The old Chris Hughton discussion thread

[TRon]

I thought  Tiote needed to come off.  He was starting to give away possession too easily.  He was making nice passes in the first half but started feeling the heat after the half when they closed him down more.  He needs more time to acclimate to the Premiership, IMO.  I got the impression that Hughton felt obligated to bring in Jonas to play in his normal position.  The move that Hughton has to make, and it's one that has already been discussed, is he needs to get Jonas and HBA on the pitch together.  Playing Jonas on the left wing with HBA in the hole behind Carroll is the way to go.  

 

Jonas and HBA can really disrupt a defense.  They can bend it about and play off each other.  They can take pressure off of Routledge so he can cross to Carroll or cut inside.  Enrique can cross from the left.  They can also overlap on Carroll and be counter targets for Barton and Tiote from deeper positions.  With those two running around the attack can strike from left, right or middle, in the air or on the deck and that would make them very difficult to defend.  It would also allow the club to target specific areas of weakness of their opponent and punish them.

 

That all sounds a bit complicated compared to Hughton's "play the goalscorers" tactic.

[merlin]

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.

 

[merlin]

We could easily have beaten Stoke, in which case we'd have been 5th, having beaten Everton and Chelsea away in our previous games. There would have been calls for Chris to be given a knighthood.

 

We've been weak at defending set pieces for the last two years, and Stoke are a team practically designed to exploit that. Of the back four, only Williamson consistently gets his head to the ball in those situations, and we rely a lot on Carroll coming back to help. Those two can't be everywhere at once, and yesterday we were caught out.

 

If I have a criticism of Hughton it's that he didn't anticipate that problem by bringing in Campbell, but there again it's not easy to change a winning side. Subbing Ben Arfa and Tiote were okay decisions - Ben Arfa had run out of steam and, as Hughton has said, he preferred to keep Nolan on as a goalscorer - which he is.

 

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.

[Decky]

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.

 

 

[womblemaster]

` Routledge so he can cross to Carroll o`

 

 

does that happen alot then?  I seem to have missed that myself.

[Cronky]

We could easily have beaten Stoke, in which case we'd have been 5th, having beaten Everton and Chelsea away in our previous games. There would have been calls for Chris to be given a knighthood.

 

We've been weak at defending set pieces for the last two years, and Stoke are a team practically designed to exploit that. Of the back four, only Williamson consistently gets his head to the ball in those situations, and we rely a lot on Carroll coming back to help. Those two can't be everywhere at once, and yesterday we were caught out.

 

If I have a criticism of Hughton it's that he didn't anticipate that problem by bringing in Campbell, but there again it's not easy to change a winning side. Subbing Ben Arfa and Tiote were okay decisions - Ben Arfa had run out of steam and, as Hughton has said, he preferred to keep Nolan on as a goalscorer - which he is.

 

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.

 

That's just not how I saw it. We had the better of the first half and the second half was fairly even. They had a spell in the second half where they dominated, but that's the nature of Premiership football. There are inevitably going to be pressure periods - you're not going to have the upper hand for 90 minutes.

 

As I said, they had a big advantage over us at set pieces, and that got them their goals. We suffer from a lack of pace up front which meant we had difficulty in punishing them during our good periods. But you can't say that it couldn't have turned out differently. Games can change in a moment - it sometimes doesn't even take a goal.

[TRon]

As far as I'm concerned HUghton has done a great job since being made manager in a lot of aspects. Team spirit is good, he's a great amabassador and he's made decent signings for the most part. But to succeed at this level he will need to be ruthless because every club has got the money to buy players who are better than Championship level. Hughton's subs on Sunday were predictable but he took off our best two players not the ones who aren't good enough. If he'd got a result he could have turned round and claimed he was right. But he didn't and the players he put his faith in blew it. There's still plenty of time but this league takes no prisoners and Hughton won't get away with playing slow midfielders up front as a tactic in this division. Even the crappiest of our relegation rivals have a better option.

[buzza]

I don't actually think it's Hughton's fault, we were much better than them and it was two set pieces that outdid us and two glaring mistakes:

Perch was not at fault for this loss, he did all he could and it would have been a goal anyway had he left that ball…

Carrol was much more at fault on the first goal, given that he followed the ball thinking he could get to it (impossible!) doing his “superman” act. If he had stayed on his man (Jones), they wouldn’t have got that easy header…

[Guest]

Perch's starting position was shocking though. The reason Huth would have scored had he not headed it himself was because Perch was in a terrible position to start.

[Howaythelads]

Fail to see how Mark Hughes is a proven manager personally. What's he done? Nowt.

Agree with that.

[Lotus]

Perch's starting position was shocking though. The reason Huth would have scored had he not headed it himself was because Perch was in a terrible position to start.

 

Perch shouldn't be marking Huth to start with imo.

[Parky]

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.

 

 

Good read. Especially like the player evaluations with 93 side.

[Parky]

As far as I'm concerned HUghton has done a great job since being made manager in a lot of aspects. Team spirit is good, he's a great amabassador and he's made decent signings for the most part. But to succeed at this level he will need to be ruthless because every club has got the money to buy players who are better than Championship level. Hughton's subs on Sunday were predictable but he took off our best two players not the ones who aren't good enough. If he'd got a result he could have turned round and claimed he was right. But he didn't and the players he put his faith in blew it. There's still plenty of time but this league takes no prisoners and Hughton won't get away with playing slow midfielders up front as a tactic in this division. Even the crappiest of our relegation rivals have a better option.

 

Shouldn't really be playing 4411/451 at home, especially with Nolan who is really too slow and not a good enough finisher as a backup AM/F, he's missed about 5 golden chances against Blackpool and Stoke now. We have to try and shuffle it around more and make the best of what we've got for now.

[JH]

The suprise victories over Everton and Aston Villa are no excuse or reason for us losing at home to Blackpool or Stoke.

 

I don't care where we are in the league or how many goals we've conceded, if we can't beat the likes of them at home then we will go down, and that is something the manager needs to address, and quickly

 

Whatever anyone thinks of Hughton or any of the players, it's as simple as it

[merlin]

I don't actually think it's Hughton's fault, we were much better than them and it was two set pieces that outdid us and two glaring mistakes:

Perch was not at fault for this loss, he did all he could and it would have been a goal anyway had he left that ball…

Carrol was much more at fault on the first goal, given that he followed the ball thinking he could get to it (impossible!) doing his “superman” act. If he had stayed on his man (Jones), they wouldn’t have got that easy header…

 

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...

[Guest]

Perch's starting position was shocking though. The reason Huth would have scored had he not headed it himself was because Perch was in a terrible position to start.

 

Perch shouldn't be marking Huth to start with imo.

 

That's a fair point but he's a defender so should be more alert. Carroll showed for the first goal it's no good simply having a tall, good header of the ball marking a striker like that if they're not defensively aware, which is what Perch's job is to be. There's an angle from behind the goal where you see he's half asleep to Huth's run and is late reacting to it. Huth could have been 6'4 or 4'6 and that would have still been a goal simply down to lack of concentration and reacting too slowly to the run. It's only a split second Huth has on him but should have still done better.

[ohmelads]

We could easily have beaten Stoke, in which case we'd have been 5th, having beaten Everton and Chelsea away in our previous games. There would have been calls for Chris to be given a knighthood.

 

We've been weak at defending set pieces for the last two years, and Stoke are a team practically designed to exploit that. Of the back four, only Williamson consistently gets his head to the ball in those situations, and we rely a lot on Carroll coming back to help. Those two can't be everywhere at once, and yesterday we were caught out.

 

If I have a criticism of Hughton it's that he didn't anticipate that problem by bringing in Campbell, but there again it's not easy to change a winning side. Subbing Ben Arfa and Tiote were okay decisions - Ben Arfa had run out of steam and, as Hughton has said, he preferred to keep Nolan on as a goalscorer - which he is.

 

Hard to argue with any of that.

 

We should really be going 4-4-2 against Stoke and Blackpool at home though, and I feel we have paid the price for over-respecting these teams. When weaker teams come to our ground, we look like we can put these teams on the back foot and should look to take advantage. Carroll on his own, it plays into these teams' hands. That was Hughton's mistake, but hopefully we will have two up top for Wigan at home. As for Man City, that's more the sort of game you'd expect the 5 man midfield.

[The Prophet]

We are never going to agree but just a few points, I would say now more than ever is the time you want an experienced manager. You can take a chance with either a proven manager/poor team or unproven manager/good team but not an unproven manager/poor team.

 

Again you list Championship teams who have potential but none of them are in our league, nowhere near apart from Leeds. I honestly think Newcastle fans are really suffering some sort of identity crisis, there’s an aversion to thinking big. All you hear on here is “no more trophy signings” with people like Boumsong and Luque in mind completely forgetting “trophy signings” like Ferdinand and Shearer. Also hear stuff like where have proven managers got us? We haven’t really had that many, the only one with a good track record was Robson and his record speaks for itself. Every other proven manager had a long record of being s***, Dalglish being the exception. Finally this thing about living up to the Sky Sports/media stereotype, well I couldn’t give  a toss about them.

 

All I know is that there is a lot of money coming into our club, we have a lot of full paying fans and for that alone we should be doing a lot better than we are. Black and white. I don't fall for all this stuff about the club having no money.

 

Final point is that I don’t think we are that far off the top boys as I think this is the poorest the PL has been since its inception. We’re a long way off top 4 but to get to around 7th would not be too difficult with a good manager and a bit of backing. Indeed my only hope of us staying up is that the league is not that strong.

 

Someone said Hughes hasn’t proven anything but he does have experience of the top flight and did an alright job at Blackburn. Nothing spectacular but a steady job.

 

If not Hughes there are other managers, I can’t imagine many on here choosing Hughton last summer after Shearer did not get the job. Everyone would have opted for other managers, managers that are still out there.

 

 

In a way I admire your attitude and ambition but at the same time I can't help but feel you've lost touch with the reality that faces the club in the modern game. There's no denying we have potential and one I'd love nothing more to see that come to fruition but I can't help but feel your over simplifying the issue.

 

I don't think fans are suffering from an 'identity crisis' but finally realism coupled with lowerd expectation are finally starting to hit home. I agree, after the top seven/eight clubs in the country there is little to choose from but to attempt to break into that top bracket you need cash. With Ashley's unwillingness to retain any form of debt it is unlikely we will ever make massive waves in the transfer market hence it will be diffciult to break into that pack of teams and 'think big'. I think at this moment in time such an arguement is void anyway because we are a long way from being a regular top seven/eight club, we simply don't have the players. It will take time to put together a quality squad.

 

Taking this into account our primary aim for this season should be to aim for mid-table. I've always held the theory aim for the sky, if you fall a little short you've still done pretty well. If we aim to avoid relegation we'll probably go down. Having seen our start to the season I'm pretty confident we can do this and this is down to Hughton. The football has been alright, we've created chances and we look a damn sight better than some of the sides you'd expect to be down there come may. He's starting to put together a decent side with the additions of Tiote and Ben Arfa.

 

People are starting to question his position because of the way we set up at home. Time will tell but I wouldn't at all be suprised if he changed things at Wigan because his flexability and willingness to learn from past errors has been one of his positive attributes which has served us well in the past. We have to acknowledge he has made mistakes and one day his position may become untenable but as it stands I feel confident he can lay a decent foundation for a quality manager to come in and move us on.

 

Taking that into account I'm in no great rush to change things. I can't see an 'experienced manager' coming in and dropping Nolan nor can I see an experienced manager changing much and hence doing a better job than Hughton currently is. It's going to be a stop start season, picking up points here and there. There's going to be major disappoinments but thats all part and parcel of being a newly promoted club, get used to it no matter who's in charge.

[afar]

He lost a bit of my faith on Sunday tbh. The tactics were wrong, we saw that against Blackpool and he didn't learn. His substitutions were awful, although Jonas did well when he came on, taking off our best chance of a creating a goal and leaving on a passenger, then taking off the player running midfield, made no sense at all.

 

His handling of Nolan will define his mangerial credentials, if he can show some balls and pick the best team we have regardless of reputation and influence in the dressing room, he'll show he's a real manager. I would imagine he'll stick with the same team against Man Shitty but what will be really interesting is the team he picks for the next home game against Wigan.

[Hanshithispantz]

What we want matters little, but it's nice to know 99.9% of the players love him and his training regime at the club.

 

 

Have we even got 1000+ players at the club for statistic to be possible?

[Guest]

I do think that as the season goes on, Hughton will find it easier to leave out players who he relied on last year (Routledge, Nolan, etc).

[Dokko]

I do think that as the season goes on, Hughton will find it easier to leave out players who he relied on last year (Routledge, Nolan, etc).

 

Only when he realises his job is on the line will that happen.

 

 

[M4]

Even though I was extremely pissed off with him on Sunday, I also didn't have that underlying wondering whether he should still be manager or not like for some of our managers past.

 

I guess I do trust him to learn after all, even if only subconsciously

[Parky]

Even though I was extremely pissed off with him on Sunday, I also didn't have that underlying wondering whether he should still be manager or not like for some of our managers past.

 

I guess I do trust him to learn after all, even if only subconsciously

 

hee he...

[sparkzter]

How long does he get too "learn" though!?

 

Better learn pretty quickly or it will be too late I fear.