The old Chris Hughton discussion thread

[The Prophet]

Some of his subs are absolutely baffling. Taking your most combative midfielder off when your under the cosh? Christ.

[midds]

Cost us the game today without a shadow of a doubt. Taking off your best players when they're playing well is mental. He's undoing all of his good work because he hasn't got the bollocks to bring off nolan. Spineless.

[themanupstairs]

Very strange substitutions today. Ben Arfa wasn't having much impact at that time but it was clear the game would open up. Tiote was playing really well and okay it was a striker for a defensive midfielder but I can't see the benefit of taking someone off who's doing the business, and against a team like this.

 

Hate to say it but Nolan should have been the one to give way, in both instances.

 

Exactly this. I'm not one for knee-jerk craziness but the subs were indeed baffling. Bar an injury to both HBA and Tiote, there isn't a single tactical excuse anyone could give. I'd have thought the same even if we had won or equalized.

[midds]

Pulis, to his credit, got his subs absolutely spot on. He changed the game in his teams favour with a full 40 mins left on the clock. Hughton brought ben arfa and tiote off and changed things unnecessarily trying to be fucking clever.

[joeyt]

Pulis, to his credit, got his subs absolutely spot on. He changed the game in his teams favour with a full 40 mins left on the clock. Hughton brought ben arfa and tiote off and changed things unnecessarily trying to be f***ing clever.

 

I thought the timing of Pulis' first two subs were very weird. Worked though

[Dave]

Pulis, to his credit, got his subs absolutely spot on. He changed the game in his teams favour with a full 40 mins left on the clock. Hughton brought ben arfa and tiote off and changed things unnecessarily trying to be f***ing clever.

 

I thought the timing of Pulis' first two subs were very weird. Worked though

 

Only thing I can suggest is that he wanted to make the changes but waited to see how we were set up for the second half before making them.

[Mr Logic]

I see quite a few people saying he'll learn from his mistakes but considering the length of time he's been in football he should already know some things without needing to learn them now.

 

Chucking high balls to Carroll was never going to be very effective against Stoke. Then there's the limited movement of Carroll and Nolan up front, so our creative passers had little to aim for, no space was created. You could argue he doesn't have the players to play up front but Ranger would have been more effctive than Carroll today. Subbing off Barfa and then Tiote was just bizarre, he played into Stokes hands.

 

There is a problem with Barfa coming inside in that it prevents Enrique bombing forward, but that wouldn't of course be a problem if Barfa was playing in Nolans position and Jonas was on the wing.

[Skirge]

He got it wrong today simple as that, wrong starting 11 wrong formation and wrong changes.

But I still very much have faith in the man.

[TRon]

I see quite a few people saying he'll learn from his mistakes but considering the length of time he's been in football he should already know some things without needing to learn them now.

 

Chucking high balls to Carroll was never going to be very effective against Stoke. Then there's the limited movement of Carroll and Nolan up front, so our creative passers had little to aim for, no space was created. You could argue he doesn't have the players to play up front but Ranger would have been more effctive than Carroll today. Subbing off Barfa and then Tiote was just bizarre, he played into Stokes hands.

 

There is a problem with Barfa coming inside in that it prevents Enrique bombing forward, but that wouldn't of course be a problem if Barfa was playing in Nolans position and Jonas was on the wing.

 

Couldn't agree more. We were never going to beat Stoke by getting in a battle with them. We should have hit their lumbering defenders with speed and skill, HBA had plenty of joy in the first half had anyone had the wit or movement to make the most of it. I like Hughton but he needs to show a bit more faith in his football principles instead of trying to shoehorn all his favourite characters into the team and playing safe.

[sparkzter]

Pace and skill would have won us the game today.

 

Keep Arfa on, Lovelyhands up front with Carol as he at least puts some runs in to thread balls 2.

 

442

 

 

[Cronky]

I see quite a few people saying he'll learn from his mistakes but considering the length of time he's been in football he should already know some things without needing to learn them now.

 

Chucking high balls to Carroll was never going to be very effective against Stoke. Then there's the limited movement of Carroll and Nolan up front, so our creative passers had little to aim for, no space was created. You could argue he doesn't have the players to play up front but Ranger would have been more effctive than Carroll today. Subbing off Barfa and then Tiote was just bizarre, he played into Stokes hands.

 

There is a problem with Barfa coming inside in that it prevents Enrique bombing forward, but that wouldn't of course be a problem if Barfa was playing in Nolans position and Jonas was on the wing.

 

Couldn't agree more. We were never going to beat Stoke by getting in a battle with them. We should have hit their lumbering defenders with speed and skill, HBA had plenty of joy in the first half had anyone had the wit or movement to make the most of it. I like Hughton but he needs to show a bit more faith in his football principles instead of trying to shoehorn all his favourite characters into the team and playing safe.

 

We didn't punish them enough in the final third, and Carroll wasn't as effective as usual, but I don't know what viable options we have. I don't think Ben Arfa would be that effective playing off a target man - a roving role in midfield looks right for him. Ranger is talented but doesn't quite look ready. Shola would give you a slightly different option to Carroll, but the problem of a partner still remains. Lovenkrands is easily blocked out of the game, and Nolan lacks pace.

[timeEd32]

Hughton was let down by the team today - it wasn't his tactics or subs which he got right with the players we have.

 

Ben Arfa wasn't as good today as he was vs Everton ... neither was Tiote.

 

When we were still drawing 1-1 he went for it rather than try to hold onto a draw. Statistically this was the right call. We played better than Stoke overall and in 2 out of three games we would have won this at 1-1 with the subs he made pushing forward. If you can win 2 of these types of games and lose one you're still doing the right thing. Toward the end he was even telling Colocini to run up playing a 3-4-3.

 

What does this even mean? What statistics say we would win that game 2 out of 3 times?

 

We didn't play better overall. We played better in the first half (but created next to nothing) and they outplayed us in the second half. Even without the poor substitutions we probably would have lost or at least settled for a point. The horrible subs were the nail in the coffin.

 

 

[alpal78]

Barton was s****. How many times did he get into the box to support the strikers? If he can't do it in a home match when we have 64% of the possession when's he going to do it? Spent far too much time casually strolling around without any real intent.

 

 

 

He's not supposed to get into the box. He's a deep lying playmaker of a type. I feel sorry for him, cause he and Ben arfa had no one to pass to. And if you didn't see that you're blind. There was no forwards to support as there was no ball.

 

A more static offensive line than the one lead by Carroll and Nolan today is hard to find. Maybe if you put an old man and Jabbahdahut up top there be less movement.

 

Completely agree with this. In the first half when HBA dribbled past players he looked up that was absolutely no movement, nobody was making any runs...it's like they were all watching him and saying..."oooh lala he is a good player non"!

 

He inevitably tried the only option he had, to cross the ball, but that is playing right into Stoke's game plan...don't think many teams will beat Stoke via cross and headers. 

[jdckelly]

He got it wrong today simple as that, wrong starting 11 wrong formation and wrong changes.

But I still very much have faith in the man.

easy to say wrong starting 11 and formation in retrospect but at kick off i was happy with the side and at half time everything looked to be going well, what happened is for all our possession and good play in the 1st half we didnt create much in the way of chances, this i put down to stoke play more than our team because up til yesterday we have been making chances a plenty. 2nd half stoke were fired up by pulis's half time team talk and used their strength in set plays to win it and we didnt defend them well.

the lesson for the day imo is work on our set pieces both attacking (which were terrible today) and defending them.

[merlin]

His loyalty to his senior players like Nolan could be his undoing

 

This - Nolan did nowt apart from the pen and a poor miss 2nd half and its obvious Hughton won't drop him.

Even if he did we have very little option to replace...

[merlin]

I see quite a few people saying he'll learn from his mistakes but considering the length of time he's been in football he should already know some things without needing to learn them now.

 

Chucking high balls to Carroll was never going to be very effective against Stoke. Then there's the limited movement of Carroll and Nolan up front, so our creative passers had little to aim for, no space was created. You could argue he doesn't have the players to play up front but Ranger would have been more effctive than Carroll today. Subbing off Barfa and then Tiote was just bizarre, he played into Stokes hands.

 

There is a problem with Barfa coming inside in that it prevents Enrique bombing forward, but that wouldn't of course be a problem if Barfa was playing in Nolans position and Jonas was on the wing.

 

Couldn't agree more. We were never going to beat Stoke by getting in a battle with them. We should have hit their lumbering defenders with speed and skill, HBA had plenty of joy in the first half had anyone had the wit or movement to make the most of it. I like Hughton but he needs to show a bit more faith in his football principles instead of trying to shoehorn all his favourite characters into the team and playing safe.

 

All true - agree about Barton too, because playing a 4-5-1, esp at home, puts huge responsibility on ALL the midfield players to support the CF ; esp when he's having a tough day as was Carroll.

Main problem is we haven't got enough pace on the flanks - Gutierrez and Enrique are a better pairing there than Jose and HBA. HBA needs to play in Nolan's position with Guti on the flank. You then have the problem of Guti's poor crossing and final pass......

As was said before the season , we are short of a couple of players - a striker and a creative midfielder who can put accurate passes through a tall massed defence.

[alpal78]

I see quite a few people saying he'll learn from his mistakes but considering the length of time he's been in football he should already know some things without needing to learn them now.

 

Chucking high balls to Carroll was never going to be very effective against Stoke. Then there's the limited movement of Carroll and Nolan up front, so our creative passers had little to aim for, no space was created. You could argue he doesn't have the players to play up front but Ranger would have been more effctive than Carroll today. Subbing off Barfa and then Tiote was just bizarre, he played into Stokes hands.

 

There is a problem with Barfa coming inside in that it prevents Enrique bombing forward, but that wouldn't of course be a problem if Barfa was playing in Nolans position and Jonas was on the wing.

 

Couldn't agree more. We were never going to beat Stoke by getting in a battle with them. We should have hit their lumbering defenders with speed and skill, HBA had plenty of joy in the first half had anyone had the wit or movement to make the most of it. I like Hughton but he needs to show a bit more faith in his football principles instead of trying to shoehorn all his favourite characters into the team and playing safe.

 

All true - agree about Barton too, because playing a 4-5-1, esp at home, puts huge responsibility on ALL the midfield players to support the CF ; esp when he's having a tough day as was Carroll.

Main problem is we haven't got enough pace on the flanks - Gutierrez and Enrique are a better pairing there than Jose and HBA. HBA needs to play in Nolan's position with Guti on the flank. You then have the problem of Guti's poor crossing and final pass......

As was said before the season , we are short of a couple of players - a striker and a creative midfielder who can put accurate passes through a tall massed defence.

 

You made some good points but can't agree with the part of the creative midfielder. We have one already and probably one of the best in the league, it's just that a) Hughton is blind and can't seem to drop Nolan and let that creative midfielder play where he is supposed to and ii) even when he did roam to the middle to try and influence the game more, there were absolutely no movement upfront...nobody was making any runs at all!

 

HBA got frustrated being stuck on the lef that he was going inside and even to the right to try and make something, but that inevitable meant that we lost our shape.

 

If Hughton only had the balls to drop Nolan, that would solve quite a few problems. a) HBA would be more influential and he can be given the freedom to play across the park and b) with Jonas on the left, we would not be losing our shape that often with the added bonus of getting back the Enrique + Jonas combo. The only downside I see is that with Jonas on the left, yes we would have to endure some of his shit crosses, but that would be more movement and I quite fancy Jonas and HBA combining well with short and run passes.

 

 

[ElDiablo]

Picked the right team but piss poor subs and obviously not a very inspiring HT talk. Like someone said, his loyalty to Nolan could cost us and him badly.

[Guest firetotheworks]

The subs were very accurate in their shitness like, especially the Tiote one. Fucking baffling decision.

[ohmelads]

Agree about the lack of movement up front. Carroll's partly to blame, it wasn't one of his better games. We really need a more attacking shape against teams like Stoke and Blackpool at home. 4-4-2 with Ben Arfa central off Carroll with Gutierrez on the wing would give us more options in the final third. We weren't lacking width but we were lacking runs into the box.

 

I thought Hughton was a little bit negative with the formation but to be fair we were playing good stuff in the first half. It was good to see us utterly control the half. I thought Hughton's subs weren't bad to be fair, Ben Arfa and Tiote weren't getting into the game and he had to do something because Stoke were getting into the game more and more. I thought the players took too long to react to Stoke's second half revival. We should have been slowing the game down and keeping possession, frustrating them and hitting them on the counter. In other words using our lead. Stoke looked more up for it second half and we have been mugged a bit really because we didn't deserve to lose.

 

As for Pulis's comments about play acting, I'm not sure what game he was watching. It's a bit rich coming from him given the amount of time wasting Rory Delap does drying the ball and dusting himself off for a f*cking throw in. If he takes 20 or 30 seconds to take a throw in he should be booked.

[merlin]

I see quite a few people saying he'll learn from his mistakes but considering the length of time he's been in football he should already know some things without needing to learn them now.

 

Chucking high balls to Carroll was never going to be very effective against Stoke. Then there's the limited movement of Carroll and Nolan up front, so our creative passers had little to aim for, no space was created. You could argue he doesn't have the players to play up front but Ranger would have been more effctive than Carroll today. Subbing off Barfa and then Tiote was just bizarre, he played into Stokes hands.

 

There is a problem with Barfa coming inside in that it prevents Enrique bombing forward, but that wouldn't of course be a problem if Barfa was playing in Nolans position and Jonas was on the wing.

 

Couldn't agree more. We were never going to beat Stoke by getting in a battle with them. We should have hit their lumbering defenders with speed and skill, HBA had plenty of joy in the first half had anyone had the wit or movement to make the most of it. I like Hughton but he needs to show a bit more faith in his football principles instead of trying to shoehorn all his favourite characters into the team and playing safe.

 

All true - agree about Barton too, because playing a 4-5-1, esp at home, puts huge responsibility on ALL the midfield players to support the CF ; esp when he's having a tough day as was Carroll.

Main problem is we haven't got enough pace on the flanks - Gutierrez and Enrique are a better pairing there than Jose and HBA. HBA needs to play in Nolan's position with Guti on the flank. You then have the problem of Guti's poor crossing and final pass......

As was said before the season , we are short of a couple of players - a striker and a creative midfielder who can put accurate passes through a tall massed defence.

 

You made some good points but can't agree with the part of the creative midfielder. We have one already and probably one of the best in the league, it's just that a) Hughton is blind and can't seem to drop Nolan and let that creative midfielder play where he is supposed to and ii) even when he did roam to the middle to try and influence the game more, there were absolutely no movement upfront...nobody was making any runs at all!

 

HBA got frustrated being stuck on the lef that he was going inside and even to the right to try and make something, but that inevitable meant that we lost our shape.

 

If Hughton only had the balls to drop Nolan, that would solve quite a few problems. a) HBA would be more influential and he can be given the freedom to play across the park and b) with Jonas on the left, we would not be losing our shape that often with the added bonus of getting back the Enrique + Jonas combo. The only downside I see is that with Jonas on the left, yes we would have to endure some of his s*** crosses, but that would be more movement and I quite fancy Jonas and HBA combining well with short and run passes.

 

 

 

I made that point in my post on the match summary thread - trouble is, that if Hughton WON'T drop Nolan or take him off when he should, we are going to lose matches....and Hughton will eventually lose his job.

[merlin]

You've got to like the man...and has definitely improved the side. Don't think anyones saying he completely inept though either but taking Tiote off and leaving an anonymous Nolan on. Tis' asking to be questioned. Pulis' changes definitely helped but its double jeopardy with that sort of thinking

 

Taking off a defensive player and leaving on an offensive player when we need a goal. Shocking that like.

 

Tiote's not a defensive player from what I've seen so far though, he wins it but also drives us forward (far more than the insipid Barton who is trying to perfect the Nicky Butt aimless chip into the corner).

 

Tiote was absolutely bossing the central midfield imo.

 

Barton was better than Tiote today. Barton's passing was nearly perfect for the whole game.

 

u watching another game?  he had a few great hollywood passes but his crossing corners and freekicks was horrible f***ing horrible.  his second half perfomance was piss poor, and this is coming from a barton fan.

 

I've said that before, they took him out of the game in the 2nd half near perfectly because he was running the show in the 1st half.

 

I can't remember doing Tiote anything what was really countable today.

 

CH had some tough choices today in a very tight match in which  although we dominated posession, we very rarely gave Stoke serious problems even in the first half ( i think only 2 shots on target was the stat iirc). There was something missing from the players (perhaps the ususal suspects) in the second half and Nolan alwaus looks knackered to me after 60 odd mins. Chris has got a lot right over the last couple of weeks and I don't really want to have rip into him at all. But...I would question taking off Hba who kept their whole right side pinned back in fear and not taking Nolan off for Shola. Bringing Shola on for Tiote was a gamble cause he was our only real protection against a big phyiscal side. Once he came off they cruised throught the middle at will. Anywat the team is still developing and there will be close games where we win.

 

Team still developing? We have only made 2 changes since last season and apart from Carroll, NONE of them are exactly youngsters are they..?

Simple fact is we do NOT have enough quality in crucial positions and the manager is reluctant to drop Nolan.

[merlin]

Barton was s****. How many times did he get into the box to support the strikers? If he can't do it in a home match when we have 64% of the possession when's he going to do it? Spent far too much time casually strolling around without any real intent.

 

 

Striker. It is Nolan's job to support our striker, not Barton's.

 

Yes it is - if you persist in playing ONE man up front in a home game, BOTH attacking midfielders are responsible for supporting the striker...and Nolan doesn't do it anyway. I think Barton is not properly fit.

[Guest sittingontheball]

Agree about the lack of movement up front. Carroll's partly to blame, it wasn't one of his better games. We really need a more attacking shape against teams like Stoke and Blackpool at home. 4-4-2 with Ben Arfa central off Carroll with Gutierrez on the wing would give us more options in the final third. We weren't lacking width but we were lacking runs into the box.

 

I thought Hughton was a little bit negative with the formation but to be fair we were playing good stuff in the first half. It was good to see us utterly control the half. I thought Hughton's subs weren't bad to be fair, Ben Arfa and Tiote weren't getting into the game and he had to do something because Stoke were getting into the game more and more. I thought the players took too long to react to Stoke's second half revival. We should have been slowing the game down and keeping possession, frustrating them and hitting them on the counter. In other words using our lead. Stoke looked more up for it second half and we have been mugged a bit really because we didn't deserve to lose.

 

As for Pulis's comments about play acting, I'm not sure what game he was watching. It's a bit rich coming from him given the amount of time wasting Rory Delap does drying the ball and dusting himself off for a f*cking throw in. If he takes 20 or 30 seconds to take a throw in he should be booked.

 

Agree with a lot of that. They were looking odds-on to score even before the substitutions. When Stoke actually started coming forward, we should have been able to find space near their goal that they had successfully crowded out first half. Instead we couldn't keep the ball and allowed more and more pressure to develop.

 

Personally I'd like Ben Arfa stay outside a bit more to stretch the play and get isolated on defenders instead of coming inside and facing two or three of them.

[womblemaster]

Looks like teams have sussed us out, and we dont have plan B.  We are a 1 one dimensional team who are above ave, without being brilliant.  IF a team nullifies our main way of playing we have nothing else in reply.

 

PLan B is seemingly to get it on carrols head, sadly tho, the crossing just isnt there.

 

Not sure hughton is learning fast enough between games.  He seems to be clinging to tactics that worked 6months ago, and doesnt as yet have anything new for this lvl of play.

Hes gonna have to create a min of one ofther style of play so we can alternate, and throw teams out of tempo.  Far too sterile atmo.

 

Nolan should be used as a 2nd halfsub at home.  Ben arfa(starting) off carrolL with jonas starting, and replaced with Ferguson as replacement (he can actually cross).