how many points he reckoned Shilton was worth to him every season. But Clough was already ahead of everyone at that stage.

"I've played with keepers who have won you many a game. You nick a goal and everyone talks about the goal you have scored, but then you look back and recall the keeper who has made three or four unbelievable saves. Any team that has been successful over the years has always had a top keeper."

For most of Keane's Manchester United career, of course, that keeper was Peter Schmeichel. If Shilton was the foundation of Clough's Nottingham Forest team, then Schmeichel was undoubtedly the bedrock of Sir Alex Ferguson's United side that won a record-breaking treble in 1999.

Not only was the Dane a tremendous shot-stopper, but he also boasted an aura that encouraged those in front of him, and alarmed those who were attempting to beat him. Gordon might only be 24, but it is already possible to detect the same sort of bravura in his displays in the SPL.

"Craig has a presence about him," agreed Keane. "And that is half the battle.

"If a goalkeeper is on a one-on-one, that presence is saying, 'Hey, you will do well to beat me'.

"Peter Schmeichel had that presence. Technically, he wasn't the best in the world, but in terms of presence and stopping the ball going in the back of the net, he had it. I'm not trying to compare the two, but they both have presence."

Born in Edinburgh on New Year's Eve, 1982, Gordon was still at school when Schmeichel was performing the bulk of his heroics at Old Trafford.

He made his debut for Hearts in 2002, won his first international cap against Italy two years later, and was voted Scottish Player of the Year by the country's football writers in 2006.

On this side of the border, he remains something of an unknown quantity. But in Scotland, a country that is growing tired of jokes pertaining to its questionable goalkeeping heritage, he is already being hailed as one of the greatest goalkeepers of all time.

"Craig is first-class and, at £9m, he could prove pretty cheap provided he stays fit," said former Scotland boss Craig Brown. "Yes the fee is big, but I know it won't faze him.

"I saw his debut for Scotland at the San Siro when he came on in the second half for Rab Douglas.

"What a place to make your debut. It's never easy coming on at half-time, but he was fantastic that night. He is faultless, and Roy Keane has done well to sign him.

"He has the perfect stature and loves coming for crosses. He is very athletic for such a big lad and he likes to dominate his box.

"Basically, he has everything. He has been coached superbly by Jim Stewart at Hearts, who himself was trained by the doyen of keeper coaches in Alan Hodgkinson.

"To have that sort of legacy behind you is second to none, and I know Hodgy speaks very highly of him. That says it all for me because there is no better judge in the game."

No better judge, perhaps, other than the sadly-departed Clough. Had 'Old Big Ead' been alive today, he would no doubt have been musing that one of his former midfielders was getting along rather well.

How to manage a football club?

It looks like Keane could already provide one or two answers.