He really seems to be reacting VERY positively to having his selection under threat with Redmond in the squad. I always thought he could be a great player - he just needs tyo keep his focus even if rumours about a move to a 'bigger' club start circulating!! Yes, I feel that Wes may not feature so much in future. VERY pleased with our midfield play and the crowd really got behind the team, which was the complete opposite to the Villa game!!
It felt like the ref had a lot to do with getting the fans back involved. It had been pretty quiet in the first half but as he made mistake after mistake we just got more annoyed and started cheering louder. The players really responded.
Fer is awesome and the only draw back in how he's playing and impressing is that it could leave his CR tenure rather brief! Could Howson's improvement have a lot to do with the management team finally playing him to his strengths? As for shocking Arsenal, lets see if they have the 14 players or just the eleven this time. 11 we have a chance but with the one eyed officials we had there last season none at all! Bah!
More to do IMO with Hughton being determined to stick to his guns (a) by ignoring the criticism about being too cautious which emerges every time he plays two DMs at home, and (b) by ignoring the criticism levelled at him about Fer being best played as DM and not in a more advanced position. If you are only going to play Fer and Howson, then both of them have less attacking freedom, not just Howson. So the key is bringing in Tettey as well. The other excellent feature of their play on Saturday was their flexibly as a threesome. Although Tettey did mostly sit behind the other two, he also got forward when an opportunity presented itself, and both Fer and Howson came deeper to cover and/or to pick up the ball (as well as roaming left and right). So overall our centre midfield was very fluid.
had an 'interesting' chat last night with a city fan who lambasted the manager for not 'shutting up shop' with 20 minutes remaining. apparently it was 'obviously' the right thing to do and the manager cost us a point. he maintains that the chelsea game gave us our 'clearest indication yet' that the manager is 'not up to scratch'. just goes to show, hughton can't win in some folks eyes...
That's just pathetic Talk about "damned if you do, damned if you don't"!! I suppose, if we had nicked a winner on the 85 minute mark - which our pressing deserved, this same 'fan' would have accused him of being too 'gung-ho' and 'Lambertesque'
he may be an isolated case but personally i doubt he is. i think quite a few fans are going into games with these pre-conceived ideas about the manager (some of which have some substance, many of which don't) and when these convictions are shown to be untrue, find excuses as to why! there is never any credit given to the manager for a good performance - there always has to be an excuse or something minor to pick on. disappointing attitude if so and i can't see how he can ever succeed in their eyes.
Even in cases where there is substance, it doesn't follow that the fans are right and Hughton wrong. For instance, CH has never hidden the fact that he approaches away games and home games differently, attaching more importance to not conceding than to scoring when playing away. However much fans may not like it, it is actually a sound strategy for a team like us. If you don't concede you cannot lose, but you can still win (as we saw at Stoke). On the other hand, CH has also made clear that his priority at home is to win the game, i.e. he attaches most importance at home to scoring. The likelihood of winning is far far greater if you don't concede, so even if your priority at home is to score, not conceding remains an important means to the actual end, which is to score. All this seems so obvious it really makes you wonder why so few people seem to comprehend it. Hughton is not some weird aberration; his approach is completely rational, based on well established facts, and shared by most managers of comparable clubs in our league. It is only the clubs confident that their defences can withstand what any other team in the league can throw at them home or away who can actually have winning every match as their priority. Those are the clubs competing for the title and European places. We are nowhere near being in that position yet.
agree with all of this robbie and the bit in bold is, i suspect, why both you and i get so thoroughly fed up with those who seem oblivious to the obvious!!
ooh, i've been looking forward to this. i've got my little black dress ready... i will be fuming if i miss out to carrabuh
Good to see such a positive thread after a loss, but the 'new look' City seems to be emerging and full of promise. Tettey reminds me of Sammy Clingan in his new role. Here's a neutral view on the tactics in the match that I thought was a fair analysis: http://eplindex.com/41985/norwich-1-chelsea-3-tactical-analysis.html?
I take your points, but my reasons for criticism of CH were not based on these premises. The criticism of playing 2 DM's was when it was Tettey and Johnson together + 1. There is no chance of creation or fluidity. I have said that I thought playing Fer as the attacking member of the central 3 was a mistake, I can see that he could definitely play that position if required now as he looks a really class act. However in doing so it won't work if then a] howson is more defensive and not allowed the freedom to play his best game or b] BJ and AT play together. I am not suggesting we play 2 in the middle, not likely ever excepting chasing a game with <30mins to go, as we will not see enough of the ball. The flexibility of the midfield trio was as you say a joy to behold and makes me wonder why they have until very recently played so rigidly? Certainly playing the right midfield 3 plays a large part in my opinion. After a good performance with so much to be positive about I don't wish to be critical as it genuinely seems like CH is making progress. But you guys with the smug posts kind of bring the worst out in us sceptics. so here goes. Why has it taken CH this long to figure out that these 3 should be playing together in the middle? We (I think Robbie and Supers) had all suggested this line up some time before CH finally did at Stoke. This midfield 3 in my opinion could have worked with BJ instead of AT when on form. (BJ'll now have a real job getting back in with AT playing so well.) But, excepting the 1st game with Fer suspended why was this not employed earlier and well practiced pre-season? We know that CH favoured 1 up top and 5 in the middle. Its these seemingly slow uptakes that cause me doubts about him. That and we still are not getting quality balls in to the Wolf, though there are slow signs of slight improvements here too. I would not critise his subs on sunday as I thought they were bang on, CH was again let down by individual errors and I wouldn't criticise him for the 2nd goal after 3 players had moments to forget. Others however, like the Snoddy penalty are criminal and reflect very poorly on him I am not overly critical of the tactics of go for the win at home and be a little more cautious away. But There's cautious and there's Hull away! That midfield that started was wrong on the day, it must of been wrong on the training ground and it was most certainly over negative given the oposition. Visiting the big boys I could understand it although would still find it disappointing if I'd shelled out for a ticket. You can't be going in to games posing no threat or the oposition will win, there are no sides in the PL who won't at the very least encouraged by such negativity and virtually all will win (Not probably Crystal Palace, but most!) And if we are gonna be picky we are in the bottom 3 after spending the 14th most in europe! That's not very good is it! Before we all start heralding him as the crusher of all sceptics and the best thing since sliced bread. We have had 2 good performances in a row, encouraging but what if we now have a January to early may style run? It could happen, it did after the 10 game unbeaten run. But I don't want to be negative he's producing visible improvements, surely the results will follow. I remain sceptical just slightly less so. And by the way, Hughton can win in most peoples eyes even "Hughton sceptics" such as myself. He did it pretty much all right in my book on Sunday (1 exception being as mentioned in the article in RiverEndRick's post, I thought the defensive line we were holding at the start of the match was to high and left us too exposed. Bah!
you question why its taken hughton a while to work out his team and allow them more flexibility but i think i and one other poster only suggested this current line up for the first time during the week preceding the stoke match - the exact game he used it for the first time! fine if you disagree but i'm afraid it DOES take time to figure out the best way to utilise players. sometimes you get lucky and hit upon it straight away but that's rare. i agree we probably shouldn't really be in the bottom three, although we are currently only in there due to our first letter being 'N' and not 'F', but we are three points behind the current champions of england - a team who will still hold realistic ambitions of winning the title this season - so all that goes to show is how early it still is. had we got a deserved point (or better) at the weekend we'd now be sitting 14th (or as high as 9th had we won) and we wouldn't be discussing this.
