A question to the Hughes Outers

[Prestwich_Blue]

Prestwich blue you're clutching at straws pal. The reason why I'm not going over Hughes performance as manager is because it's been done over and over again. He was shit and was rightly sacked, end of conversation.

The new conversation is whether or not Mancini is good enough and at the moment he's making too many mistakes to be confident in him but given he's been in the job 5 minutes and has inherited another mans team I will give him the benefit of the doubt for now.

You're right that Hughes is history but he wasn't shit and I'm pretty confident that he wasn't sacked because of his performance in a handful of games, whatever Cook said. There was more to it than just that.

I don't think Mancini has quite grasped the Premiership yet but he is hopefully learning. The next few games will will be crucial. We really need 3 points on Sunday and I would hope that the players raise their game for it.

 

[masterwig]

Where we struggle is by getting "bullied" by big teams. This was the same under Hughes especially away from home.

This season under Hughes we lost two away games. Once at the rags where we gave them a good game. Certainly not bullied in that one. The other was at Spurs where we were woeful, not sure it was a case of being bullied because they play good football but we were crap that day. We showed the strength to come from behind against Villa, Wigan (with ten men), Liverpool, Bolton (with ten men). I don't think we were bullied generally. Perhaps we failed to take full control of games and dictate the play as the top sides do but we hardly rolled over and died.

Under Mancini we were bullied out of it at Everton and Hull in two of his four league away games. That isn't a good start. Against Stoke we showed some strength to get the late equaliser but this was against a team we had allowed to take the lead with ten men. And after we equalised they had a goal disallowed that on another day would have stood. After the next three away games (Chelsea, Fulham and Sunderland) we will have a better picture of whether we do get more away points under Mancini than Hughes. At the moment we can consider them level (assuming Hughes would have drawn all four games and with Mancini winning one, drawing one and losing two) but the sample is too limited to tell us an awful lot.

As I said earlier, we need to give him time to show a bigger selection of results before a fair comparison is made (remember how Pearce did so well early on?), you cannot be comparing points per game over half a season with points per game over eight games. If Mancini can get us the results we need then I will be the first to praise him. But at the moment I only see us getting worse and have very little confidence in our manager.

 

[Bill]

Un-be-fucking-lievable.

Fourth in lge. Game in hand. Second best form team in lge. And many on here are harking back to the promised land of mid table mediocrity. 8 draws in a row. Can't defend won't defend.

What woulld you rather have? The best chance in generations of seeing us achieve a top lge position or finishing mid table again getting knocked out of the cup by the
mighty forest.

If the clueless wanker had still been here we would have likely finished 8/9/10th. We would still have had robinho taking the piss out of us. Instead we are heading upwards to fourth. The lazy useless "best footballer in the world (TM)" has gone back to a footballing backwater where he deserves to be (the Brazilian league is utter shite).

When we beat pool on sunday we will be 4pts clear of 4th with a game in hand.

Some knobs on here are claiming we've been lucky to win games under Mancini. Maybe. But we were definitely lucky against Bolton,burnley and hull under Hughes.

ANY city fan clamouring for the return of Hughes or whinging that he shouldn't have been sacked is either a second rate carpet salesman or NOT a city
fan. Or worse. A "city fan" that jumped on the bandwagon when the
money came into play.

Unbelievable. Carry on whinging knobheads and cry when our owners decide this game isn't worth the candle and move on.

Be very careful what you wish for.

i think this is a pop at me for some reason.

first, dont pick on me, not wise,
the "nobheads" have their opinion just like the people who did'nt rate hughes.
i dont know if you have been watching the games but the moans and groans at last night match was all to see, that was just with the line up.
we did have a good spell and had we had swp on earlier, stevie from the start we would have won that game. viera did nothing last night except give the ball away at every oppotunity. in his day he was a class act but against stoke, at stoke it was the wrong desision to play him.then whilst looking to get 3 points from somewhere bob brings zab on,why? he then kicked the ball out for a delap throw and led to their "winner".
the way i see it we only play half a game, every game we are dire for 45 minutes, if we do that in the run in, with the teams yet to play we will end up 10th.
no doubt you will come back playing the big city fan but take a look around, no one fears manchester city, home or away, that with our players is criminal.
p.s.
dont start coming on here say people who dont agree "are not city fans" i can assure you they are. when you've been here a while you get the to see that.

i too posted that we should be careful for what and this what we have now, we have sacked a manager, mid season, its a disgraceful way i might add and it has got us precisley nowhere.this why bob should be given the job and the money to buy the players that understand his bizarre tactics, in fact what we should have done in january.

lastly, if our owners do pull the plug city will still be city, any league, any level, city are city, we will still be here.well i will.

 

[Bill]

I have to hold my hands up, I was 100% Hughes out, and happy that he went before the January window, thinking that the new manager would have the time to spend and improve in January to push us on to top 4.

I also thought I would be happy with Hughes out if either Mourinho or Hiddink replaced him - I was surprised at Mancini's appointment.

The spend never happened and we are playing worse football under Mancini. Every change of manager brings a run of good results, but now this effect has worn off and we are playing terrible football.

Sometimes I despaired at Hughes' tactics but Mancini is making him look like a tactical genius. The final straw for Hughes in my eyes was on a freezing February afternoon in the FA cup at COMS. I was hungover and watching Hughes sub an attacking midfielder for a defensive one at 2-0 down at home vs Championship opposition was ludicrous.

But Mancini has done this on numerous occasions now. His tactics defy common sense:

- Petrov on the right
- Johnson on the right
- Not starting SWP
- 3 DMs
- Faith in Zabaleta who is clearly not good enough


Im clinging on to the belief that Mancini is short term and Mourinho WILL be here in the summer and we WILL spend big again on the likes of Torres.

great post, i was against the sacking of hughes yet knew it had to come, like you i thought new man jan window etc. could'nt have been more wrong.
the main reason for my stance on hughes was i hate the instability that has left us a laughing stock since the swales days.manager after manager coming and going. if bob is a temp tell us, tell the players, half of them will leave if this defensive football continues.

 

[PragueBlue]

This by no means is a 'I want to get your back up' kind of question. Its a genuine question which, in most cases, (depending on the mental age of the poster), should be a one word answer. My question is this. You wanted Hughes gone, fair enough that was your opinion, however based on how we're playing and how we STILL are not beating teams we 'should' be beating, are you still of the mindset that he should have gone? As i say its a genuine question and i'd appreciate genuine answers, not answers off little no-marks like Soulboy who just berate anything against anything Blue. I know you weren't 'Hughes outers, Mancini Inners', therefore Mancini was probably not on your minds, but now you have had your wish and Hughes is gone, we're out of the cup and doing equally as poor in the league under Mancini, do you still think it was right to get rid?

Haven't read all the posts so my comments have most likely been posted elsewhere but:

Wanted Hughes gone and still glad he's gone. Whether or not Mancini is the right man for the job or not remains to be seen but either way Hughes still wasn't the right one so getting rid wasn't a mistake.

Actually we are doing better in the league. When Mancini was offered the job we were 8th. We're now 4th.

Mancini's working at present with Hughes's rather unbalanced and IMO overrated squad. I hope he gets at least a full season and the chance to bring in a couple of the type of players that are desperately needed.

 

[tonea2003]

I have to hold my hands up, I was 100% Hughes out, and happy that he went before the January window, thinking that the new manager would have the time to spend and improve in January to push us on to top 4.

I also thought I would be happy with Hughes out if either Mourinho or Hiddink replaced him - I was surprised at Mancini's appointment.

The spend never happened and we are playing worse football under Mancini. Every change of manager brings a run of good results, but now this effect has worn off and we are playing terrible football.

Sometimes I despaired at Hughes' tactics but Mancini is making him look like a tactical genius. The final straw for Hughes in my eyes was on a freezing February afternoon in the FA cup at COMS. I was hungover and watching Hughes sub an attacking midfielder for a defensive one at 2-0 down at home vs Championship opposition was ludicrous.

But Mancini has done this on numerous occasions now. His tactics defy common sense:

- Petrov on the right
- Johnson on the right
- Not starting SWP
- 3 DMs
- Faith in Zabaleta who is clearly not good enough


Im clinging on to the belief that Mancini is short term and Mourinho WILL be here in the summer and we WILL spend big again on the likes of Torres.

great post, i was against the sacking of hughes yet knew it had to come, like you i thought new man jan window etc. could'nt have been more wrong.
the main reason for my stance on hughes was i hate the instability that has left us a laughing stock since the swales days.manager after manager coming and going. if bob is a temp tell us, tell the players, half of them will leave if this defensive football continues.

mancini has or is trying to address the defensive frailties of the hughes era which clearly couldn't continue(by the way i was against the sacking of hughes for the same continunity reasons)
maybe bobby has gone too far defensively but the results are coming the league position tells you so.
tougher tests await us for sure and you could argue thats when we perform.
we all need to keep the faith as you clearly are
its coming it really is

 

[Lomas has a lob on]

These defensive tactics that are being employed im sure are just to shore us up defensivley, and get us through til the end of the season, it wont be pretty, but can anyone honestly say they'll be gutted if we limped to 4th, playing negative football? Mancini has never been recognised as a negative coach at previous clubs, it's because he's Italian, people are just presuming this is his preferd tactic, it's not, we were wank at defending, conceeding 3 at home to Burnley, 3 at home to Sunderland is nothing short of criminal, now Roberto has come in identified the problem and is doing his upmost to rectify it, naturally taking away some of our attacking flair. Its not Robertos fault Hughes was sacked, people need to get behind him and more importantly the players, and let him be judged on his results, his signings, and his tactics, and ultimateley where we he gets us.

 

[ono]

People aren't realising this for some reason, but we are a poor team away from home and lately at home, because we don't keep the ball. We cannot string passes together because the players we currently have in midfield aren't good enough to do so when put under any real pressure.

Now Hughes was the one who spent over £200m without buying anyone to rectify this problem.

Ireland, Barry and De Jong are all good players, but sadly they're not the sort of players who will get you many points away from home against tough or good sides. This is because they aren't mobile enough and they aren't good enough to keep the ball whilst playing at a high tempo. It would also help if we had technically skilled full backs who could join in. Bridge is okay, but both Zabba and Richards are both technically pretty limited.

Maybe i'm doing a dis-service to Ireland in saying all this as technically speaking he is very good, but he needs to show the character and personality where he can dominate a game away from Coms....like Gerrard can or like Lampard can or like Fabregas can.

Normally what should happen for a decent side away from home is they will keep the ball under pressure and as a team they will advance upfield. Then they will attempt to pen teams into their own half. This then allows the forwards to operate in an area where they are their most dangerous - the penalty area.

Plus this type of ball retention takes any sting out of the game and it rids the home team of any momentum that can be gained from the crowds reaction.

What actually happens to us, is we don't do any of that, and as a team we don't really advance that far with the ball. This leaves Adebayor looking isolated and lazy (which isn't really true). Tevez and Bellamy can mask over this huge problem by chasing everything, but when we have two strikers who don't do that, they will always get labelled as lazy. Just like Robinho did, and just like Adebayor does when things don't go well for him....despite him at times chasing several lost causes.

So to summarise, Mancini can only work with what he's got. It's no coincedence that he spent the January market looking for central midfielders.

 

[Deleted member 14625]

we're 4th mate, Mancini has now W5 D1 L2
16 points from 8 games
how is that so bad, we're not playing great but we picked up a point away tonight and we still win at home, what is so seriously wrong with that?

A point at a place only Chelsea United and two other teams, I've forgotten who, have won at in the last 18months! I'm actually feeling quite good about our situation!

 

[moomba]

At the moment we can consider them level (assuming Hughes would have drawn all four games and with Mancini winning one, drawing one and losing two) but the sample is too limited to tell us an awful lot.

At the moment under Mancini we are getting more points, and a better defensively.

We score at about the same rate as we did before.

It may be in the future that we can consider them level, or Hughes may even be proven to be the better person in charge. But at the moment Mancini is an improvement in just about any category you could think of.