The goalposts shifted for all of us mate, especially Hughes and his team.
The expectations on them were suddenly turned up overnight given our new found wealth, yes by us supporters but also by the press and more importantly by our owners who from minute one, made it very very clear of their ambitions.
As for your point on logic, i can guarentee that you would have said the same about, Robinho or Adebayor or Toure or Tevez. Never in a million years you would have said and i can see why if im being honest but please Billy, do not make the mistake of underestimating the power and influence our owners do have as well as the pulling power of money in what is a professional game.
To sum up, Hughes was brought to the club by a previous Chairman who didnt have a pot to piss in and he wanted a manager that could do a certain job, that was to make us hard to beat and to make sure we didnt go down. Hughes would do that job all day long with no problems but then the goalsposts did move, we all suddenly had different hopes and aspirations and quite rightly so, never had a football club been given such a gift and a chance to stamp it's mark on the football world.
Much was made in the cynical and suddenly frightened press that Hughes would be gone, that our owners didnt know jackshit about football! Now i maybe wrong but i believe the press saved Hughes, the thought of the negative and histerical press our owners would have recieved had they made the choice of shipping Hughes out for a World famous and renowned coach, i believe made our owners bite the bullet, they said the right things and kept him on and gave him his chance.
70 games on with little improvement on performances, please note i use the word performances carefully and not results, and after a very well ochestrated PR campaign by Hughes and Cook for that matter, assuring the world and its dog that Hughes is the next Ferguson incarnate, many of our fans are not convinced that he is the man to take on the challenge and opportunity we have been given. We base that on the performance of the team, not his nationality or his past playing career and im convinced that our owners are thinking the same way. Hughes has been given his time, his money, his team and at the end of this season i honestly believe he will be given his P45 as well and our owners will go all out for a world class coach, someone with a track record of doing the business at the very top tables of world football. I dont harbor any bad feeling to Hughes, he is a good, steady coach but imo, that is all he is at the moment. Will he go on to be great? Hopefully yes, i really hope he does, but at this moment in time, we cant afford to wait and we shouldnt wait, pinning all our hopes on a maybe.
One thing i can gaurentee mate, our owner has got the very best in everything, i bet he doesnt have a Ferrari parked outside with a 1.0l engine in it!
Only the best will do, why should we settle for anything less and why should we apologise for adopting this stance?