Hughes vs Hassenhuttl

MP2s style of play just did not suite the players we had and used at the time. Although if he had attempted to use a lot more of the youngsters maybe he would have had a bit more success. Ralph on the other hand has made good use of the youngsters. I honestly think that has been the major reason for our recent successes. Ralph has proved he has a better understanding of what was needed. Which should make the previous few managers think a bit.

 

Top of the list for a manager is a plan and how to get the best from players, but another factor is personality. Have to get the players on side and believe in the said plan....and need some early success to reinforce what you are saying and doing. Players will go the extra mile if they see success. Puel wasn't a bad manager, but he couldn't inspire me to eat chocolate cake.

 

Are you sure about that last line? He did breathe after all.

Ryan’s current noises, tells us all we need to know about the current state of affairs with the players and the coach.

 

We averaged 1 goal a game under Pelligrino. We averaged 1 goal a game under Hughes. And Hughes had Ings. The only thing that changed was the defense was way ****tier.

We never played any better at any point under Hughes. We just got lucky that Swansea collapsed and we got to play them.

But it doesn't matter now.

 

Pellegrino turned us to **** and Hughes carried on his work...thank god that Ralph had an epiphany and sacked Reed and Hughes and brought in a young, progressive Manager.

 

We never played any better at any point under Hughes.

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I disagree. It was still very poor under Mark, and riddled with individual errors, but the players were more up for it. There was more enterprise, but still tactically lacking.

 

Tadic played better under Hughes. That turned out to be quite important.

 

No, the acquisitions department turned the team to ****. Pellegrino definitely did not help but that team sucked.

Take away Ings and Armstrong from this team. IMO, Redmond just figured something out this summer in a way that was unrelated to coaching. Debatable, but for the sake of argument let’s say we take him away as well.

You try scoring with that lineup. Now take away Vestergaard and Gunn who at least provide competition if they don’t always start. Add a disgruntled VVD. And a leaky sieve in Forster who I cannot blame Pellegrino for starting through the start of the season though perhaps he should have ditched him earlier.

That is a really bad team.

The thing with Hughes is he managed to be even worse with season than Pellegrino was last season, with the same squad as Hasenhuttl. And to be honest, we still don’t look all that great under Hasenhuttl, just maybe low-average instead of total crap.

I point this out not to dump on Hughes or defend Pellergrino, but rather to note how much work we still have to do. The organization was **** from top to bottom. Now we have a good manager and a slightly less sucky squad but still many bloated contracts and no proven Director of Football.

 

I would personally say that Pellegrino is the worst permanent manager we've had in my time supporting Saints.

 

Got to disagree with that. We look like a good side that have a game plan and know how to execute it. Taking results from when Ralph took over we are 8th place (before liverpool anyway): that is certainly the look of a good side that is top half and above average

 

Sorry but really have to disagree on a couple of points. This is not a bad team nor bad players. They have been underachieving certainly. The new manager had totally different ideas than Hughes or mopo and most definitely Puel. The clubs principle problem though was sacked. It is no coincidence since he has gone that we are starting to look like a difficult team to beat. We are on the move as they say and although we have a way to go. We are better than half way there.

 

I would also argue with the idea that we are 'low average'. We were underperforming under Hughes...now we are about right for the quality of players (ignore our league position, look at current results). If I had to give a quick summary of the Saints....I would say a team with potential.

 

If you take Hughes' 9 pts from 14 games, that's an average of 0.64 pts per game. On that basis (and generously rounding up), over the course of this season (to date) we would now be sat on 21 pts; only 3 pts above Fulham and 8 pts adrift of Cardiff. I know it's all if's and but's, but I never saw anything from Hughes that ever made me confident of that form changing.

Scary stuff.
I love Ralph and his leggings .
The end.

 

Hang on, it was virtually the same squad that Puel took to 8th and a Wembley final minus Jose and Jay who both played less than 20 matches and VVD and Chaz both had long term injuries too. Pellegrino's team had over £50m worth of additional players in Hoedt, Bedders, Lemina and Carrillo (who presumably was his choice) and he had a much easier fixture schedule to negotiate than Puel too. By your reckoning Puel should've been Manager of the Year.
Good players played worse under Pellegrino (JWP, Redders,Tadic, Bertie and Pierre) and he relied on the older senior players too much (Davis, Long) and playing Long as a solo striker and Tadic on the right for as long as he did showed that he was tactically deficient to me and the football was safety first and rigid which was the reason why we drew so many under him.
Finally, the atmosphere at SMS was the worst and the most disconnected to the team that I can ever remember it during his tenure which is why I hated last season so much.

 

It's difficult to be sure just how bad the Dutch duo were, because our financial problems back them meant that we barely had a squad to pick from. Everyone was either 17 or 37 or deciding to come out of retirement to see if they could come back after four years injured.

They were bad, but just how bad...

So yeah, in my book (which begins in 1998), Pellegrino is the worst too. And by some distance.

 

Whilst it is hard to conclude just how bad Poortvliet and Watte were - I would say it is fairly obvious to all that Pellegrino is a better manager. Look at their overall careers as well.

Id go as far to say comparing him with them is a bit of an insult. He was indeed terrible during his time with us but he is a respected manager in la liga and that is 10 times more than the other two have ever achieved.

 

I totally agree with this post.

I think , in Hughes favour, we did well against Man Utd before he got the push. However, had we stuck with him I think we would probably be in a similar position to Cardiff now if not worse. The poor results against lower ranking opposition are my only gripe against Hassenhuttl. We should really be several points ahead of where we are now and maybe above teams like Bournemouth. These were missed opportunities to secure our status in this league much earlier . My principle fear is that we continue to make mistakes that cost us matches. If we overcome these errors, I think we can let other teams worry about relegation. It is a consistent nagging worry for most Saints supporters.

I would also add that all this had been achieved with what is, on paper, a weakened squad since the transfer window. Loads of first time players have been bombed out and , now that the rotation system has been ditched, we have settled on a core of consistent and reliable players. I wonder how well we would have done if we had retained Tadic? It is incredible that anyone ever slagged him off but I feel he has been a catastrophic miss for us this season. How good would we have been had Tadic played in a Hassenhuttl team?

I would have to say the one player i had high hopes for was Armstrong. He seems to be a fringe player and not really lived up the expectations despite the odd good performance. He is more of a fringe player as opposed to someone I felt would genuinely make things happen. Amazing too to think we have not missed Lemina.

 

Ralph's not Jesus Christ reincarnated. He's not a miracle worker. He's done as good a job as possible with the squad he's got. When and not if we secure safety we can plan for the summer and hopefully improve the squad.

 

I think that Armstrong has been marginalised a bit due to JWP - his emergence to being once of the first names we put on the team sheet has kept Stuey out

 

He is. And I am an Atheist saying this