The question is Do you think he is the right person for the job? If your answer is no then who else (realistically) would you like to see given a shot? My personal answer as things stand is that while there has been an element of doubt creeping in over the past few weeks, I still think he needs to be allowed more time. When he was appointed last summer he was given the job of keeping us up. It still looks very likely that he will succeed in this. I can fully understand that what he wanted to do was make us as difficult to beat as possible by ensuring we were difficult to score against. He had limited time when he came in and that was his best shot at keeping us in the PL. So far it looks like working and so fair play. However, I would fully expect him to work much more on the attacking side of our play over this summer. If he does not then I would not be giving him too much time into next season. I would rather revert to being a yo-yo club for a few years than season after season of 0-0's and 1-0's which are just enough to see us finish 15th or 16th each year. some of you will agree with me, some will not. Lets keep it friendly though chaps. Remember, your opinion is just that. It is not necessarily right or wrong.
Right now, I don't see the point dismissing him before the end of the season. There's no obvious candidates to take over, so it'd likely upset things for no real benefit. As far as I'm aware, our current squad can be supported on a championship income, so if the worst happens, we become an incredibly strong championship side. Hughton has taken a strong side back up at the first time of asking, and certainly came close with a Birmingham side that had an awful lot of European fixtures too. If we go down, I really can't see anyone who I'd rather have in charge, and who's likely to be available. If we stay up, then Wolfswinkel shows that his intentions this summer are to overhaul our attacking options. We're also supposed to be in the market for an attacking midfielder and 2 wingers, so presumably we'll be playing a similar formation with stronger players. If by Christmas we haven't showed any more threat going forward, and our league position is poor, then I think real questions will have to be asked. Until then I'm behind him.
Can't honestly say I'm behind him, I'm very very disappointed in the way he's got us playing, it's not the Norwich way, but it doesn't make sense to sack him now. I expect the club to do the right thing if he fails in his brief, so will expect a new manager at the start of the Championship season next year. His replacement? Can we get Holty fast tracked???
This perfectly sums up my position. I think we'll just about scrape enough points this season and expect a major overhaul in the summer.
I don't get this he was given a brief to just keep us up and that is good enough. But surely if things are better than you expect, you raise your expectations. We had 25 points by Christmas. That may be the reason we stay up. So why didn't we end up with 50 points? We only had the same teams to play. In January we were trying to buy RVW, Graham or Hooper. We didn't get them so is that why we decided to bore the points off the opposition? We had a great opportunity, thanks to CH and the squad of course, of getting close to what WBA have achieved. But we chose the wrong path and could still pay a big price for that.
If we are served up the same garbage culminating in yet another defeat on Saturday, I shall be starting a "Hughton Out !" thread on here and this time I won't back-track. Put Neil Adams and Hucks in charge until the end of the season and I guarantee we would stay up
It depends on the plan that he has shared with the upper echelons at carrow road. If there is a design and plan that fits the way NCFC play football, then give him a proper chance next season, if there isn't get rid of him at the end of this season. Giving him a chance till Christmas is always a half arsed ploy and one that can land you in deep ****e very quickly. It's very miserable watching the team at the moment, I preferred being in the championship to this dirge. Of course we could get rid of CH and go for Tony Pulis and like stoke fans pretend to be excited when a long throw is being taken;
Carrabuh, I've had enough of Hughton and even if he does manage to keep us up, I fear that next year it will be the same old, same old from him. No I wasn't being serious, just making a point really that almost anyone else couldn't do a much worse job
What do you mean here? If you mean almost anyone else (i.e. any other manager) could could get us to play better, more exciting football, I tend to agree. At least in terms of professional managers that we are likely to employ, the current performances are dire and not enjoyable to watch. Even Pulis's teams are more aggressive... If, however, you mean you think almost anyone else could do a better job as a manager as a whole, I am afraid I completely disagree. Hughton is a decent manager, he has proved that. He makes good signings. We are also currently (just) on track to survive in the Prem. Given our squad, which we have to accept is one of the poorest in the league, results-wise (and in terms of what I imagine he was told to do), he has probably over-performed, I might even venture to say has been very good. I understand your frustration and I agree with a lot of it, but there are some things that you cannot take away. Given his lack of faith (at least this is how I see it and he's certainly said as much) in the technical ability of Lambert's players, I think we are going to have to suck it up for the rest of the season. It's too late to make a change now. I'm going to hold fire until I see the summer signings and performances next season. I suggest, for your own sanity, that you do what I am going to do and don't watch any away matches. Particularly not against our technically superior opponents... It won't be pretty. In the meantime, keep the faith in the team as a whole. There is definitely at least one thing worse than Hughton being in charge at the end of the season - us being in the Championship with or without Hughton.
It may not be pretty but I think most would have been happy to stay up this year and currently we are. He has a very different style to Lambert and one I think is more suitable to sustaining PL status. He had to build from the back as the defence was pretty poor when he came in. He has done this pretty well for the most part. Yes this has meant we have suffered going forward but I hope and expect he will (and has started) strengthening our attacking options. Lets be fair if we stay up and we keep a similar defensive quality plus add to our attacking game we will be in a very good position next season. Yes maybe he has been too negative but he is achieving his aims so really there should be very little consideration for him leaving. Would you rather play very attacking football and go down? Some may say yes but Im sure that would be a minority. Hopefully when he feels he has the personable capable of playing a more attractive style he will do so. We have to remember we really have used very limited resources compared to most in the PL. CH should stay end of
He's not building from the back, he's building up the back. He's knocked down all the successful bits from 3/4 of the team to build up the 1/4 that wasn't as successful. That is not a sensible trade off. All that had been built over the three years, the sense of confidence, bravery to try things, eagerness to create something has been wiped out. I have absolutely no idea why anyone would think sticking 11 men behind the ball is the way to stay in this division, and even worse that its the only way we could survive. Just an unbelievable attitude to have. All the success we had with an attacking formula and for some random, bizarre, out of the blue reason the formula is not what we need. In fact, we need the absolute opposite, I mean where do people come up with this stuff!!!! The worse thing is we've got a chimp in charge who's done exactly that!!!!! Decent managers don't wreck the good parts to fix the bad, there's a medium in between. I don't mind playing defensive but when you've five in midfield and none of them are making any sort of run to join the penalty area then it just borders on the moronic to then expect the team to create and be "clinical". Excuse me when I say the man is a ****ing arsehole to expect that from his players.
He had to do something with the defence. It was pretty poor and it is as important as attack despite what some people may say. People seem to get stuck with the mentality that we must see lots of goals with loads of attacking football. Surely good defending is as important? As great as the previous years were and how the players played with confidence and attacking intent the fact remains some of those players are not good enough to sustain a high level and improve the team in the PL. Don't get me wrong it was a fantastic season and very entertaining but I can't think of any clubs who have stayed up consistantly playing very attacking football. They all have decent defences. Maybe he won't but if CH can improve our attack in the close season and maintain the defence we will have a very decent PL side. I don't get what people expected from us this season? Most people seemed to accept staying up was the aim but people are not happy because we are not playing attacking football?
Yes, but good defending is not doubling up on the players doing it, that's just making it easier to defend. Its not a true solution, its what you do for the last ten minutes to protect a lead, not for an entire season. Look what happened when McLeish tried it, Birmingham down (on a late downward run very much like our own) and he nearly sent Villa with them a year later.
I do agree with you that that is not always good defending. I will make it clear if it was me I would be more attacking but I can see the merit in what CH is doing. There is no doubt the shape of our team is much better defensively than last season. I guess this has in part led to our poorer attacking. We tend to have a ridged shape and maintain it well out of possession making it harder for the opposition to break us down. I agree on the down side this has made us very predictable going forward and maybe we are tilted too much towards defending. It is the transition between our defensive formation and our attacking one we really need to improve. This undoubtedly means we need players with better movement if we are to continue to play in a similar way. Last season in many ways our poorer positioning in defensive situations allowed us to be more unpredictable and effective with our attacking. If that sort of makes sense? ha
