Where do you rank Hughes amongst City's past coaches?

[Pigeonho]

Possibly. What's not to get excited about? We haven't been this far in a competition for as long as I can remember (was only 2 in 1981). Was you pretty happy with a the UEFA quarter final last year?

yes, it was a fabulous occasion, but in the context of rating the managerial achievement, to me, it did not compensate for the 9th place finish, which should have been 6th or 7th.

please understand me, i'm chuffed about the semi's, I too have no memory of one (despite having a year on pidginho), I guess my point is that it doesn't strike me as a particularly outstanding managerial achievement given that we have played our first choice, extremely expensive line-up against reserve teams and lower league opposition...

it's great for everyone, couldn't be better. but it's not the kind of thing that is going to convince me that hughes has great managerial ability.

it's not a mentality. I can understand why Prestwich took the comment badly, but it would most certainly not be the way I felt if we ran the top four very close this year, or won 5 league games in a row. Beyond that, I make my judgements solely on our performance in the games. beat a strong team, +2. draw to a poor team, -1. or something like that. at the moment, I have hughes down on points.

But he can only play who is put infront of him. Its no-ones fault we drew Scunthorpe! What if he has a similar run in the FA Cup, and beats a Chelsea along the way, or Arsenals furst team? He has only had one competition to go for so far this year, (we aren't gonna win the league and never were expected to do so), and he has so far succeeded in that competition and has done all he could do in it.

 

[bobmcfc]

well i'm pretty happy with hughes so far. last season i wanted him out with good reason. hopefully he'll sort out the defence in jan and we will push on.

 

[bizzbo]

yes, it was a fabulous occasion, but in the context of rating the managerial achievement, to me, it did not compensate for the 9th place finish, which should have been 6th or 7th.

please understand me, i'm chuffed about the semi's, I too have no memory of one (despite having a year on pidginho), I guess my point is that it doesn't strike me as a particularly outstanding managerial achievement given that we have played our first choice, extremely expensive line-up against reserve teams and lower league opposition...

it's great for everyone, couldn't be better. but it's not the kind of thing that is going to convince me that hughes has great managerial ability.

it's not a mentality. I can understand why Prestwich took the comment badly, but it would most certainly not be the way I felt if we ran the top four very close this year, or won 5 league games in a row. Beyond that, I make my judgements solely on our performance in the games. beat a strong team, +2. draw to a poor team, -1. or something like that. at the moment, I have hughes down on points.

But he can only play who is put infront of him. Its no-ones fault we drew Scunthorpe! What if he has a similar run in the FA Cup, and beats a Chelsea along the way, or Arsenals furst team? He has only had one competition to go for so far this year, (we aren't gonna win the league and never were expected to do so), and he has so far succeeded in that competition and has done all he could do in it.

i did actually say he can only play who is put in front of him

it's a good thing, this semi-final. fan-sodding-tastic. great occasion, great opportunity and something to take a certain amount of pride in as a club. thanks for that, mark.

all i'm saying is, given the nature of the opposition we've faced, I think it's a very unreliable way to judge the guys ability. I should never have said we were small club for celebrating it... I meant that I disagree with people holding it up as concrete proof of Hughes' ability to get the manage this club superbly.

 

[Pigeonho]

But he can only play who is put infront of him. Its no-ones fault we drew Scunthorpe! What if he has a similar run in the FA Cup, and beats a Chelsea along the way, or Arsenals furst team? He has only had one competition to go for so far this year, (we aren't gonna win the league and never were expected to do so), and he has so far succeeded in that competition and has done all he could do in it.

i did actually say he can only play who is put in front of him

it's a good thing, this semi-final. fan-sodding-tastic. great occasion, great opportunity and something to take a certain amount of pride in as a club. thanks for that, mark.

all i'm saying is, given the nature of the opposition we've faced, I think it's a very unreliable way to judge the guys ability. I should never have said we were small club for celebrating it... I meant that I disagree with people holding it up as concrete proof of Hughes' ability to get the manage this club superbly.

Ok, i see what you meant now. Time will tell, the signs are good though in my opinion.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

I forgot when I posted initially that mcfcstats hasn't been updated since Steve Kay died so had to add the extra 4 games. I'm not on anybody's side - I'm just a City fan that wants my team to do well. These are the stats.

If you want a subjective judgement then I'd place Book just behind Mercer & Allison, Allison's first spell in third then Hughes, just based on performances in the top flight. following him then Reid, who got us good results but I didn't like the football played.

Under Hughes, when we've been good I've seen some of the best football for the last thirty years.

I appreciate your retaining a sense of perspective and good humour...

It's so difficult to asses the efforts, not only because the circumstances have often played the major part in determining our status. KK and Sven did so much, then they trashed the place. Reid was a minor hero of mine. They are the only managers I am old enough to have fully formed opinions on. I guess my POV is that they showed what can be done with a bit of vision, even if they didn't have the will to see it through.

What bugs me about Hughes, is not that he's dreadful, or irresponsible, just that I don't see anything beyond the hmm-well-ok-you-didnt-blow-it-completely-and-there-were-some-good-bits-but-some-dreadful-ones-overall-you-have-only-achieved-slightly-more-than-the-minimum-acceptable. On the whole his management style is frequently at odds with my ideals, I'm not enamoured by the style of football, and whilst I'm fully aware this is not evidence of a lack of ability to do the job, there is no outstanding trait or clear success that I can easily use to overlook these things.

Frankly, it's very draining. The inherently controversial nature of the current run only makes things worse. I gave up defending him, and am now probably much too quick to find fault, yet I know he could easily win me round by taking the fight to the top four right to the end of the season.

I need a break from this, but, we all know it's only just beginning.

Thanks for a moment of sanity.

Good post. The current run does make it difficult to judge objectively but it totally depends on where we go from here. If we carry on the same way (or even do worse) then we'll probably slip back and we'll have a new manager next season. If we start putting some wins together then we should get established in the top 4 and may well win a trophy. so the next 10 gam,es are crucial I believe.

Funnily enough I couldn't stand Reid, in the same way that some people can't stand Hughes, but he was successful for us in terms of league position. We all have our blind spots I guess.

 

[fbloke]

There is a weird split here as well.

Hughes has statistics on his side and I think we all agree that they can/could/have been twisted to suit the circumstances.

On the other end is the truly great Joe Mercer who falls below MH in % terms but has silverware on his side.

But then of course we have MH who has took us to QF in Europe for the first time in a long time, and this season into a SF of a cup comp' for the first time in over a generation.

By either measure it suggests that MH could be a great manager IF GIVEN TIME to prove it.

But just to keep everyone on BM happy, HUGHES OUT!

 

[ono]

Off the field he's made some good signings. He comes across well. He deals with the media pretty well and his tapping up of John Terry was legendary.

On the field i'm not over struck. Not so much on him personally. More as a whole. We're not playing well. Haven't really done so all season. We've won just over 1/3 of our league games and currently sit 2 points above Birmingham. However we've only lost once....which actually baffles me.

I posted my on the field views yesterday anyway.

 

[Neville Kneville]

I think most of the so called great managers have one thing in common: they take credit for the performances of great players, without whom they'd win nothing. Not one of them has ever succeeded without having a core of great performers. Clough had fewer greats than most though tbf but his magic wore off as players turned into the 'stars' of the modern game.

In that regard I rate Hughes as highly as any manager we've had in the past because he's signed better players than most & imo looks like he'll turn them into possibly the best side we've ever had provided knobheads don't get him sacked. Hard to say what he'd've done at City without money but he seems to have a nose for a bargain too & got the best out of such players at Blackburn. I think if he stays, we'll win the lot in the coming years whatever happens short term.

 

[whp.blue]

a PR savvy alan ball imho

 

[Beagal]

Thats done it for me Honestly you hughes out lot do my head in. arabs must be thinking what have they landed themselves with. Happier playing lower division football? Wishing Sven's return? Ball back? Franny Lee in charge? you impatient wankers.