Hatred? Don't see that myself. His ball winning has been praised game after game. It's his passing that gets criticised, and a lack of clear thinking near the box. Terrific defensively though and work rate phenomenal. I'd interchange Tettey and Johnson on "attack" days, and play Fox.
agree. fox would have helped. i'd personally have taken him off though (or johnson, as was the case) much earlier than hughton did and brought on morison. i heard a few mutterings for jackson to be brought on but that would have been a waste, as villa were sat so deep, he would never have been able to use his pace!
Well whether I would take Fox off or not was dependent on whether it worked. In all fairness to Morison I think he played quite well when he came on. I think when it was 11 v 11 Jackson would have been good as there was a bit of space behind defence, but after they went down to 10 men I agree, would have been a waste. I thought Snodgrass had a stinker when he came one, really wish he would use his right foot more, at Leeds he shown his right foot isn't bad yet there was a chance that fell to him in the box on Saturday that he made impossible for himself because he wanted to use his left foot.
agree about morison, i thought he did well. snodgrass was certainly guilty on saturday of not using his right foot. surprised guru hasn't been on here to tell us that! he's got a sweet right foot though, as proven earlier this season. its probably a confidence thing, reverting back to his stronger foot when lacking a bit of form. should have scored right at the end, regardless of which foot he went with and his set pieces always go way too deep. he is clearly a very talented footballer but he has some aspects of his game which need a lot of work on the training ground.
We need Bradley Johnson in midfield, he's our destroyer and he does it very well, his passing, as it says above is abysmal, but he's a vital part of the team.
is he vital though? not for me he isn't. i'm not calling for him to be dropped and never play for the club again! i just don't feel he is a necessity all the time. for instance, when villa were down to ten men, he was a complete waste of a player. a more attacking player was required because tettey was blocking everything from villa on his own and johnson wasn't good enough to affect the game going forwards, to utilise the space. a player with more vision was required - that man is fox or howson or butterfield or even surman, but not johnson. so what i'm saying is that although its important to use johnson in some games, more often than not he isn't going to affect a game in a positive way. one holding player would be better on those occasions and that frees up a more creative player to take on his role. its already been proved that johnson isn't a good holding player on his own as he doesn't possess the discipline to play that role alone, and tettey is a bigger, stronger, more dynamic version of johnson, someone better in every department. why play johnson ahead of him? play him alongside him, sure, but only when the time is right. i'll push the boat out here and say had surman come on for johnson, we'd have won that game. that little extra creativity and quality would have made all the difference. we didn't require two 'destroyers' against a midfield lacking bite. stoke may be different.
With respect, it's not Bradley's job to affect things going forward, as we've both already said, his passing is crap!! At the moment we look a balanced team, and I would not be inclined to change it for the time being. I believe Fox is too lightweight in Hughtons eyes, he seems to prefer a more 'solid' approach. We've only just got the two wide men back in the team, we need to give that a bit more time to gel, maybe then Fox will have a place, but I believe he's better suited when we play two up front, it gives him more options with his pinpoint passes, but that would probably mean leaving Hoolahan out and at the moment that's not an option. I'm quite happy with the team as it is, the only change I would make would be to get Barnett back alongside Bassong!
no, its not his job to be creative, which is what i'm saying. if we don't need two holding players at the same time, johnson would be the one to miss out. i too am happy with the team as it is. it is solid at the back, offers good width and is creative breaking forward. hughton has finally found the right balance, ironically it is the one many suggested at the start of the season, albeit with slightly different personnel, but that doesn't mean it is right for every game to play the same personnel. having as many different types of midfielders as we do allows us to be flexible within a formation - this is precisely why hughton kept signing midfielders in the summer when people started moaning 'we had too many'. at the moment, i'm very happy to carry on with the 'solid defensively' route we are taking but had we had that different midfielder play on saturday we'd have had more quality going forward. johnson was wasted for about 20 minutes cos he had nothing to do. he then marauded forward but lacked the quality required to unlock a tight villa defence. that's all i'm saying really. having wide men and hoolahan means fox has multiple options to look to, better even than having two up front as the ball will move through midfield rather than straight up top. as i say, fox should only play under the right circumstances - a game where we expect to gain more of the ball than our opponents, one where we won't be pressed back and require a tough tackling shield in front of our back four. it seems common sense to me. and i certainly wouldn't want to see barnett back in the side. for me, he is not switched on enough. he had a decent spell early in the season but turner and bassong looks a decent partnership, both have different strengths that compliment each other. pick our best players in their right positions and the results are starting to come. funny that...
To be honest I think the midfield has looked fine for the last two games. I know both Arsenal and Villa were poor but if we had taken our easy chances on Saturday we could have won 5-1. So though we talk about who should come on and go off, the reality is if the men in position to score had done their job, we would have been talking about a good performance against a team looking to be one of our rivals in the bottom third of the table. I'm not looking for us to play the top 6 off the pitch, it is very unlikely to happen. But if we can play slightly better than our immediate rivals, then I woud take that for the rest of the season. CH isn't blessed with the time that Lambert had to turn things around. We are in a tough league and he has to do his best to keep us in it, that's all. And as for Lambert, I haven't seen enough of Villa's performances to comment. He is blessed with good strikers but a dire midfield and obviously little in defence if Herd had to play there on Saturday.
Personally I'm happy with what Hughton is doing at the minute. I think Lambert was a brilliant manager for NCFC and took us further, faster than most of us could have hoped for. Maybe he felt that he had taken the club as far as he could. Similarly maybe our board with the benefit of hindsight now also think that he went as far as he could and we now have someone in situ who has significantly more managerial experience at the top of the game and a more professional "premier league" personality - calm and assured rather than wound up like a coiled spring. Time will tell if Lamberet has back the wrong horse or if we have employed the right jockey. I am quietly confident about htis season as I think that we have a better squad than last year and that there are a few teams currently wekaer than us. That said I'd still take 17th place if you offered it to me!
Hughton wasn't my first (or second but probably third) choice.But I am quite happy with where we are now,he seems a nice bloke and up to the job.If Hughton was to walk under the proverbial Stalham Omnibus and Lambert was available and willing I wouldn't be against it.
Please can you all stop saying that!! 17th is one place above relegation, and although it means safety, in reality it means that unless you are quite a few points ahead of your rivals for that last game of the season, you could get relegated through no fault of your own, no matter how well you played or even if you won, as has happened in the last two seasons. Lets be a bit more positive, 12th will do me nicely!
No way Supers, you know what they say 'never go back'. Besides, the fact that so many people keep talking about our previous manager is a great disrespect to our new manager. Lambert is history (albeit a great chapter in our history), please just let's forget about him and move on Chris Hughton's Green and Yellow Army ! OTBC IHWT
