Citizen52 said:
Shaelumstash said:
Yes that was the season before he got sacked, that was his only full season, so the only one on which he can be properly judged. In my opinion Hughes was a huge step backwards from Sven.
If Mancini had taken over Sven's team and spent the money, there is no chance we would have gone backwards like we did under Lesley. Even in his second season, although we'd only lost twice, we were so bad defensively it was embarrassing. He was playing SWP as one of 3 central midfielders, his naivety was incredible.
I actually think Hughes is a good man, and I think he gave his best for us. Unfortunately his best wasn't good enough. Also, the argument about his "immoral" sacking and his sense of injustice is ridiculous.
Kaldoon flew over to dismiss him in person because he didn't want to do it over the phone. If anything, he was trying to do it the "right" way. The fact it leaked out that Mancini was getting the job was unfortunate, but the media storm afterwards was so one sided and biased against City it was absolutely pathetic.
For what it's worth I thought putting a mid 30s full back in Sylvinho against Lennon in that 3-0 loss was naive in the extreme, not surprising we got hammered that night. I think the only protection Sylvinho had was Robinho on the left flank, who was hardly likely to track back. It was suicide really.
The Hughes thing for me, it's like I say he'd only lost 2 games that season, like Lee Clark had a similar thing over about 50 for Huddersfield this season, I didn't agree with either sacking at the time but with hindsight they have been proven to be right it just does my head in a bit the amount of shit he gets on here.
That being said I thought things were going backwards under Sven the last few months.
Football fans eh? :)
You are right about only losing twice, but we'd also only won 2 out of 11!!! We were in 6th when he left, level points with 8th if memory serves me correctly. The 7 draws on the spin was also ridiculous, including 3-3 at home to Burnely. If you draw every game and don't lose any, you go down.
I agree after xmas under Sven we were going backwards. The difference was Sven changed the way we played to a more modern, possession game, the whole philosophy of how we played was dragged in to the 21st century after the disgrace that was Pearce's final season. And he had about 2 weeks to bring his players in.
But when Hughes came in, he got rid of the ball players Sven brought in, threw away the possession style of football, for a hard working, fast breaking, up and down style. It was like going backwards ten years. It was no wonder Robinho got slaughtered by some on here, he was being asked to cover the same amount of yards as Craig Bellamy. Funny how Bellamy never got the criticism of not being able to unlock a defence like Robinho could, but that was the direction Hughes was taking us - backwards.
Mancini's style is much more like Sven's. Possession football, where the defensive stability relies on shape and tactical discipline as opposed to hard yards and work rate. Imagine David Silva under Hughes being asked to defend the edge of our box and then counter attack at one hundred miles an hour, with no emphasis on keeping the ball, then having to sprint back and "muck in".
Silva works incredibly hard under Mancini, and the team defends fantastically well as a unit, and keeps possession. But Hughes wasn't clever enough to organise a team like that. He expected box to box runners for 90 minutes all over the park, as if we were United in 1994. The game has moved on, and the sooner Lesley and his fan club realises that, the better.
