Birmingham are now unbeaten in 15 games in all competitions with their last defeat coming against Crystal Palace on 19 December 5 points off the automatic promotion places with a game in hand.
Quite impressive. Bit tight at the top at the moment. 1 West Ham 31 19 60 2 Southampton 32 26 59 3 Birmingham 31 22 54 5 Cardiff 32 11 53 6 Middlesbrough 31 6 53 Second figure is the goal difference.
If Birmingham get promoted I think Hughton can finally hang up the 'inexperienced' tag many have given him. Anyone know how long his contract is? Surprised Wolves (who are now looking increasingly daft for sacking MM) haven't been linked to him.
Hughton is a bit of what you'd call a handicap blot in horse racing terms. His early forays into management suggested he was ill suited. Since sending us on our current upward curve before being wrongly dumped, he has never looked back. Don't doubt he'll continue to progress and wish him all the best.
I would love it if CH got Brum promoted. It still sticks in my throat the way he was dismissed at SJP, but we have both moved on and both doing well.
If he can brum up he will have a better little gig going there than he would have eveer got from Mike Ashley. He couldn't have done any better for us than Pardew has. Diabolical decision to sack him which, bizarrely, has benefited all parties.
Don't Brum still have a transfer embargo because of the issues with the owner? CH did wonders here when all and sundry were fearing the worst. He had very little money to work with and has pretty much the same situation at Birmingham as far as I can remember.
Even worse scenario at Birmingham. The squad we retained always had promotion written on it. Birmingham shed some 20 players I believe including all of their key players. And the owner is in jail isn't he? <freereignworkswonders>
Bring Brum up, keep them up and he will have a long list of options. Had Ashley not managed to alienate every manager in football by September 2009, Hughton would never have become a manager. Had Ashley not sacked him, he'd still be caught between the vice of the fans and the fat controller. As it is, by the end of May he is likely to be acknowledged as one of the fairly serious players in football management. Not quite Martin Jol, but easilly amongst the Warnocks and Curbishleys.
Well lets hope he, Pardew and other up and coming English managers get a chance at the CL clubs when they next change bosses. Then when we need an England manager, the shortlist can be longer than 1! Although Chris did represent Ireland....