I think you’re question is a useful way of getting a pause on the situation. Sometimes it pays to really take a step out of the now seasonal ‘we must sack the manager’ routine that has been on here for years. Koeman was the subject of a similar campaign around the December part of his reign when results dipped. He turned it round, then left. I’m not saying Hughes is the ideal manager, but some of the suggestions for a replacement just don’t come close to the answer. We’ve done the experiment of blooding managers into the PL, that didn’t work out times three at least over the years. We rushed in to buy experience ie our unlamented friend Harry, we’ve bought top managers only to be relieved of them within two seasons. So in terms of a range of options, not many have worked out. An utter disaster (in football terms) is there is no club to support, that’s not going to happen. We have to face up to the unpalatable truth, the PL has changed gear in the last two or more years and the majority of clubs will always be within reach of the drop zone for a good part of the season, whilst the top 6 play out their own league. A settled and stable management situation will help to ensure that we make a decent show year by year, but jumping on this bandwagon of continuous change that we have been on for at least three years, will do nothing but damage to the reputation and survival of the club in the long run. Perhaps not the view of many but one put by a supporter of 64 years.
You weren't alone. Despite what others say about 'he should never have been appointed', there is a danger in rewriting history here. Having kept us up there would have been a major meltdown had he not been offered a contract. I'm not a fan and did not want him appointed but accepted it was inevitable. We do appear to be the new Stoke of the Premier league though so I look forward to a change of manager - but probably not yet.
For every relegated club that slid into financial complications, there are about 30 that didn't. I guess you're talking about the likes of Villa, Coventry, Leeds, Newcastle, QPR, - they're all still around. Some of them with a real chance of getting back to the EPL
I recognise this Inter team........ They were in the Europa against us 2 years ago..... We’ve used our time wisely then.....!! Hughes out....
A well reasoned post, and I like the idea of stability too, but so far the only constant of Hughes reign is losing games. I can’t see how he can possibly turn it around, he has shown nothing to suggest he has a clue. If he had a previous record of success, I’d say give him time, but at QPR and Stoke he did exactly the same thing and caused them to be incredibly poor. If we change soon, we have a very slight chance of staying up, if he stays much longer we go down IMO.
Wouldn't read too much into that. I asked for a price on Sousa the other day when this thread went up as he wasn't in the market. A few hours later he went up at 10/1 and I thought "why not" so tried to put a few hundred on it. They limited me to £25 and once I had put it on and confirmed the bet the price dropped to 9/2. Shows how easy it is to move the odds in these markets. Probably only takes about £500 placed on someone for them to become favourite. If only you could cash out these bets, could make an absolute fortune
I said a similar thing about WBA and Moore. After the results Moore got at the end of last season, WBA had almost no choice but to give him the job - despite zero experience of managing in the Championship, and (presumably) with a minimum requirement of promotion at the first time of asking. Now fortunately for them it has worked out reasonably well (at least looking from the outside) so far, but there was no guarantee of that. As for Hughes, I never hugely bought into him deserving a new contract (I'd have actually been more inclined to keep him had we gone down). I wasn't fussed either way if I'm honest. My feelings were whether it's Hughes or someone else, we should be fine - because I stupidly thought that after the scare of last season, the board would finally make proper use of a transfer window. Oh how wrong I was.
