--------------Hart---------------
Corluka---Micah----Dunne---Ball
------Fernandes----Johnson-----
Ireland--------Elano-------Petrov
---------------------Benjani--------------------
Reserves: Vassell, Sturridge, Bojinov, Nedum, Caicedo, Geovanni, Hamann, Garrido, Etuhu...
If someone last season would have told us that Sven would have 70M to strenghten the team with a striker, a dm, a rm, a lb and cb - a team that still managed to be pretty hard do break down and were within a shout of the top six til the very end inspite of Frank's dealings and, oh let's not forget, a defensive line without Micah, Dunne and Nedum and with f-ing Jihai and Elano in it at periods - any f-ing one of us would have taken it. Just imagine our basic game plus SWP, Jo, Kompany, TBH, Zabaleta and Robinho...
I'm all for stability and I've had to bite my toungue, actually agreeing with some of the semi-racist numpties that suggested it was a good idea to let Sven go for a (keyword) british manager, but the man is a complete waste of space. There's no defence for it. It's like someones shat a pile of Barca-strategy into his head without a single clue on what the pragmatics of the game is.
And that's what makes great managers great - pragmatics. They know when to tighten a shit squad to make them hard to break down, and they know when to allow free flow. ALL the great managers do this. And ALL of them, get's slaughtered by idiots who wants "more urgency" or "a less pessimistic approach". And NONE of the critics or their respective coaches of choice... has ever won anything of stature - let alone been able to repeat it.
Hughes is in this regard a special kind of idiot. He's dismantled alot of the support duties (or are simply inept when it comes to having the players do them) and tries to play a offensive game with the signature hoofing "passion/direct football" that only a former striker with minute team responsibily would belive in. The idiot is even so arrogant that he tries to sell his boyish/idiotic non-coaching experience by accusing one of the top 5 most succesful managers in modern history of not knowing how to do his job.
Now let's compare this boyish numpt with a few real managers - Mourinho, Capello, Trapattoni, SGE, Scolari - all travelling men who has managed to repeat their success in a number of clubs in a number of different countries. ALL of which have been both accused of "negative football" at times. ALL with massive success. ALL with a basis in the "eliminate mistakes, determine the game with skills" school of coaching. ALL with teams who have not only played "negative football", but when allowed to develop their defensive game, have also stood for attacking football with plenty of goals in a repeatable, consistent formula. ALL of which have gone for the modern approach of keeping ALL the players happy, eliminating fuzz and running a smooth operation. ALL with their roots in possessional football with mind instead of heart. And then throw Hughes in amongst those managers...
My last straw was when SWP went public to contradict the critisism against Hughes from Elano and Robinho. There's no doubt in my mind that Sparky won't think twice about not giving him a scrubbing for going official with the bickering, cause this is the sort of idiot he is.
We had the same problems with Elano last season which SGE very diplomatically and experienced managed to defuse. We saw Bianchi and Samaras leave with a smile on their faces and without any hard feelings. And he even managed to work out the problem of benching his countryman, a Swedish international, for a much younger and untried goalie without too much of a stir. He managed to avoid the pitfalls.
If you look at Adriano and Mourinho in the Inter-situation, he's doing the exact same thing SGE did when Bianchi cried to the press - he managed those problems internally and the official message was "it's normal for a great player who don't play to be upset. I would be more concerned if he didn't" - almost the exact same reply as SGE gave with Bianchi and that any of the above mentioned coaches would give. And this is f-ing Mourinho we're talking about. *lick, lick* *rub, rub*
Capello - the same with F-ing Beckham... or... Mutu...... or Del Piero (!)...
But this isn't good enough for our Huggy...
Nooo...
Let' set an example with Elano, take it up the ass with Robinho and have SWP lick ass in public (contradicting the former two). In fact - let's have the f-ing press with Martin F-ing Shitphony run the team while we're at it. We could have a Big Brother style voting booth and send the f-ers off one by one.
It is beyond poor management. It's f-ing retarded. It's Baconface without the weight of a succesful club with asshole traditions in place and a totalitary regime to back it up. No scottish asshole charm either. It's a cocky hooligan with a bat and a bunch of "mates". "Lord of The Flies" or "Eden Lake". "Piiiggy, Piiiggy..."
This numpt will NEVER manage to get a team with the sort of egos involved in world class players within a hierarchy to function. Nor will he ever manage anything or anyone who wont sign on to his terms and attitude (hardworking mediocrity with shitty United gang rape-attitude)... and I find it extremly hard to think that he's the one to get a Romario, Maradona, Stoichkov, Ronaldo, Batistuta, Pele, Ronaldinho... Cantona... or any other of the disgustingly egomaniac sob:s who have graced football with their skills... to actually work with the work horses who have allowed them to flourish, in a atmosphere that still says "team". Instead he breeds mediocrity. The notion that all of them should be treated equally (at least on the surface. I'd love to see him go up against Robinho) and ALL players should have "passion" as a trait, instead of a required and specialised skill.
And that's as stupid as telling Kompany to "kick it like Robinho"... or throwing Cambiasso off the team just cause he doesn't have the closing qualities of Ibrahimovic.
God bless those that have both though. Really. I'm sure one day someone will come along and embody both Matthäus and Maradona. He probably wont cope very well with the hierarchy though, cause he'd probably be annoyed as f**k with players not working hard enough nor having the sort of technical skill sets he himself had. In fact - he'd probably be on a constant head rant when things weren't going that well. "Those f-ers! Can't run, can't pass, can't shoot... Where's my tennis racket?!"
And this is without even pointing at his team selection and his complete inability to change a game with substitutions and speaking strictly in terms of actual managerial qualities... And the buys... I hope there isn't a manager that wouldn't consider buying Kompany, Zabaleta, TBH, SWP, Jo and Robinho - five of which are important figures in their national teams...
So yes, of course we should be in the top six with any half decent manager. We stayed within sixth most of last season with f-ing Jihai Sun and a whole range of problems working against our favour. There isn't a single doubt in my mind that we wouldn't have improved on the results if Sven had been allowed to continue his project - and our team effort and tactics... let's just say there was a time when we made actual progress instead of going backwards. When there was an actual comprehendable thought behind our overall strategy instead of refermenting old ideas, branding them as ones own and failing utterly when trying to incorporate anything new in what was already there, in a totally random, amateuristic fashion...
The only way we could get within sixth at the moment is to let Hughes buy his mediocrity. And we are better than that. It'd be like spending money on a Volvo for safety when we've alredy got a fairly safe and fast Subaru, when the issue really isn't the car but the obviously alcoholic driver. A team with so many leading internationals (even the supposed shitty young ones Sven bought, all considered their respective countries future and thus almost guaranteed a great learning curve)... there's no way we should settle for less than sixth.
Or at least not in this way. Not without some actual sign of progress, management, tactical nous or ability to change the games.
Failing graciously is ok - incompetence, shit facedness and sheer stupidity... is not.
*rant over*
