The old Chris Hughton discussion thread

[Guest]

Name another.

 

10 of the 20 Premier League sides have won 2 or fewer home games. 9 have lost at least 2.

[Ronaldo]

 

10 of the 20 Premier League sides have won 2 or fewer home games. 9 have lost at least 2.

 

To be fair, we're not the only ones dropping points at home to sides we "should" beat.

 

It's a crazy season.

 

See what's missing?

[Guest]

Well how about Arsenal losing to WBA & Newcastle? Chelsea dropping points at home to Sunderland, Man City dropping points to Birmingham & Blackburn, Liverpool to Blackpool & Sunderland, Spurs to Wigan & Sunderland, etc.

[Ronaldo]

None of that is 'consistency,' though. With us it's 5 games out of 7.

[Guest]

Fulham and Stoke to me are mid table Premier League sides, Blackburn and Wigan have been here a while  so the only banker we've lost imo is Blackpool. I think as the season goes on we'll gradually win enough at home to see us comfortable.

[Guest BooBoo]

Whilst they punched above their weight last year, getting a point off Fulham isn't a bad result. It was just exasapated by the previous home disappointments.

[nobby_solano]

aye, in reflection on the past week i thought we'd have beaten blackburn and drawn with fulham. blackburn really are our bogey team these days like.

maybe the players were tired from the arsenal match, or maybe they don't dislike allardyce as much as some of the fans to so as to be as fired up as they were for the derby. we did play a lot better against fulham, just a little toothless, which isn't really surprising relying on carroll, a really rusty lovenkrands and a very inexperienced ranger

[Hughesy]

Given our squad, given the manager, given where we are as a club right now, our position in the table could be considered punching slightly above our weight. I personally am very happy with our points tally, position in the table and our season thus far. Sure we could have done better in some of our home games but likewise we could have done worse in some of our away games. As things stand we are on course to achieve survival which is all I am concerned with, anything else would be a bonus. I believe Hughton is doing an amazing job because I could list 5 of our players who are championship players at best. Looking at our squad and tactics we are better suited to away games than home games and until we change personal I can't see our home form being anything other than what it currently is, patchy. Anyone criticising Hughton, however, is a moron, the man has done magnificently well in achieving promotion and thus far a mid-table PL outfit.

in a way i'd be happier had we beat blackpool, wigan etc and lost at arsenal and everton as being a newcastle fan i'm more likely to think that our good away form is very temporary and that the poor home performances are where we are actually at. sorry but it's years of supporting this club that has conditioned me this way.

 

I would rather be winning the matches against Blackpool, Wigan etc as we are giving 3 points to our relegation rivals.  Although beating Arsenal was great, I'd rather give them 3 points and have taken 3 off a lower half team.

[JH]

Given our squad, given the manager, given where we are as a club right now, our position in the table could be considered punching slightly above our weight. I personally am very happy with our points tally, position in the table and our season thus far. Sure we could have done better in some of our home games but likewise we could have done worse in some of our away games. As things stand we are on course to achieve survival which is all I am concerned with, anything else would be a bonus. I believe Hughton is doing an amazing job because I could list 5 of our players who are championship players at best. Looking at our squad and tactics we are better suited to away games than home games and until we change personal I can't see our home form being anything other than what it currently is, patchy. Anyone criticising Hughton, however, is a moron, the man has done magnificently well in achieving promotion and thus far a mid-table PL outfit.

in a way i'd be happier had we beat blackpool, wigan etc and lost at arsenal and everton as being a newcastle fan i'm more likely to think that our good away form is very temporary and that the poor home performances are where we are actually at. sorry but it's years of supporting this club that has conditioned me this way.

 

I would rather be winning the matches against Blackpool, Wigan etc as we are giving 3 points to our relegation rivals.  Although beating Arsenal was great, I'd rather give them 3 points and have taken 3 off a lower half team.

 

[Guest]

Being positive though beating the likes of Villa, Sunderland and Everton might help us finish above these if and when we sort the home form out.

[Si]

I've got no concerns about CH at the minute, the signings he's brought in have fitted in well and performed & we've been unlucky with Ben Arfa. He's done enough last season and so far this season to have earned the time to do the job, i've no doubts that another summer transfer window will bring in another few canny players like Arfa and 

 

Think we're headed for a nice solid mid table finish to our first season back at the top with plenty of room to build upon next season. 

[Decky]

I think Chris is doing a fantastic job. It was never going to be easy for us coming back into the Premier League. We lost most of our "star" players when we went down and had to rely on the likes of Ameobi who no one rated and Carroll who is still a young player. If anyone had looked at our starting 11 now 2 years ago, they would have had us finishing 20th with the lowest points in Premier League history. Yet we stormed our way through the Championship and to 8th place in the Premier League. You only have to look in the Bolton thread to see the state of our squad. 4 players out from when we beat Sunderland, and we are relying on the likes of Ranger up front on his own.

 

I think Chris and the team are still trying to find their way in this league, we are going into games not knowing what to expect. We have had a few fantastic away wins and absolutely destroyed the likes of Sunderland and Villa at home, which is by no means easy to do against anyone in the Premier League. This proves that there is quality there both on and off the field. I think it will just take a while for everything to click, and of course we need more players. I have no doubt we will stay up this season, absolutely none at all.

 

Right now we are dropping points at home and picking them up elseware, this is something I am more than happy with if it ultimately means we stay up. I mean we have roughly half the points we need having played just a third of the games. Im sure Hughton knows about our home form more than anyone and I trust him and the team to sort it out.

[UV]

Beggars can't be choosers, and as beggars is what Mike Ashley has turned this club into, I'll take the points regardless of where they come from thanks.

 

Why is this debate going on in the Hughton thread anyway? The difference in home and away results or results against perceived good and perceived poor opposition isn't down to any significantly different tactics or level of performance from us, it's down to the tactics of our opponents and how able we are to combat them. For the most part our performances (if not results) have been pretty decent and consistent, and a damn site better than I and I should imagine most of you thought they would be. However when teams set out to defend against us and do a decent job of it, we simply don't have the players to break them down. That's not Hughton's fault, and there's not much tactically he can do about it.

 

I'm not saying Hughton's a great manager, because until he's managed for a lot longer than he has now, you don't know whether he's a one trick pony who has got lucky with a certain way of working with a certain group of players who will eventually get found out. The fact that he has a limited squad in a lot of ways makes his job a lot easier - less choice means that most of his selection decisions are made for him and tbh there's not much he can do wrong (although there are many, many managers out there who would easily fuck it up). We can't even be sure it wasn't Calderwood or isn't Nolan who is actually the main person behind getting the players to perform as a team. However for now IMO Hughton's got the team playing near as well as any manager could get them to, and almost certainly better than anyone Ashley would get in to replace him, so the debate about why we unbelievably can't always beat teams who were better than us 2 years ago before we shed over £15m net worth of players has no place in this thread.

[Wullie]

Two excellent posts from UV and Decky.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Two excellent posts from UV and Decky.

[steve_69]

Despite our past, we are a new Premier League team. We deteriorated over a period of years, steadily getting worse and worse until we got relegated.

We are now back in the Premier League having spent less than £5m in the summer and we are half way to where we need to be in terms of points.

 

How anyone can say Hughton is doing anything less than a brilliant job is beyond me. All the talk of expectations being reset and Newcastle fans having a new realistic outlook on things seems to have gone out of the window. Forget who we have played, who we've beaten and who we have lost against. The only thing that matters is our points tally because there is only one goal this season - to stay up - and we're almost half way there already. 

 

We are a newly promoted Premier League team. The only result you can look at and say we shouldn't have lost is Blackpool at home because we proved last year that we are better than they are.  Stoke, Blackburn and Wigan are established Premier League teams who by rights should beat us, yet we got a draw against Wigan so that has to be viewed as a success.

 

To suggest we SHOULD be winning our home games in our first season back in the Premier League is both arrogant and niaive.

 

 

 

 

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Totally, it makes me shudder to think back to how terrible we were last time we were in this division.

 

We can't suddenly go back to easily beating the likes of Fulham and Blackburn.

[Skirge]

Expectations are raised with 6-0 home wins and great away wins, beat Arsenal away then lose to Blackburn its hard to take and understand.

8th mid November is superb and we all would have taken that before the start of the season, its just becoming very frustrating when you see where we could have been in the table had we won the homes fans think we should have won.

 

I personally still feel very positive about what we can do this season and have full 100% faith in Hughton.

 

We had been on a downward spiral since the day Sir Bobby was sacked, Hughton has hit the brakes on that and has us heading in the right direction again and doing it under a shocking owner and chairman.

[Dokko]

If he doesn't apologize for today's efforts he can stick his contract up his arse.

 

 

[Dave]

One game.

[Guest palnese]

One game.

 

Fulham, Blackpool etc.

[lovejoy]

Fuck me man.

[Guest Heneage]

Bi polar bears grrrr.

 

It's utterly pointless judging him until January when the league has potentially settled. It's simple enough if he keeps us up give him a new deal.

[Dave]

One game.

 

Fulham, Blackpool etc.

 

Villa, Everton, Arsenal, Sunderland etc.

[Dokko]

One game.

 

Bolton, Blackpool, Stoke, Wigan, Blackburn all just one game.