Personally I don't mind Hughton, I think there is definite areas of improvements, saying he is worse than Roeder/Gunn is way way off the mark. He isn't Paul Lambert, and at the moment in my opinion it's the players he has inherited who are putting in poor performances at the moment. Elliott Bennett, Jonny Howson, Anthony Pilkington are three players who have really disappointed me this year, if you look at the players Hughton's bought they've done there job and improved our team. Although Hughton is too negative, I put on this forum last week that I don't think Hughton has much faith in out attacking players at all, I think to a degree that's true but I also think he slightly underestimating these players who generally are capable of scoring much more goals. I honestly think Holt has a better goal to chance ratio this year than he did last year and we need to exploit that and commit more players forward. Hughton is not perfect but, providing we don't get relegated, he deserves next season to learn from this seasons mistakes. I think and hope he will should he remain in charge. If he doesn't I can't really see us progressing much more with him in charge. Quick point on Becchio, I think he has been Hughton's worse signing, not seen anything from him at all yet which indicates he is technically better than Morison. He does work harder mind, but this is Premier League where you need more than hard work to survive. We might as well play Jackson otherwise.
I must confess I did not see a single shot on target all game, same as Utd away. Stan Collymore went out of his way on Saturday night to point that statistic out too in addition to a few callers to his show and the 606, from the game. I remember some shots in the first half but most of them were not within 10m of the goal - one even went out for a throw-in So please, where did these 5 shots on target come from?
I didn't see 5 - nowhere near, maybe one where the keeper smothered it from a header? Which means Hughton went there with the target of picking up another point from a(nother) 0 - 0 draw. Yet back in early Jan, we were all crucifying Martin Jol for bringing his Fulham team to Carrow Road and setting out his stall -and achieving, a 0 - 0. We're not even getting any luck with own goals because we exert no pressure in their final third. Remember 1998, when OG was our top scorer with on loan Leroy Lita second with 7? This season could be even more barren in the scoresheet department!
Recent performances? Can't fault the performance at Sunderland, OK Sunderland aren't a great team but the performance was there.
I was there and there weren't any shots on target. That was my last away game until the tactics change! There we NO positives to come out of that, we were appalling. That is not the first game this season where we've registered NO shots on target, it a complete disgrace. It's tactics pure and simple, we don't give our lone striker any service at all, it's all based on hope, a lucky break, it's really really awful to watch now. The players are capable of playing better than that and scoring goals, they did it last year, so it has to be tactics from the management team. What the **** are we so afraid of? Earlier in the season we handed West Ham, QPR, Newcastle and Spurs a point when we should have had all three in all those games, safety would not be a concern now if we hadn't resorted to negative defensive tactics. If we end up in the relegation dogfight, which it looks as if we will, then our goal difference could be the deciding factor. How has the 'defence being sorted out' work then? It hasn't been sorted at all, we just play deeper with between 4 and 8 players in the penalty box, and allow other teams to have the midfield. **** me it's not rocket science that if you play like that then sooner or later you will concede a goal or 2. Right at the start of the season I went to the pre season games Borrussia M & Ajax, I couldn't believe what I was watching from us, NO attacking intent at all. I got moaned at on here for saying so at the time by the 'select few'! Obviously I didn't know **** all about football! Well since those games I've seen the same tactic in just about every game since, it's horrific, so the style and game plan was set in those pre season days, it's just continued on & on & on & on until it's now beginning to bore the arse off the fans. There is NO match day excitment in my family anymore, just a dull realisation that we are going to spend a fortune being bored to the point of despair, this is how bad it's got.....the younger members of the 8 who come with me have asked if they can take their games consoles along! They haven't asked until recently and it would have been refused anyway, so it's become a chore, a boring afternoon out for them now, not the singing On the ball City in the car on the way there, not the excited chatter about who's going to score or who will be in the team, just the beep beep of a computerised toy. SO SAD!!
The performance levels have barely changed all season, Sunderland performance was no different to the Wigan game. .
I went to the Borussia friendly. It was horrible to watch. After that, I thought we would struggle to score.
This is a very eloquent expression of all that has gone wrong with this season, ILD. It should be on the media somewhere because it shows how Hughton's fear-ridden tactics are impacting on everyday lives.
That is another good point. My son and I played golf Sunday morning and all we did was bang on about it for over 2 hours. Not a mention of bloody good game and we were unlucky considering the contribution wee made to the game. No, it was just, dudgeon the whole way round. I didn't even notice the 60 mph wind, I was too numb. It isn't out of my system yet either.
