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Anonymous
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Prestwich_Blue said:Always like to do a "meaty" post when I reach a milestone (this will be post 3,000) and this is something I feel strongly about.
While there may be relatively few fans that expected "instant" success there are some. Clearly expecting instant success, such as top 4 this season, is ridiculous. Quite a few more expect us to be doing better than we are and that's understandable but that belief is still based around the notion that "He's had loads of money to spend". Some don't like Hughes simply because of his history (forgetting Brian Kidd, Denis Law, Peter Schmeichel, etc.) These people truly deserve to be called numpties in my opinion.
I don't deny money is useful but it's quite possible to spend lots of it and not succeed, like Spurs and Newcastle have for many years. Both have occasionally done reasonably well but they haven't achieved consistent success. I suspect that's largely because they've never achieved stability, apart from at Newcastle when they had Robson for 5 years, which was one of their most successful spells in the last few years.
Unlike Mourinho at Chelsea, Hughes didn't come to a successful club that just needed a bit of tinkering. We did OK last season but that was on the back of a nine game winning home run in the early part. The second half of the season was relegation form plus people forget that there was turmoil behind the scenes (and I suspect that we don't know half of it). There was a real and distinct danger of a serious financial collapse less than nine months ago. Name me one manager that has come to a Premiership club and turned its fortunes around in a season. O'Neill is an exceptional manager but we will do better under Hughes this season than Villa did under him in his first season. And he had a long run where they didn't win that season.
So there was a rebuilding job to be done and very few of the players Sven bought have figured at all, let alone consistently. We've had 30 years of almost unbroken mismanagement and lack of investment and that can't just be brushed aside or corrected in one season. I thought at the beginning of the season that 6-8th place was the realistic target and we still should be capable of getting that. If it wasn't for our shocking away form then we would be doing much better. In fact our average away points haul since 2002/3 is 19 points; if we had been on target to achieve that then we'd probably still only be in 7th place.
So let's suppose that we do finish 7th or 8th this season but next season we finish 17th. I'm pretty certain that virtually everyone would be calling for Hughes' head and with some justification. But that's exactly what happened to Everton under Moyes, when we had our own little cup final with them on the last day of the season for 16th & 17th place. (We won 5-1 to get 16th). Yet the Everton board stuck with him, they sold Rooney, invested the proceeds in a bunch of new players and have gone on from there. Moyes was saying on Sunday that it takes time to build a team the way you want it and stability is the most important factor to the players. They also need time to settle in, particularly as we're often playing with seven or eight players who are new this season (and four only arrived in January).
I don't really know what goes on behind the scenes these days but I hear some sources (e.g. Ric) say that things have changed for the better under Hughes. There are other sources that say that some people would be delighted to see the back of him (seems to be some tension between Hughes' coaching team and the youth set up).
I judge on what I see on the pitch and I think that I've seen more good football at CoMS this season than I have for quite a while. I've seen some very good players come in to the squad, which is now looking much stronger than it ever did. I believe he should be given a reasonable amount of time (three seasons) and if our owners are happy to give him that time then that should be good enough for us.
Good post but i might like to add that the situations between Moyes and Hughes were and are different.
Moyes took over a side that had been flirting with relegation for the previous 5 years and the players he had at his disposal were not very good. He was left with a very poor squad and he had little money to change it. Totaly different from Hughes who inherited a good squad and had money to improve it. Everton had no choice but to put faith in a manager and it has paid off. The club needed stability and most importantly they got the right man to give them that stability. It's all very well craving for stability but it's useless if you haven't got the right man for it.
I am neither a Hughes lover or a Hughes hater, i beleive in my opinion that he is not good enough for where we want to go but i as with all the managers we have had am willing to give him time to prove himself and prove me wrong.
But it is no use comparing him to other managers, he is in a completley different situation to any other managers. With the squad he has available to manage and the money he has already spent and has to spend in the future, qualifying for europe and a good run in the uefa cup should be expected for this year and next year 5th or 6th and a good run in any of the 3 cups should be expected.
If he cannot achieve that then he is not good enough, it is no use making excuses for him by saying "it takes time". A good manager with his squad and the money he has to spend would achieve it. It's up to him to prove he is a good manager.