merlin

This has all the makings of another managerial disaster. Hughton should have kept his mouth shut about Nolan, or at the very least, simply said that all players have to work for their places. By coming out so strongly to back Nolan as a so-called 'key' player he has illustrated two things ; 1. He is unlikely to have the necessary ruthlessness to succeed as a manager in the PL..look how KK disciplined Lee Clark after he kicked that water bucket after being subbed at Southampton - Clark was in fear of being transfer-listed for about 10 days.Keegan also pulled off Beresford for swearing at him and questioning his judgment in a game against Villa in 1996. Keegan was hardly the biggest disciplinarian as a manager, but the players knew where they stood. He got rid of Andy Hunt, a young player I rated, just after he arrived in Feb 92 because Hunt was mucking about in training . Hunt proved to be a decent player because he went on to get promotion with Charlton(helping to knock the Mackems out in the Wembley play-off too!), but KK laid down the rules straight away...he was the boss. 2. By hastily backing Nolan, Hughton has also unwittingly admitted that his hands are very much tied and he is unlikely to be able to get the money for a better player. Both facts are worrying ; I have no personal like or dislike for Hughton ; there is no doubt he steadied the ship and over-saw the departure of players who needed to leave before last season. His signings so far have looked OK, esp Tiote, but I'm not convinced about Routledge in the PL. HBA is still an unknown and untried in England, but he'll soon get fed up if he finds he is being subbed instead of the pin-up boy... Nevertheless, our most important priority is to stay in the PL and win as many home games as possible. If Hughton can do that he will get my backing, if not, he has to go - simple as, and as Midds said, his P45 WILL be winging its way to him if we really start to struggle. And then the fun will really start.........because I don't believe a Plan B exists in the minds of Ashley and Llambias.

Yes, definitely - I will only change my view if and when we start to beat teams at home who will also be in the chase for 17th place and pick the team which gives us the best chance of winning home games.

We've already lost at home to one of those teams you think we are better than...

Lose to Man C and fail to beat Wigan, then watch the ratings start to rise....I was a 7.5 before we signed HBA and Tiote but I haven't downgraded that yet.....

Don't be too confident - you may well be right, but they have a lot of talent and if they click on the day, they are capable of doing what we did to Villa...it WILL happen sometime this season.

...and this is also a factor..

This is a factor....

Hard to argue against Nolan's undue influence after reading something like that. Who can be surprised ? It's clear that Nolan appears to be undroppable by those comments...I wonder why Bolton didn't share Hughton's enthusiasm for the player..? Can see big trouble brewing over this if Nolan produces any more sub-standard performances - whether they be at home or away....managers live or die by results and Hughton has the right to make the selections . If they prove wrong, he will eventually pay the price.

I think the vast majority would. But when the choice is £25 on a match ticket or feeding the kids/pay a bill it then becomes no choice at all. Exactly right.

Especially THIS club captain....!

Ashley has lost many fans forever because of his actions. I mentioned the fall in attendances in another thread a couple of days ago. What many here are forgetting is that we also had 20,000 on the waiting list for STs 9 years ago and I made the point that most of the disenchantment with the club has occurred over the last 7 years, so it has been a gradual decline. Yes, a decent gate for Blackpool after thrashing Villa, but that was probably a degree of curiosity mixed with optimism(ever-present in NUFC fans' breasts!), but then the team played poorly and lost. It was a bit surprising that the gate fell after beating Everton and Chelsea, but clearly some of the fans who watched the Blackpool game saw things that didn't encourage them to come back. Then there is the general feeling that the club is in a kind of limbo, with nobody knowing who will own it within the next year or so, combined with increasing fear of job-losses and belt-tightening which is undoubtedly on the way for many - you can see why many are picking their games, and Stoke are hardly the most attractive opposition... Even at OT, fans are now 'sharing' STs, with each using the ticket for alternate games...times are getting hard and football will pay the price as well as every other business .

He's a player learning, there was nothing for him to do in that match because he was isolated. Fair enough his defensive duties didn't make the grade but really not many would have faired much better the way we played Carroll yesterday. He had no service, Routledge managed only a couple of decent crosses in to the box, but were too far away from Carroll, wrong angles or pace and his only really chance for me came from Jonas and he at least hit the target, one or two more of them and he might have got a goal. The team 2nd half was atrocious, uninspired crap, we can't expect the young lads to pick us up, it has to come from our captain and senior players but those have shown to be the real problems, ones which show no signs of going away until their contracts run out. You mentioned his movement, but really his movement was typical of the whole front line. Carroll needs a partner to help with the burden, preferably a fast tricky player he can flick and head on too and be set up by. HBA is the only player we've got that matches that description even though he's not a striker but that means dropping Nolan, and that isn't happening apart from injury or hell freezing over. This - Good post.

Pissed if he drops Tiote for Nolan, Ive seen Tiote move more for newcastle in two games then Nolan has for a season. And like Wullie said, Tiote isn't just exclusively defensive, he does a lot to get us back on the attack. If Hughton drops Tiote for Nolan, he HAS lost the plot........

As most have already said, we need to play 2 forwards at SJP - difficult, because we don't have 2 compatible forwards. Carroll and Ameobi are too similar as are Carroll and Ranger(who is apparently not too dedicated anyway - allegedly..). Lovenkrands not PL standard. We needed a new, quick and mobile forward in summer but the money wasn't there...we STILL need that player AND a MF General, but best compromise is Carroll with HBA just behind or playing off him. Will that happen ? That is anyone's guess....

This, at times it looks like he's showing off "look at me i'm so fast.." he needs to focus more. Seems to be he wasn't coached well at an early age. Think that's harsh. He signed for Spurs at the exact same time as Lennon after two cracking seasons at Palace, and that same coaching did Lennon no harm. ..in that case, why did Lennon make it and Routledge failed ? It can only be down to an individual failing , probably in attitude. What makes anyone think that Hughton can get more out of him than the coaches/management at Spurs or Villa ?

There is a difference between having more of the play and actually creating REAL chances that force the opposition keeper into good saves - we failed to do that for almost all Sunday;s game and the only shot I can remember Sorensen saving was Perch's in the second half...hardly us being 'miles better than them'.. Two home games against two moderate to poor sides and we scored one penalty in both ; whose fault is it, other than the manager, if the team play a formation at home which leaves the CF isolated and with a player who is patently too slow as his main support ? Perhaps if Carroll wasn't so shattered by doing all the donkey work up front as well as defending he might have made a better effort of challenging Jones...

We never looked like beating them - plenty of possession in the 1st half, but no real chances created. Pen unlikely to have been given in an away game....lost shape totally and allowed them to bully us out of it in 2nd half.

I can see where Macphisto is coming from with regards to his comments about where and what the club should be , and what it should be aiming for. The trouble here is that there are too many fans now who have grown up with the club becoming second-rate ; in all honesty, the only time it has NOT been second-rate in the last 40 years was during the KK first management and under SBR for about 3 years. Most of the damage to the club and its reputation has occurred over the last 7 years and I suspect that a large portion of people on here only began to take an adult interest in the club's progress over that period, so it follows that they are more accepting of the current low-expectation view. I agree with Macphisto that we SHOULD be able to attract an experienced manager who would ensure progress - the difficulty is that whilst we are under the ownership of Ashley, that is unlikely to happen, at least, unless we become an established PL side for a couple of years. Ashley will NOT want a manager who insists on a large transfer budget, or who insists on the sort of control that SAF and Wenger have ; that was obvious from the KK walk-out saga, and it is that episode which will ensure that very few proven managers would risk taking the job, even if offered ; they would have no certainty that promises made would be kept.... In these circumstances, it is almost a given that we are going to keep Hughton, certainly for the foreseeable future, but, as I said earlier, he is NOT immune from the sack. IF he persists with selections which result in our falling to the bottom 3 by Christmas he will, without doubt, be under pressure. As Ashley has boxed himself into a corner by his previous decisions on management,he will probably have to stick with Hughton longer than many clubs would, so unless we are bottom of the league by end of November, I cannot see Hughton being fired. In fairness, if we are anywhere above 16th, then there would be no logic IN firing him because that is acceptable - for now... In any case, who would take the job ? The only one currently available is MON and there is little chance of that being acceptable to either board or the manager himself for obvious reasons. All this has arisen because of 2 bad home results - ans it doesn't matter how many excuses people make, they ARE bad results. We have had bonus results at Everton and against AV as well as (to a lesser extent because both sides were mainly reserves), Chelsea in the LC, but that is no reason to be complacent about successive home losses to teams from which a club of NUFC's potential should be gaining points. There is no doubt that last season's CCC WAS a poor league because although we won it by a bigger margin than KK's 93 side, we have not started in the PL as well as they did...and there is NO way we'll finish 3rd either, not that anyone expects that. The only reason I mention this is because KK only signed a few players after promotion too but the side proved good enough to do well. I do NOT have the same confidence in this team because there are too many crucial gaps in quality. The midfield is, by and large, OK but lacks a really good 'general'; forwards are a big weakness, compare with Andy Cole and Peter Beardsley from 93...Current side has margnally better LB, but much poorer RB than Venison. CDs about on a par. Its easy to see that we are struggling for goals when we come up against well-organised sides who nullify Carroll.... The attendance on Sunday was poor, esp considering the Chelsea result in mid-week...clearly, many fans are still not convinced because it is only 9 years since we had a 20,000 waiting list for STs.... My doubts about Hughton are mainly as to whether he has allowed himself to become too close to certain players - if he has, he is doomed because the Dressing room will be aware of it and resentment will start, along with cliques. NO manager can do this - he is either the boss or nothing. Interesting times lie ahead.

Looking at it logically, his point would seem to be that neither are going to make an impact at the top level...

More established..? How many years were NUFC in the PL before Stoke managed it ? If Man U, Chelsea, Arsenal or even, never let it be said, Everton, were relegated for one season, would you then say Stoke were a more established side and expect those sides to drop points to them ? OK, so we are not those teams but we have a much longer presence in the PL than they do, we have much bigger gates and we have been in the CL twice as well as regular Euro football in the period between 1994 and 1997. There is no comparison between the 2 clubs and when at SJP, we SHOULD be able to beat these teams...just as we expect little from games at the Top 8 right now.

I wouldn't, but I can see why people would... it fits into all the cliches about home record and beating the teams around you. We've shown we can compete with anyone, that's something Hughton can use. We could also easily have beaten Blackpool and drawn with Stoke on another day. We're in a decent position in the table, no need to panic at this point. There are warning signs with selection and subs, but Hughton still has time to correct them. We have NOT shown that we can 'compete with anyone'...we lost at SJP to two sides that most people would have bet on us beating at home. We were lucky to hit on a Villa side in the middle of a management change(remember NUFC at OT after Allardyce was fired ?) and I reckon they would 'do' us now... Everton have had a bad start and were without Tim Cahill when we played them. As for Hughton 'using' something, how about using his brain(and b---s)and dropping Nolan when he is not contributing to the side ? Will you still say we have proved we can compete with anyone if we lose at home to the Mackems ?

He WILL have to drop Nolan if we lose the next home game ; failure to do so will result in the crowd getting on both their backs anf Hughton getting the sack.

Yes, because we are not really creating CLEAR chances and we lack another quality striker...

Totally agree - even Carroll is being wasted because he is being asked to take all the responsibility for goals/leading the line on his own. Its bad enough for an experienced CF to play a lone role, but for a 21 year old its soul-destroying. Always remember KK as a player saying he didn't mind taking the stick because he was at the end of his career and Beardsley/Waddle were just beginning theirs and he wanted to take the pressure off them.....

Yes, true. The question is , what will he do about it ?