All I keep hearing is about McNally making a huge mistake this season and in hindsight he probably has. What I would like to say is that hindsight is a wonderful thing and I respect McNally for not wanting to be a club that sacks managers at the drop of a hat. McNally wanted us to be a Premier League side with some consistency and I cant hold grudges for that. I remember the plan that was released about achieving premier league football and at the time thinking it was hugely unrealistic and unachievable. We achieved it, ahead of schedule with McNally at the helm. I really home that the negativity that I keep hearing and seeing doesnt make him step down as he is still a huge assett to us as a football club. I feel that maybe the fire and passion he had was wiped out by our 3rd season in the premier league and maybe all at the club started to feel a sense of entitlement to being there. I hope this season has stirred the fire in McNally and he stays with us and drives us to the premier league. Before this season, if a big decision neededto be made I wouldnt want anyone else making it - that remains the case for me moving into next season.
For me the decision to replace Hughton was baffling, not sure what McNally was thinking, to expect a man to keep your team in the Premier league, who had no experience at first class level, just doesn't add up, its flawed thinking, okay Hughton has not had a good season, but don't think he led you into the bottom three all campaign, he had an even money chance of keeping you up, surely more chance than Adams. There is a saying, better the devil you know
I can understand your point of view, but I think McNally & Co simply (and quite rightly in my opinion) asked themselves at the time of the HUGE game against Fulham, "are we more likely to get 3 points away at Fulham with or without Hughton?" Hughton's away record was abysmal, not to mention his record specifically against Fulham. They made the decision, and to be honest we put in a half decent performance against Fulham under Adams - some would say we were unlucky to lose. Whether 3 points at Craven Cottage would've kept us up anyway, I don't know.
In my view the debate as to whether Hughton should have been sacked at the time is all somewhat irrelevant - mostly because we just don't know, but now we can also see that Sunderland's astonishing form meant we would have need at least 5 points from our last 5 games (depending on how W Brom do at the weekend - could have been more) and I don't think either Hughton or anyone else would have got that anyway. The key game therefore really was the home loss to W Brom, which Hughton was in charge for. The team selection for that leads me to believe that the Norwich camp was in turmoil so the sacking was needed anyway. In any event, McNally has done Hugthon something of a favour - for odd reasons everyone external to the club assumes Hughton would have kept us up, so his record is perceived to be intact.
Ultimately, there's very little doubt in my mind that we have been enormously unlucky over the course of the season in terms of the combination of injuries, poor form, good form of opposition, managers changing, referee decisions. Sometimes you have to shrug your shoulders and say "that's football, lady luck said we were to be relegated" or to coin a phrase... "we go again"(!). With our luck to only just go down tells me how bad the other teams in the division are - the likes of Leicester must be licking their lips.
I think it simply came down to the way the fans reacted at his last game in charge. The atmosphere was poisonous, and at the end of the game he had stuff thrown at him. At that point there was no coming back for Hughton, whether McNally and co. wanted him in charge for the rest of the season or not (I think they did personally). Adams was brought in simply to try and reunite everyone behind the club and try to get a positive atmosphere back.
I don't believe McNally sacked Hughton because he felts he wasn't capable of keeping us up anyway I feel it was because the fans were so hostile to Hughton his position was untenable.
superb post marknemo - really sums up my feelings too dm, we have no idea if mcnally and the board wanted hughton (remember its not down to one man/woman) to stay or not but my gut feeling was always that once they'd decided to persist after christmas, they'd also decided to back him until the close season. the fan reaction at home to west brom made his position virtually untenable, so because of this had no choice but to throw neil adams into the fold. this was why the timing was so appalling - they simply hadn't planned for that eventuality - and i can't have been alone in thinking we'd plunder enough points to stay out of the bottom three, no matter how boring or unstylish (is that a word?) the manner. sunderland's form probably means we'd have gone down regardless. i really don't get why people would have a go at the board for sticking to their guns - in my opinion not enough boardrooms are prepared to do that. maybe some of them would reap more rewards if they did. unfortunately for us it hasn't worked out but we might have gone down had hughton left in january or not at all. we'll never know so its pretty pointless going over it time and time again i suppose! all i know is that over 38 games, we won't have been good enough and everyone from top to bottom is partly to blame for that.
The most important asset we have at the club, if we don't have him here the club will go down the pan again, I still have zero faith in Smith & Jones ability to employ the right calibre of people for this line of business. Anyone wanting McNally's head needs to cast their memory back to the days of Doncaster and Munby and how the club lost vast sums of money, how we employed countless inept and useless managers, it took years to recover from that and it was McNally who made it all happen, even if it meant upsetting a few fat bastards along the way by putting up the prices of pies and pasties (another example why some Norwich fans are on another planet)
