I don't think it's quiet that. I was pretty happy when Hughton kept us up with that run of 10 games or so unbeaten. That was ok, was our first season with him and just wanted to keep us up. It's the fact we seemed to spend and improve the squad, and the football went downhill so much! No only performances, but result were really poor too. Game after game was the same borefest. AN pulled that result out of the bag with that display against Swansea, at least we haven't had to sit through that every single game. You can appreciate it when it's played like that and get the result. Not when you play like that against every single team, every single week.
Ha ha ha, I was not offended Rick at all and understood exactly what you meant. CH was Marmite on here for a long time and the debate became quite bitter at times. In summary and on reflection I think it is fair to say that CH was not the most ambitious of managers and his style could be classed as defence orientated. However, he tried his best for the club and was professional and humble represented the club as well as he could . I know there is the view that he played people out of position, inverted wingers etc. but at the end of the day a manager of a club like Norwich has to be practical. PL 'got away' with it in his Premier season largely because we were a new commodity. I think part of the reason he jumped was because he knew probably that he could not pull the same rabbit out again without most teams seeing through it. CH almost helped us stay up and only an amazing run from the Black Cats (which I still find unbelievable) put us down. We will never know what his strategy the following year would have been. As for the all out attack that many craved for, well NA did that and what plaudits did he get from those same people, er naive was one often used word I think. So here we are, we know the style that AN prefers, but he has concluded that he has to be more pragmatic than he had hoped. I think CH was not too far off but that is just my 5 penny worth.
The thing is though, our current squad has been sparked by the additions of Brady and Jarvis, the rest are largely the same as before. I don't want to go through the whole debate again as I'm sure you don't but a lot of the discontent goes back to the no-show of RVW and his investment. Had CH have bought a couple of differnety players who had turned up then the outcome could well have been different. We will never know, but I am pleased that he is doing well at Brighton and his reputation is on the up again.
He always came across as a really nice guy, so I'd like to see him do well. He was just too negative and dull for me.
