The old Chris Hughton discussion thread

[Ronaldo]

Goalscorers in the squad would be nice, Chris.

[Dokko]

Chris Hughton believed Newcastle learned a valuable lesson after Stoke came from behind to win at St James' Park.

 

Kevin Nolan put the Magpies ahead via the penalty spot two minutes before the interval after Andy Carroll was blocked by Robert Huth in the box.

 

But the Potters improved after the break and levelled via Kenwyne Jones before James Perch headed into his own net late on as Newcastleslumped to a second successive home defeat after the loss to Blackpool the time before.

 

Hughton told Sky Sports: "We perhaps needed to do more to go and win the game and we did not.

 

"At times our final ball let us down, we did not test a back four that is very strong, didn't test them enough and I think we have perhaps learnt something today."

 

Hughton added he was realistic to know his side will face tough tests this season as they seek to establish themselves back in the top flight.

 

"We are now playing in a lot tougher league than we were last season," he said.

 

"We knew that there were going to be lows. We knew we're going to lose more games than what we did last season and it is about picking up this group of lads, having that same belief that we have had in the last couple of games (victories at Everton and Chelsea) and going into the next games and learning the valuable lessons that we have to learn from each game."

[Dokko]

Somehow I think Hughton will miss the real lessons to be learned here.

 

 

[binnsy]

hindsight is a wonderful thing,  at the match yesterday i agreed with his subs at the time,  for me it was a toss up between HBA and routledge and both were out the game and quiet at the time of the substitution(would've preferred routledge off tho) and in a home game when we were looking to win the game you don't need a defensive midfielder in the side.

[Guest firetotheworks]

hindsight is a wonderful thing,  at the match yesterday i agreed with his subs at the time,  for me it was a toss up between HBA and routledge and both were out the game and quiet at the time of the substitution(would've preferred routledge off tho) and in a home game when we were looking to win the game you don't need a defensive midfielder in the side.

 

That's not a one size fits all though. Tiote was mopping everything up, and stopping a lot of their attacks from their source. It was a baffling decision to take him off.

 

[binnsy]

hindsight is a wonderful thing,  at the match yesterday i agreed with his subs at the time,  for me it was a toss up between HBA and routledge and both were out the game and quiet at the time of the substitution(would've preferred routledge off tho) and in a home game when we were looking to win the game you don't need a defensive midfielder in the side.

 

That's not a one size fits all though. Tiote was mopping everything up, and stopping a lot of their attacks from their source. It was a baffling decision to take him off.

 

 

yes i know but who was more likely to pop up and get us a possible winner,  Tiote or Nolan/Barton??

 

its not as if we were defending a point, we were trying to get 3.

[Cronky]

Enrique's comments on Hughton's post-match rocket to the team.

 

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/newcastle-united/nufc-news//tm_headline=magpies-ace-enrique-reveals-hughton-s-fury%26method=full%26objectid=27349464%26siteid=72703-name_page.html

 

Just a little worrying. I'd tend to agree with Enrique - that it's better to leave these inquests for a point when everyone's calmed down a bit. There are some managers who make a policy of this.

[TRon]

Hughton added he was realistic to know his side will face tough tests this season as they seek to establish themselves back in the top flight.

 

"We are now playing in a lot tougher league than we were last season," he said.

 

Even last season we were often outplayed by second tier teams but at that level you don't get punished. I think Hughton would be better off not dwelling too much on losing goals to set pieces, but why in the second half we couldn't keep possession which allowed them to pressure us into conceding free kicks. Stoke barely has a kick in the first half and HBA was one of the highlights as he brought the ball out and rarely lost the ball. Then Hughton subbed him and we lost two goals.

[Guest firetotheworks]

That quote by Enrique saying that people say the wrong things directly after a match sounds a bit worrying. 

[colinmk]

hindsight is a wonderful thing,  at the match yesterday i agreed with his subs at the time,  for me it was a toss up between HBA and routledge and both were out the game and quiet at the time of the substitution(would've preferred routledge off tho) and in a home game when we were looking to win the game you don't need a defensive midfielder in the side.

 

That's what I thought when I was watching the match on TV. Same goes with your point about goalscorers being on for the Tiote sub, agreed with that at the time too. Nolan had that chance at the end, missed it the cunt. The best solution for everything of course would be to drop Nolan.

[Guest BlacknWhiteArmy]

I do understand why HBA was brought off, he wasn't very effective and looked a bit tired, but bringing off Tiote was strange. Hughton has brought off Nolan before in favour of a striker (Ameobi) and the same should have been done yesterday. Although Tiote wasn't "great" yesterday he would have perhaps kept us solid against their pressure for longer and kept the game at 1-1 or won it.

[jdckelly]

I do understand why HBA was brought off, he wasn't very effective and looked a bit tired, but bringing off Tiote was strange. Hughton has brought off Nolan before in favour of a striker (Ameobi) and the same should have been done yesterday. Although Tiote wasn't "great" yesterday he would have perhaps kept us solid against their pressure for longer and kept the game at 1-1 or won it.

i think it was a case of going for it tbh with tiote coming off, fairly standard stuff take off the holding player and shove on a striker, problem is shola and carroll cant really play together if you ask me more a case of lovenkrands for tiote and shola for carroll imo but easy to say that in hindsight

[broonalegeordie]

I believe in Hughtinho.... he will get it right.....

[Parky]

Said he made the changes because he wanted to have goal-scorers on the pitch, hmmm

 

If the goalscoreres can't get the ball cause we've lost our midfield shape and Tiote isn't there to get the ball back it's completely pointless.

[Guest neesy111]

Said he made the changes because he wanted to have goal-scorers on the pitch, hmmm

 

If the goalscoreres can't get the ball cause we've lost our midfield shape and Tiote isn't there to get the ball back it's completely pointless.

 

Exactly what I was thinking.

[Guest BlacknWhiteArmy]

I agree with the HBA part, he didn't look too good yesterday, but I still would have rather had Tiote on the pitch than Nolan

[TRon]

I do understand why HBA was brought off, he wasn't very effective and looked a bit tired, but bringing off Tiote was strange. Hughton has brought off Nolan before in favour of a striker (Ameobi) and the same should have been done yesterday. Although Tiote wasn't "great" yesterday he would have perhaps kept us solid against their pressure for longer and kept the game at 1-1 or won it.

 

I don't know how anyone can say HBA wasn't very effective. He was keeping possession, beating players at will and releasing the ball to team mates...there's not really a lot more he can do other than either walk the ball into the net or get on the end of his own passes.  I would suggest the problems were elsewhere and trying to batter Stokes massive defenders with Carroll and Nolan wasn't a great game plan.

[Guest neesy111]

Am I the only person who thought the subs actually worked yesterday?

 

Jonas was a massive improvement on Ben Arfa who was poor.

 

Tiote played well, but the shift to a straight (and more attacking 442) saw us play better football in attacking areas when we were trying to win the game.

 

Tiote and Ben Arfa would not have stopped the individual mistakes that led to their goals.

 

The change in system saw us at least create a few scoring chances.

 

I think Hughton's getting stick because he took off the new signings, regardless of whether it helped when they went off (which it did - certainly in Ben Arfa's case).

 

He got stick mainly because he didn't take off Nolan, who was the most ineffective player on the pitch yesterday.

[steve_69]

Am I the only person who thought the subs actually worked yesterday?

 

Jonas was a massive improvement on Ben Arfa who was poor.

 

Tiote played well, but the shift to a straight (and more attacking 442) saw us play better football in attacking areas when we were trying to win the game.

 

Tiote and Ben Arfa would not have stopped the individual mistakes that led to their goals.

 

The change in system saw us at least create a few scoring chances.

 

I think Hughton's getting stick because he took off the new signings, regardless of whether it helped when they went off (which it did - certainly in Ben Arfa's case).

 

Nope, I thought they worked too. The subs definitely made an impact when they came on but I was a bit disappointed that he took off Ben Arfa instead of Routledge, who was virtually anonymous for the whole second half.

I can understand taking Tiote off because Stoke were becoming more and more direct. There was no point in him standing there watching the ball sail over his head, and he was very little use defending set pieces because he's a midget.

 

 

[Wullie]

Hughton needs to address the lack of movement up front. After we signed Routledge, he and Lovenkrands would constantly open defences up with the former playing through balls for the latter, we scored a lot of goals like that after January. Whatever you think of Lovenkrands, we desperately miss his movement because Carroll and Nolan have zero. Ben Arfa constantly picked the ball up waiting for a runner to go only to see the front pair standing still.

[Ash]

Am I the only person who thought the subs actually worked yesterday?

 

Jonas was a massive improvement on Ben Arfa who was poor.

 

Tiote played well, but the shift to a straight (and more attacking 442) saw us play better football in attacking areas when we were trying to win the game.

 

Tiote and Ben Arfa would not have stopped the individual mistakes that led to their goals.

 

The change in system saw us at least create a few scoring chances.

 

I think Hughton's getting stick because he took off the new signings, regardless of whether it helped when they went off (which it did - certainly in Ben Arfa's case).

 

He got stick mainly because he didn't take off Nolan, who was the most ineffective player on the pitch yesterday.

 

Yeah, but he very nearly grabbed us a goal.

 

The same people would have been jumping for joy if that had gone in.

 

Fair enough he missed, but it's not like Tiote would have realistically been in a scoring position.

 

This is the issue with Nolan though. It's all well and good getting into these positions, but he isn't finishing them.

[Parky]

Am I the only person who thought the subs actually worked yesterday?

 

Jonas was a massive improvement on Ben Arfa who was poor.

 

Tiote played well, but the shift to a straight (and more attacking 442) saw us play better football in attacking areas when we were trying to win the game.

 

Tiote and Ben Arfa would not have stopped the individual mistakes that led to their goals.

 

The change in system saw us at least create a few scoring chances.

 

I think Hughton's getting stick because he took off the new signings, regardless of whether it helped when they went off (which it did - certainly in Ben Arfa's case).

 

Why was Bafra poor exactly? He's not going to score wondergoals every game. [/wink] He is the only player we have who can give good passes into the box and he did that, just that there wa nobody there except Carroll marked by about 500 Jabba's.

[Guest neesy111]

Am I the only person who thought the subs actually worked yesterday?

 

Jonas was a massive improvement on Ben Arfa who was poor.

 

Tiote played well, but the shift to a straight (and more attacking 442) saw us play better football in attacking areas when we were trying to win the game.

 

Tiote and Ben Arfa would not have stopped the individual mistakes that led to their goals.

 

The change in system saw us at least create a few scoring chances.

 

I think Hughton's getting stick because he took off the new signings, regardless of whether it helped when they went off (which it did - certainly in Ben Arfa's case).

 

He got stick mainly because he didn't take off Nolan, who was the most ineffective player on the pitch yesterday.

 

Yeah, but he very nearly grabbed us a goal.

 

The same people would have been jumping for joy if that had gone in.

 

Fair enough he missed, but it's not like Tiote would have realistically been in a scoring position.

 

This is the issue with Nolan though. It's all well and good getting into these positions, but he isn't finishing them.

 

That's true, the guy has missed some very good opportunities in recent games.

[Wullie]

Nolan's missed three what i would call sitters against wolves, blackpool and stoke. He gets away with it because he's not a striker yet also gets away with offering fuck all else because he's meant to be a striker! His defenders can't have it both ways.

[steve_69]

I can't understand why Lovenkrands isn't getting a chance in the team. He was excellent throughout the second half of last season and his pace is always a threat.

I believe Nolan has a role to play but second striker simply isn't it. He isn't quick enough and he and Carroll do not compliment each other's play at all.

Carroll is being nulified at the moment. Unless he scores from a set piece he is redundant because most of the work he does goes to waste. What's the point in flicking the ball on when there's no-one there to get it? Why bother holding the ball up when no-one is running past him?

 

I would actually rather see Lovenkrands playing up front on his own if that's the formation Hughton is going to continue with.