...or was yesterday´s non- performance all to do with the players, and not very much to do with the manager, and before any of you start to get twitchy, I´m not defending Hughton just for the sake of it. But in all honesty, what more can the man do? - the players are professionals for heavens sake, that is their job, that is what they do. I played as a professional in various Symphony Orchestras around the world for 35 years, and if they´d performed to that level in any professional orchestra, they´d have been out of a job this morning, unfortunately that doesn´t happen in football, but I sometimes think it would be good if it did. Russell Martin was saying a few days ago, that all the players were fully behind the manager, well they need to start showing it then, and whether they find him inspiring or uninspiring is totally irrelevant, there has to be a minimum, acceptable level that they all play to every single week, and they´re blatently not doing that at the moment. When they can play so well against Chelsea and Arsenal, and then turn up and produce that sort of show yesterday, then perhaps the problem, if problem there is, is as much with the players, as with the manager. I´m not entirely deluded though, and it´s clear that even one more performance remotely approaching that will almost certainly force McNally´s hand, but I´m far from convinced that Hughton is the whole cause of whatever isn´t clicking at the moment, nor am I convinced that replacing him, will necessarily be a cure.
