psychosoma said:
Hi all.
Blackburn Rovers supporter here (don't hurt me!), just through I'd join up to add my thoughts to the debate as I've been reading it for awhile. Want to say first of all, I've always liked City even though my head and heart are obviously towards the blue and whites. I've found when talking to, or listening to discussions from City fans for them to be much more reasonable and down-to-earth (read: realistic) and even with this massive opportunity you now have, there seems to be a considered air around it as opposed to fans from certain other teams *cough* Newcastle for example.
What really prompted me to post was hearing another post match Hughes interview, against Notts F.
It reminded me of time, towards the end of his reign here when we were losing to teams we should have been able to beat, a la Coventry. He would often refuse to accept any responsibility for lost games against poor opposition, pinning it purely on the players and was able to 'spin' anything away from criticism to his regime. It really used to annoy Rovers fans who became increasingly aware of the deficiencies of his leadership.
Don't get me wrong, I loved Hughes and he worked wonders with our club which may be hard for other managers to match. I think given time, his progressive ideas and those of his staff will produce a fit, modern, solid football club, but it will take that... time.
My worry for City is that you are going to be expected to produce results fast and in style, anything else will be seen as a failure. Hughes has never had to contend with a team of ego's (world class players) and whether he is able to craft a team that has these type of players in, motivated, while having to keep some on the bench and happy remains to be seen.
I hope things go well for you all and you all stay grounded and give us a Manchester team with morals and who neutrals and other teams can look to, to do it the 'right' way. Personally, I say stick with Hughes, give him time and he will come good, but be prepared for him never to admit his own mistakes and to paint false rosey pictures when its obvious things aren't right.
On a side note. If you offer us £18 + a player, we will snap your hand off, both the club and the fans! Cruz has been unimpressive this season, he's had niggling injuries and we're scoring goals now. You'll be doing us a favour, we need the money! You'll find most Rovers fans will say the same, have him!
This is exactly the issue with Mark Hughes and the total deficiency in his personality.
I don't know have far back the archives here go but the only gripe I had with Hughes when he was appointed was that I felt that he was a buck passer and someone who had always failed to take any sort of responsibility for anything that happened under his watch. I felt he was an embarrassment to his club and his profession in his two faced lying, and that's all it can be called when he constantly blamed any negative result on officials and anyone else who's door it could be laid at.
I know I am not the only City fan to have commented on this way before he was linked with us. In fact, most City fans I know agreed that he was as much or an embarrassment as Red Nose in this respect. Personally, I felt his buck passing and lack of grace exceeded even Red Nose, but so what.
If the archives go back far enough there will be one or two threads that had this conversation on them.
Despte this, I had no axe to grind and felt that he would do well. Especially if he cut out this constant buck passing and blaming of officials for things that he had imagined or was lying about.
To my delight, I have to admit that in the early months of his reign I felt he had done that and was pleased in this slight, but in my view, important change of attitude. It meant that he was not embarrassing the club in the way that I felt he embarrassed often Blackburn. The behaviour was not needed and did nothing but demean him and his club. He lost nothing by cutting it out.
In honesty I feel that he still hasn't resorted to constant blaming and lying about officials like he did at Blackburn, and that is only to his credit. You cannot knock this.
However, to my dismay it seems that the constant need for buck passing has not left him. It was unimaginable when he joined that instead of refs and anyone outside of the club, he would actually attempt to pin the complete and whole responsibility for his failure to produce results here on the players. Some of whom are viewed as model pros by almost everyone in football.
I would not have even given this the time of day if someone had suggested it at the start of the season. I could not imagine him stooping so low and being pathetic enough to attempt to wriggle out of his responsibilities in a manner that NO OTHER manager in top flight football has ever attempted.
Yet now the Blackburn fan above states that publicly blaming his own players for his own shortcomings was something that he relied on even in his Blackburn days. Frankly, it is pathetic and something that no top maanger, Red Nose, Wenger, Benetiz, whoever would ever resort to. If any top manager has ever attempted such a cowardly passing of the buck for his own responsibilities then I cannot rememeber it.
Yet here we have evidence of buck passing being a character trait elsewhere. I knew that already. It was my one and only gripe with him as a manager before he got here.
To find out that public buck passing to his own players for his own responsibilities is a trait that he has shown elsewhere though is unbelieveable and unforgivible.
