Is it only 57 now? How unfair of me. When he judged Fox on two or three games and Becchio had all of 125 minutes!
In fairness he does get to see them in training all the time, and they never quite manage to exceed 6ft 5 or run fast enough. Bah!
Stop picking and choosing your stats we must judge him on his entire career and he still has a good record after Newcastle. I think we need another 30 or so games of generally abject performances, before we can start questioning him and calling him a bit mediocre! Bah!
So why when we've got such an awful manager, and crippling injury problems, are we still 14th and 3 points above the relegation zone? Surely in such circumstances you'd expect a side that you think will get relegated to be in the bottom 3? For what it's worth, I'm still not convinced Hughton is the right man, largely because I think that opinion in the stands is irrevocably against him and that's not healthy. But, if he can keep us just about outside the relegation zone until mid-January, then I think we'll stay up. Late January through to mid-March is an excellent run of fixtures, and by then we should hopefully have a lot of our squad fully fit again, with a couple of choice recruits to help. For me, there are three worse teams in this league, and there's no obvious candidates to replace Hughton, so I'm still just about on his side. Drop into the relegation zone or present me with an excellent alternative and that might well change.
I would say, on one hand, that this should not be used as a reason or excuse. However, our injury list of 'A' list players is something of a concern this season. I hope DM & Co will loosen the purse strings to get the troops that are needed to add some strength to the squad, as just another one or two medium term injuries could kill us off.
Not sure I quite follow how it can't be a reason or excuse, it clearly has a negative impact on performances and is outside the manager's control. You could argue we should have a squad that can cope with a couple of injuries, but how many lower Prem teams have players of equal quality to come in and replace the numerous injured players we've had this season?
I accept he hasn't been lucky with injuries, but even there he makes a rod for his own back. If he used the squad a little more, and was rather more flexible in his use of players and his systems, maybe he would be able to better cope with a run of injuries.
And that's it a nutshell, I agree there are in my opinion. At least 3 worse teams, and in a way I see the logic of keeping him, if and only if the board can not get who they want. But postponing getting rid of him is in my opinion a waste of the next window and half season, some one good could be building and learning the strengths and weaknesses of the squad a head of the summer and 2014-15's assault on 10th place! It could be ours! Bah!
That's what I am kind of getting at. We should be able to lose 3 or 4 players and not see a significant difference, but I don't think that has been the case tbh. Missing from the 'best XI' imo is Pilkington, Howson (very recent) and Tettey - just three players. We do not have adequate strength in depth (something I mentioned 2 months ago) It gets worse with EB out longer term, perhaps Hooper out for most of the rest of the season but I did not include EB in the above sentence as I don't see him as a first XI player.
It is a fact of football that you will get injuries, all sides have them and it is part of any managers remit to use his squad to the best of his ability to get results, look at its today, we won't get a better chance to pick up points against one of the big boys but we didn't! Against Swansea they were weakened before and during the match. It iI just that, an excuse, all teams have it just in varying degrees. Bah!
Just to illustrate (below) that sometimes clubs take a longer term approach and look at Fergie's first three years in charge of Utd, when he bought a host of players and essentially changed the first team over a three year period. I'm not saying he;s akin to fergie, but development can take time. "However, Ferguson later revealed that the board of directors had assured him that they were not considering dismissing him. Although naturally disappointed with the lack of success in the league, they understood the reasons for the sub-standard results (namely the absence of several key players due to injury) and were pleased with the way that Ferguson had reorganised the club's coaching and scouting system" AND LOOK WHAT THEN HAPPENED.
Oh well that's all right then, we're on course to win upteen Premier League titles and a couple of ECL's as well
I guess the point I was trying to make is that Utd were prepared to take a longer term approach and build the team through developing the youth system and gradually introducing players over several seasons, and it was much more successful for them and of course it had a lot to do with ferguson. Maybe CH is not the person for the job to develop the club, but the youth system at Norwich and the scouting system is bringing in players that we would have never dreamed of having a few years ago- three or four more additions and just maybe things will improve. I can see it happening but then I may be very deluded and should not be allowed out without supervision
