Seems like we're on the same page then Agree Hughton doesn't deserve all the blame. He certainly took something of a poisoned chalice after Lambert and some players have really not done themselves proud IMO. But I still maintain that Hughton could and should have dealt with certain things, particularly player relationships, but also the style of football and the "guiding mind" behind Norwich City as a football club, rather than a business, much better. I believe he is a very good manager, I really do. But I just don't the he's right for us and I think he's in a position that I've seen before - a competent person where things go wrong, who panics, loses sight of reality and it all becomes incoherent. My opinion is that Hughton is a decent manager, but he wants to please everyone too much. He realised we had a weak squad last season, but he played to our strengths and was successful. Since then, he's panicked and heard people say our style isn't nice, but he has neither the personnel nor the expertise to enact a change. So he's tried to give us a better style without really thinking through the practicalities or the consequence, with the result being we still don't play better football, and yet we win less. Hughton either needed to stick to his guns and play ****e football for safety purposes or he needed to go all out and change our style, as it is this half-way house is the worst of both worlds
On this last paragraph I agree almost totally, except I would probably use the word 'limited' rather than 'decent'. I get the feeling he has tried to go against his instincts and, as you say, ended up with a 'half-way house'. Be interesting to see if he finally does let go tomorrow now that the chips are completely down.
McNally isn't the only person whose actions are determined by his brief. Instead of playing at being amateur psychologists and offering spurious explanations in terms of Chris Hughton's character, instincts or whatever, why not just ask yourselves whether the differences you see this season as opposed to last season are to do with his beginning to address the longer term needs rather than just short term firefighting?
I have to bite back to that one, Robbie. Being an amateur psychologist is no better and no worse than trotting out some meaningless statistics (such as Hughton's record at Newcastle) and building a spurious argument out of that.
Because that's no better an argument than saying he's made us a good-at-nothing team. Only time will tell. But if it gets us relegated, it will be a big error
Argument? What argument? My point was simply about how Hughton's actions are best explained, i.e. as his trying to implement the brief he has been given in the time scale allotted him. I made no comment on how well or badly he was doing it. At least we seem to agree about the difficulties inherent in the brief (the poisoned chalice as you called it).
I think you need to read my post on carrabuh's thread again vietnam. I simply raised a question and invited people to think about it. I offered no answer myself, and didn't argue anything one way or the other.
I want to wake up on a matchday excited about watching my favorite players score and "expect" the odd win again, for the entire 2013 i have expected a dull draw or loss and been right. My confidence and faith in my team has been killed by wrong starting line ups tactics and subs ,if anyone says that each game of football is as random as flipping a coin again i will scream.
It's always tough when your team has a tough run of results, but to then go on to 'read the mind' of the CEO or the manager in an all-seeing way, knowing that your view is the 'right' view still seems somewhat dubious to me. There's a kind of hysteria going on among some fans (and it'll take more than the Radio Norfolk 'texted' poll to convince me that this is a majority) who rant and rave without any factual evidence to back up their views. It isn't new, but it also isn't the basis upon which any decision will be made by McNally or the Board when and if it is. The Club's future will be determined to a far greater extent by what happens on the pitch tomorrow and in subsequent games. That is the basis of any decision that will or will not be made.
I was just saying more or less the same to my daughter when I phoned her this evening. I used to look forward to meeting a few friends down the pub for a couple of beers before the game and watching the Canaries do battle with whoever we were playing and seeing the players give their all. In some of the recent games (ESPECIALLY when we've played Fulham!!), the players for a large percentage of the match appear to be 'taking it easy', instead of trying to win the ball back when a pass goes asttray - which it does quite frequently!!!!
I certainly don't think my attempts to 'read the minds' of DM, CH or the players is necessarily 'right', but I think it is speculation well worth doing. I have problems with people who say we can only discuss things which are measurable because frankly most things in life are not measurable. We have to speculate unless we want to stick to the field of mathematics alone. And I think us CH-outers have one very strong piece of factual evidence on our side - the number of points garnered in 2013.
You may not be enamoured of measurability, but I would hope you try to espouse logic. There is no dispute about the number of points garnered in 2013 (which is, er, measurable). The debate is about the explanations you keep offering. Many factors determine a team's points haul, yet you don't seem to be able to contemplate any apart from the perceived failings of the manager (including speculative psychological failings). If you want to argue that everything is down to Chris Hughton, you need to show that alternative explanations don't apply. This is nicely illustrated by Yellow Little's post about the Lambert/Hughton fixation. When RBF pointed out that Lambert is making no better fist of it at Villa than CH is at Norwich, Yellow Little immediately started to look for explanations other than some deficiency in Lambert, e.g. that Villa are a young side. Yet when it is Hughton we are talking about, no serious attempt is made to identify similar extenuating circumstances. The only factor anyone deems relevant is some perceived deficiency in Hughton.
Of course I will accept other factors. Injuries haven't helped for a start this season, especially to RvW and Hooper when they should have been settling in. I also give a lot of credence to the idea that we have been changing style from an attacking fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants side into something more (er) measured, and that this is bound to have its ups and downs. I am surprised by Lambert's record so far at Villa but I am not someone who hankers after Lambert. He has gone and frankly I don't care very much how he does at Villa (unless it's us or them for a relegation spot). I guess I use him fairly often to highlight a point concerning CH but that is because they seem almost to be polar opposites as managers in many ways. If I keep stressing (putative) psychological factors, that is because I am really not very good at the tactical side of football, and I leave those kinds of criticisms to Carrabuh and others.
Most people understand that there is no point in hankering after Lambert. But he is used, as you use him, not just to draw attention to differences between him and CH, but to imply that how Lambert does things is so much better than how Hughton does things (e.g. their use of substitutes, their different behaviour on the touchline, Hughton's caution v Lambert's more cavalier approach, etc. etc.). But as my comparison of their managerial records shows, Hughton's way of doing things is just as effective in delivering wins and league points as Lambert's. Of course this says nothing about entertainment value, but just as it is a myth that Lambert is a managerial genius and Hughton is managerially clueless, so it is a myth that Lambert's teams play unfailingly entertaining football and Hughton's play unfailingly dull, boring, overly defensive football.
Yes, I do use him to highlight things which I don't believe CH is good at because, as I said, they seem to be such polar opposites. My main things are changing things during a game (and I'm not focusing on late substitutes here - I mean making changes in system in response to changes made by the other manager or lack of success on the pitch), not using the squad flexibly enough, and (more controversially I feel to you) inspiring his players to believe in the unlikely. Personally I couldn't care less what he does on the touchline and I prefer CH's dignified approach to the frenetic jack-in-the-box movements of someone like Pulis. If I think they're polar opposites, logic demands that I must think there are things that CH is good at and Lambert is not. I agree with your final sentence in absolute terms, but as a generalisation I do think Lambert's style of football while he was with us (not necessarily in home games at Villa from what I read) was much more entertaining.
