Through his tactics it appears hughton is trying to get us to safety by drawing all of our remaining games 0-0 Well I'll be at the carra for the first time this season on sat, so will post on here after the game. I don't watch streams and have been to 2 away games (reading, pretty dire, saints, not bad but we were playing for a draw)
I think Rob has point though. It must be difficult for players when a new manager comes in that has a completely different style, as Howson say's he likes to get forward but has been told to stay back and break up play in midfield. When you have been playing for years in a particular way must be difficult to change.
Edit: Typical that by the time I've finished this, things appear to have moved on on their own accord. I'll leave it here anyway though. Right, this has gone far enough, mod hat on... This is a football forum, and the PM function exists if you want to take things up with individual members. Any more non-football arguing for the sake of it will no longer be tolerated on this thread. I don't normally threaten to delete posts, but if bickering continues to derail the thread, how else are we supposed to get this thread back on topic? Let's all play nice, discuss the footballing matters at hand, and if you want to argue, either with me over this message, or with anyone else, it's to be done by PM. No more airing of dirty laundry in pubic. I know mod-interference isn't entirely welcome, but I'm hoping this can be taken as a friendly prod in the right direction. Again, PM me if it is/isn't. I'll admit I'm finding the "mod-code" here slightly harder to implement than on the F1 board (over there I'd have just gone through and deleted all irrelevant posts), so sorry if this is too far. Anyway, I'll take the hat off now.->
It's a myth tht it is a young team. They aren't the you gets teamin the league I think Liverpool are. Newcastle even have a younger squad. Expecting 20th and getting 18th isn't much of a consolation come the end of the season. I think they have a very good chance of going down.
Beef Much as I would love to see Villa do the Lambert walk down to the Championship I think that they have enough goals in them to get a couple of results to see them safe. I do wonder if statistically we have the cheapest squad in the league which, in my opinion is more relevant than the age of the squad and would reflect better on the rsources which CH has at his disposal
Norfolkbhoy - not sure if we have the cheapest in terms of purchase price (though I would have thought it's pretty similar to this chart), but we have the second cheapest in terms of value: http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/en/premier-league/startseite/wettbewerb_GB1.html That will change with RvW, other summer signings and new teams promoted, of course.
Thanks for the stats. Interesting to see how cheap our squad is in comparison with Villa if we are comparing the resources available to CH and PL and using this as a benchmark for their results to date then PL doesn't come out too well. Interesting that if you compare league position with squad value then we actually look to be punching well above our weight (I know that these stats are subjective but still interesting and maybe things are not as bad as we all think they are).
Really interesting table that, cheers. Fulham are lower than I expected actually, as are West Brom, so it shows how well they've done (although I'm not sure if Lukaku counts as he's on loan?). On the topic of Villa, I suppose the players they actually use are probably valued lower than that table shows, seeing as Bent is their most highly valued player (£12m) and rarely plays. Villa's average squad age is actually the 4th highest in the league, although I suspect having 36 year old keepers out of the first team set-up inflates that value somewhat. Still, it somewhat rubbishes the claims they have no experience in the squad. Even if they aren't being picked, older heads are on the training ground each day. Looking at ourselves, despite adding experience last summer we've still got a remarkably young, cheap squad, so we're very much punching above our weight.
Yes and it also might help explain why Hughton lacks faith in his inherited squad members - they are not valued very highly by anyone, including him(!) Lambert was clearly of the opinion that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, which was certainly the case last year and appears to still be the case this year, despite (or perhaps because of) Hughton's best efforts... On a side note - weird how Wigan have been in the Prem, what, seven years? Still not got a very valuable squad despite the multiple sales. Compared with say Sunderland or Stoke, particularly.
Re Wigan - not wierd at all as they sell their most valuable assets, replace them with cheaper players and use the profits to run the club as due to their small attendances and I presume limited merchandising they need the cash to keep the club in business. Reminds me of how we used to operate in the 80's and 90's. Pick a good player and then sell them on at a tidy profit - Fashanu/Reeves/Woods/Townsend/Fleck/Sutton etc etc
I suppose so. Even then, I would have expected there to be some increase in value over time. At least it explains in part why they never make the promised land of "safe mid-table"... (if you believe that team value plays a big part in where a team comes in the league)
In fairness the values attached are always going to be subjective - the amount of money a player is worth is what someone is prepared to pay for him unless the club is in serious financial trouble and you have to have a fire sale - I imagine the the Wolf's true value is probably a bit higher than the £8m we have paid but as Lisbon couldn't pay their way they had to take what was on the table. Generally I do think that "value" is a pretty accurate indicator of how strong a club is. there will always be anomalies but if you look at the top of the table it is pretty much those at the top of the actual league table and the bottom is also pretty much as you would expect with us doing realtively well and some others like Villa and QPR underperforming. Basically I would argue that if you are one of the top five in terms of squad values you will be concerned about how much Brasso you need for the trophy cabinet rather than nervously looking over your shoulder come May and conversely the five cheapest squads will probably be mosts people's tips for the drop. Simplistic but sometimes the obvious answer is not far off the mark.
Wigan is run brilliantly in my opinion. They have a good scouting system and always buy good young players knowing they'll move on when they develop. Victor Moses, Antonio Valencia for example. James McCarthy will be next, and probably Fraser Fyvie after that. That's what keeps them in the premier league.
And 75million of dave whelans cash: 30 m to fund the stadium plus the rest to keep them afloat not just about being a well run club
Wigan are a joke. Bankrolled by a senile old man in a town where everyone follows Rugby, not football. I fail to see the relevance of that football club.
Yes he is the right man for the job Im prepared to be patient god lets sack him and bring in a Messiah who will fail and screw us up completely shall we ?? Rome was not build in a day or even a season chaps!
I would just love for Hughts to say to the team "right feck it boys go out there and do what you do best" I.e. dont worry about defensive tactics, play with a bit of freedom. Just in one game to see how they get on?!
Very possibly. We don't know Howson's tone of voice or body language as he answered the questions; we don't know how the questions were framed; etc. For me, though, it highlights yet another problem we have this season. We don't rotate the squad any more, so we have lost many advantages that we gained last season from PL's use of more players: 1) Players who were tired could get rested; the players who came in were reasonably match-sharp. They also hadn't had their confidence ground down by sitting on the beach for a whole season. They also knew that if they performed well, they stood a good chance of keeping their place in the team. 2) It was difficult for opponents to plan their tactics against us. In contrast, now they don't even need to look at our latest match; they can just look at any match from any point of the season (or pre-season) and know exactly what we are going to do. 3) It made our players very flexible tactically, which meant they could take responsibility for what was happening during the game. In contrast, this season we are trying to turn them into robots who are programmed to follow orders and malfunction if spontaneous reaction is required. 4) Most importantly of all, we no longer have a SQUAD, we have a group of chosen ones who get a game however badly they play and a group who know that the only way they are ever going to get a game is through injury (or a Cup tie), that they are not trusted, that they have no future at the club whatever happens, and that they will be back on the bench as soon as the chosen one is available again. Well, if you throw players on the scrap heap, they're likely to turn into scrap (hence the Luton game).
Are these figures based on actual purchase price or some subjective evaluation of potential purchase price? If the latter, I think this kind of thing is almost worthless, since it is bound to be heavily biased by perceptions (e.g. 'little old Norwich' are going to get seriously undervalued).
Hughton just needs some time to get the players he wants. He probably won't get it though - football has gone totally nuts and the managers are always the first to go. His job was to keep you up - it looks like he's succeeded. He's only been a manager since 2009, so perhaps cut him some slack... I think he'll be excellent with an extended stay.
