Another boring Hughes thread/queston

[mancity5]

If Mark Hughes had not played for United and had played for City none of the questions on here would be been asked.
The fans would be behind him more and would chant his name.
I think it would be a good idea if with each member on here it showed how long they had supported City and then we would see if it is the newish City fans that are constantly slagging him off.
It is pathetic that these Hughes threads are cropping up all the time!!!

Been going 35 years,, is it ok for me to think he is a useless manager ?

 

[ManCityFC]

I believe in his ability to build a team, don't believe in his ability to use someone elses team. Give this squad time to gel and we'll probably compete with the top 4, now you might say that its the money but he is consistently good at signing players.

However, unless we show signs of wanting to pass a ball then I guess my support will diminish. I don't really care if we look shite at times, its to be expected but our best performance was played on the counter attack. We look incapable of doing anything but having fast players run into space. Eventually I think that will be addressed by tall players and wide men who can cross consistently, don't think thats the right way to go though.

I'll give Hughes till the end of the season but if I see no improvement (It doesn't even need to be that, it could just be signs we're improving) then I want a manager who will make us play the right way, this is regardless of whether he wins the CC or we somehow stumble into the top 4.

THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS

 

[moomba]

Not been on for a while...

and this was the first Hughes thread I come across, so I've not read up on all of them.
Has anyone posted the fact that we haven't won a game if the opposition score first since Hughes took over?
(I don't count an extra time win against Fulham reserves in that btw!)

Tells me that if Hughes' Plan A isn't working.. he hasn't got the tactical ability to change it to Plan B!!

Now I don't know if Hughes would turn us in to title contenders if he was given time.. but that is a frightening statistic for any team.. let alone one that has spent as much as we have!!

Thats quite an amazing stat, I'm quite surprised by that.

I've long thought that getting the first goal was very important for us, but had thought that we'd shown a bit more ability to fight back from a defecit. OBviously only enough to draw.

 

[2sheikhs]

Hughes has achieved NOTHING as a manager.Even son of baconface got 2 promotions and got flirted.I put Hughes in the same catagory as alladyce,royle,reid,bassett,mccarthy,southgate,pearce and megson.LIMITED.If anybody thinks that we would have drawn our last 5 games under Hiddink,Mourinho or Van Gall,you must be deluded.All i'm saying is it is inevitable he will be sacked.Why wait until we've finished 8th and hear him tell us we're going in the right direction.

Well for a start none of those guys have played at Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Man United under the tutelage of some of the biggest name coaches in world football.

Success is relative to the resources you are afforded and I think most people are missing this point. Just because Hughes hasn't won anything doesn't mean he isn't/can't be a great manager. Nobody can argue he did a poor job at either Wales or Blackburn.

Joe Royle did a fantastic job at Oldham taking them from the 2nd division to the premiership and to cup finals. Unsurprisingly he was a failure with City.

The arguments the anti-Hughes brigade make are flawed because the likes of Van Gaal and Hiddink either started their careers at top flight clubs without having managed at the top level before (hence a risk) or they started at smaller clubs to learn their trade and then a bigger club took a gamble on them (when they maybe hadn't won anything.

Big Names don't start as big names they are built Hiddink got the job at PSV (a big club) after being the reserve coach - he hadn't won anything either before getting that job.

Its fair to say he did win things pretty quickly but PSV were already top when he took over, we have a bigger mountain to climb.

Its about time we stuck with a manager and not go for one who is near pensionable age.

The managers you have mentioned didn't start as big names but earned their success.My point is City need a proven finished article,not take a chance on someone who might one day achieve greatness.

 

[JohnMaddocksAxe]

Are you aware of the meaning of the word 'ratio?'

It wasn't used by chance.

And you, and one or two others on the thread have not answered the question.

There's still 'everything in the garden is rosy', 'everything will turn out ok' (Which I agree with, for the reasons stated in the first post) and 'You don't like him becasue he is a rag' comments flooding in, but they are a bit tedious when the initial post poses a specific, separate question.

Is it really that difficult to attempt to answer it (in fairness, there are a couple of attempts)?

Okay it was a long post - I missed you use of the word 'ratio'. Judging him on this season (and we're only 11 games in) I believe that there have been more good perfomances than poor but I would equally argue that the rags 'ratio' of disappointing peformances to good performances has not been impressive and neither was it that great last season with 11 1-0 wins and 10 defeats or draws would make their ratio 50:50 an they won the premiership.

I also happen to think that money is a more important factor than the manager and that success for us is inevitable. That's why I can't understand the undue focus on Hughes. I also believe stability to be more important factor than having the biggest name manager in the world every season. Give Mourinho Burnley to manage and would he win the Premiership - no way. Give Owen Coyle 300-400 million or inheriting the Chelsea side and would he win the league ? More than likely.

If you seriously think that every performance is going to be fantastic then you have wholly unrealistic expectations and totally underestimate the competitive nature of the premier league.

Fair enough. If my post was excessively patronising, as Billy reckons, then it was drawn out more by the 'you don't like him because he is a rag' post msot of all. I don't think it was though, but apologies anyway. Billy is the keeper of all things civil, tempered and rational on this board - see his threads for evidence of constant civility.

Anyway, a couple of points.

I don't think my expectations are too high particularly. I've not really detailed them on here anyway (making a significant challenge for fourth place is the minimum I expect, if it's of interest).

With regard to my expectations of performances, then I just expect to see a team with good footballers putting in impressive, footballing performances as often as they don't and don't expect to see their default performance to constantly be being equal to some of the worst teams in the league and playing hoof ball football.

Take this season:

Blackburn - A 'decent' performance. No better. Blackburn had chances but I was fairly happy. Could easily have been a draw though. Poor opposition.

Wolves - A decent first half. A poorer second half. Could easily have been a draw. Decent result, poor peroformance. Poor opposition.

Palace/Fulham reserves/Scunthorpe - Would expect to beat all these poor opposition every time we play them. Decent results, nothing particularly impressive or disapointing about any of them.

Pompey - Not a good performance against a team that didn't have a point. Again, could easily have been a draw. Decent result, poor performance. Hanging on at the end. Poor opposition.

Arsenal - Best performance of the season, even if there was 20 minute where we barely had a touch - maybe the only performance I could class as truly 'impressive' this season. Good result against good opposition.

United - Excellent for 45 minutes, battered for the next 45. No complaints with what they did that day though. Neither truly impressive or rubbish - taking the match as a whole.

West Ham - Possibly the second best performance of the season. I'll give that one as impressive. West Ham were in terrible form at the time though and had a good goal disallowed.

Villa - Happy with this result. Neither impressive or below par.

Wigan/Fulham/Birmingham/Burnley - All below par, given the players we have, the players the opposition had available and the situations that were thrown away.

Now, to me, that is a very poor ratio of impressive performances to under par performances for a team with excellent players and who faces inferior players most of the time.

Yes, 'they are gelling', we all know that - but this poor ratio is not a new thing. It was present throughout all of last season.

So, despite some attempts, I still don't see what Hughes has shown on the pitch to suggest that he has the managerial skills that people keep placing their faith in. They have certainly not been demonstrated at City - with his teams constantly underperforming - so it seems that it's either blind faith or faith that players that are as good as we have can't go on being under par so often, regardless of the manager (I agree with this).

And I honestly don't know where you think I've suggested that I expect every performance to be fantastic. I don't. I was quite happy with the boring, grinding out, unimpressive performances earlier in the season - thinking, maybe naively, that they would be followed by signs that Hughes team would make progress and start playing the football that their talents deserve later on.

The trouble is, since then they have gone from a team grinding out somewhat fortunate results against poor opposition to a team to a team who can't secure results against poor opposition. And decent football still doesn't look like breaking out.

I'm not being unfair at all when I say that the hallmark of Hughes' time at City has been taking players and producing a team whose standard performance is way, way below the sum of their talents.

To be disapointed in that seems to be quite fair to me and I can't figure out how you think that exhibits unrealistic expectations.

 

[Rammy Blue]

been away for a couple of days so only just caught up on BM, must say that i find this thread quite amusing as there has only been 1 half decent attempt at a comeback to JMA's original post.

people on here prefer to get involved in a shite thread rather than one that proovokes thought and insight, not too much of a surprise there though.....

fwiw i think JMA is bob on, always manages to put down in type what my thoughts are - when i saw the thread had 4 pages i assumed there might be a decent attempt at debate on it, interestingly though (and i might add rather obviously......) there isn't much debate because no "Hughes inner" has a decent argument.

happy to get thread back towards top in case anyone has missed it....

;)

 

[The Fat el Hombre]

There are still lot's of questions and I don't think anyone can say that they absolutely have the answers yet and whether they know whether Hughes definitely is or isn't the right man for the job. Last season was poor but there were mitigating factors to be considered IMO, this season Hughes has no excuses. It's still early days yet and although we've been playing badly recently we're still doing pretty well especially taking into account the game in hand.

The further we get into the season the more answers to all the questions we'll have and with a tough few games coming up we could well have a very good idea of what is best for the club come Christmas. It's still too early to call yet and although I hope he gets it rite I certainly have my doubts about whther he will that's for sure