Ambivalent towards Hughes

[Feed-The-Goat]

yes give him time. 100% agree

 

[Mike D]

Which ever way you dress it up its results that count and Hughes isn't getting them. He can't keeping making excuses despite having spent £90mil and brought in 8 new players. The buck has to stop at his feet and if we don't putting in some descent performances and more importantly getting results sooner rather than later then he's a gonner

 

[Kinky Dribbler]

to be fair, joe royle didn't pick terry cooke because he was shit!

Off topic maybe, but Cooke wasn't shit, just not as good as Kennedy.

 

[dadnlad]

To be fair, I just cannot get the Forest game out of my head. I can take losing but the performance, players arguing, the earring incident, the lack of organisation, passion, and belief, the manager that just sat and watched and then when he made a change it was to swap Gelson with Hamann, was the last straw for me.

Then I look at some of the players Hughes is desperate to sign and I think he's gonna turn into Blackburn Rovers. Long ball tactics, dirty niggly players. I mean If Robbie Savage was 5 years younger he'd be a City player by now. We have more money than any Club in the world and we're getting knock backs for the likes of Craig Bellamy.

I'm sorry but I just don't have any faith in the manager.

Oh and you forgot Fernandez at right back against Liverpool.
TBF I'm neither for or against him anymore, I'm just waiting to see what happens.
Oh and Fernandez on the left against Forest when we had Garrido on the bench...
Oh and........

oh and richards at left back twice
oh and ........

 

[BobKowalski]

Oh goody..another pro-Hughes thread in disguise

Well to use an oft quoted phrase from the pro-Hughes secretariat

"Yawn"

 

[Bigga]

...Hughes has his faults, but unlike previous managers he's prepared to give all players a go even if he doesn't like them-elano, TBH, Jo, Hamman, Ball. Anyone remember Machin steadfastly refusing to play Moulden cos he didn't like him, Royle with Terry Cooke & Kinkladze, Keegan with Eyal. I think he's trying everything in his power to get results from players that he would get rid of tomorrow-and they know it. We've not won anything for 33 years and changed our manager constantly, now we can afford it i say keep the manager and let the players change for once, then i'll judge Hughes.

It's only this section I have issue with. You can't alienate players, leaving them out and fielding idiots that don't do anything for the team, without taking blame for that. Hughes has had his battles with certain players, of course, but one must be professional in using them and be one step ahead of those players he intends to be rid of. He's shown none of that nous, so he's in a similar vein to those managers you've highlighted. As a result, he's had to go back to Elano cos he has no other creative player that can unlock doors, other than Ireland.

I don't mind him wanting to get rid of Elano, that's his choice, but please be smart about what you're doing!

 

[myblueheaven]

To be fair, I just cannot get the Forest game out of my head. I can take losing but the performance, players arguing, the earring incident, the lack of organisation, passion, and belief, the manager that just sat and watched and then when he made a change it was to swap Gelson with Hamann, was the last straw for me.

Then I look at some of the players Hughes is desperate to sign and I think he's gonna turn into Blackburn Rovers. Long ball tactics, dirty niggly players. I mean If Robbie Savage was 5 years younger he'd be a City player by now. We have more money than any Club in the world and we're getting knock backs for the likes of Craig Bellamy.

I'm sorry but I just don't have any faith in the manager.

This is just absurd. How long you been supporting the lads?

If the players are going to argue then it's down to them. The performance was utterly shambolic and the lads who were on the pitch deserve the blame. To me it was a wake up call. If we are to make the necessary strides then these lads have to pick themselves up and start beating the sides they should beat. Hughes wasn't going to give them a bollocking in the middle of the pitch. he'll sort it out behind closed doors. If they can't fucking beat Forest then what fucking hope do we have in the League?

As for turning us into Blackburn, Robbie Savage is a dirty little shit and he was a dirty little shit before he played for Hughes. FACT.

As for getting knocked back for Bellamy, like it or not the word is out fella. We've got money now. Other clubs are going to see it as a payday. FACT.

Take your blinkers off.

 

[allblackcitizen]

Agree with the OP. We have too many players who are coasting and who don't have what it takes to push on and improve themselves. It's the legacy of decades of underachievement. Way too many players have come to City in the knowledge that there are no great expectations on them. Until 5 months ago that is. Now they are being found out, because they simply don't have the mindset or the ability to meet the new expectations. The honourable exception is Superman, who has admitted to taking a long hard look at himself and working bloody hard to improve. The rest need to be weeded out, but it can't be done in one fell swoop. You can't just bin half your team when you have no-one to replace them with.

 

[PistonBlue]

To be fair, I just cannot get the Forest game out of my head. I can take losing but the performance, players arguing, the earring incident, the lack of organisation, passion, and belief, the manager that just sat and watched and then when he made a change it was to swap Gelson with Hamann, was the last straw for me.

Then I look at some of the players Hughes is desperate to sign and I think he's gonna turn into Blackburn Rovers. Long ball tactics, dirty niggly players. I mean If Robbie Savage was 5 years younger he'd be a City player by now. We have more money than any Club in the world and we're getting knock backs for the likes of Craig Bellamy.

I'm sorry but I just don't have any faith in the manager.

This is just absurd. No it isn't

How long you been supporting the lads? I'm 35, been a season ticket holder since I was 10, although what this matters I know not

If the players are going to argue then it's down to them. The performance was utterly shambolic and the lads who were on the pitch deserve the blame.
It's alright saying it's all down to the players, but the fact is it's actually down to the manager. If players aren't happy it down to the manager to find out why and find the solution. What worries me is that some of the players, too many of them from are unhappy BECAUSE of the manager! And you're right it was shambolic, that is the most disorganised bunch of players I've seen in a long time.

To me it was a wake up call.Fucking right it was!

If we are to make the necessary strides then these lads have to pick themselves up and start beating the sides they should beat. Hughes wasn't going to give them a bollocking in the middle of the pitch. he'll sort it out behind closed doors. Will he now? You'd have thought Hughes had learned a lesson when he picked a weakend side to play Brighton

If they can't fucking beat Forest then what fucking hope do we have in the League?My fears exactly

As for turning us into Blackburn, Robbie Savage is a dirty little shit and he was a dirty little shit before he played for Hughes. FACT.Mark Hughes signed Savage for Blackburn. FACT. Because Savage is Hughes's kind of player

As for getting knocked back for Bellamy, like it or not the word is out fella. We've got money now. Other clubs are going to see it as a payday. FACT. My point being, fella, we are loaded but Hughes wants us to buy players like Craig Bellamy, and we'll end up paying way over the odds for a journeyman player like Bellamy, ditto for RSC. He's going for these players because he's struggling to persuade top notch players to come and play for him

Take your blinkers off. I'll take mine off if you take yours off

 

[PragueBlue]

Which ever way you dress it up its results that count and Hughes isn't getting them. He can't keeping making excuses despite having spent £90mil and brought in 8 new players. The buck has to stop at his feet and if we don't putting in some descent performances and more importantly getting results sooner rather than later then he's a gonner

I agree that if the performances don't pick up, then he'll be gone at the end of the season and he might well be gone even if performances do pick up.

However, I think this comment that he has signed so many players and spent so much is, although factual, still a little misleading. Let's look at the players he has signed:

TBH - Not a success and as such he hasn't featured much of late but was supposedly good enough for Mourinho to sign. A risky purchase that hasn't really contributed anything.

Jo - Probably not Hughes' buy and hasn't yet settled to the premiership and thus hasn't contributed anything either.

Kompany - An excellent buy and at a reasonable price too. Unfortunately the pluses that he has brought to the team have been pretty much negated by the continuing absence of Johnson and the fact that Hamann (who provided us with much stability in midfield last year) has played a season too far.

SWP - Again a good buy but any positives from a pacy right winger have been negated by losing our pacy left winger and IMO, player of the season last year.

Robinho - A definite plus and I'm delighted to have him at City but perhaps at times makes the team a little unbalanced.

Zabaleta - Quality full back as was Corluka, so they cancel each other out.

Bridge - Not played yet.

You said 8 and I have only come up with 7 so I guess I'm leaving someone out but my point remains the same. There has been one bad buy that can really be attributed to Hughes (and that's TBH) and one where the blame perhaps lies elsewhere (Jo - although the optimist in me still has hope). Other buys have basically been cancelled out by injuries and sales to players in the same or similar positions.

So IMO Hughes has got pretty much a squad of similar ability to the squad of last season plus Robinho. Therefore while I would have expected results to have been a bit better than what we have seen so far, I wasn't expecting too much more from a team that surrendered all too easily last season. Hughes took over at a difficult time when team morale was supposedly low and our squad is/was quite unbalanced with a lack of ball winning ability, leadership and no real fit striker of any quality. These are the issues that I would expect Hughes to address in this window if he wishes to keep his job.

From a negative viewpoint, the thing that has surprised me most is our lack of organization, closing down of payers/tackling and work rate when we aren't in possession. This was one area where I thought Hughes would really improve us and that just hasn't happened. Some of his tactical decisions have also been somewhat baffling.

All in all, I think he has done just about OK and no more than that. If he address our major problems during this window, as well as on the training ground, I would expect to see us finish around 8th place which would be a reasonable achievement, though one which is unlikely to keep him in the job I feel.