Sounds like it was a fairly comprehensive piece of work then. With your academic background you should be the one arguing with Pouchy and his blatant misuse of facts and statistics as part of his research for his Ph D which I believe is entitled: "A comparison of Rafa and St Alan's managerial tenures at Newcastle using only rumours, distorted facts and made up statistics".
Bugger, forgot about Hughes - how ****ing predictable, could of gone with the guy Silva who was at Watford or a new manager, but no - just go with the only one of the usual suspects currently not stealing a living as a football manager. Genuinely hope they go down now.
They probably won't by virtue of three worse teams. The "media" can then crow about how Hughes never got relegated and when Fat Sham retires they've got their 'always-hard-done-by' replacement lined up. Never ceases to amaze me how an industry worth so much money - and look at the bank balances of these owners - can be so stupid.
Most probably true - think the winner of the West Ham / Southampton game will be ok and the loser royally in the clarts. Which means it will probably be a draw
To be fair if Hughes manages it, he will sadly deserve some credit. There's this constant talk of how great their team is, and fair enough, but the strikeforce is an issue: Long scored 19 in 108 games for them Gabbiadini 8 in 35 (2 of em against us) They're some pretty depressive numbers, probably only us and Brom have it worse. Hughesy's still got another couple of jobs in him after this whether it goes tits up or not. Sadly I even see one more for Pardew. To be an English manager in this era! Edit: nevermind, just remembered Charlie Austin exists, **** all excuses really with that team. Just got me thinking, it's actually a fight-out between us and Brom over the ****test strikeforce int league
To be fair Gabbiadini looked fine under Puel. He is the type of player I think would excel at us. I don't know what Pellegrino has done to that side but it should be nowhere near the relegation battle. They have a good side. They don't have loads of depth but the overall quality is mid table. West Brom have a poor side. Huddersfield have a poor side. Stoke may have Shaqiri, Allen, Shawcross and Zouma but they ain't got much else. I mean Butland looked good and is going through a bad spell but they don't have much. Brighton are a pretty run of the mill side. Swansea don't have masses of quality. Bournemouth too. I couldn't really separate Newcastle, Stoke, Bournemouth, Huddersfield, Brighton, West Brom, Palace, Burnley, Watford. They are all much of a muchness in spending power and quality of squad. Hence the majority of that lot have been fighting relegation. To be honest Burnley are the ones who have somehow just coached their way out of trouble. The rest of the managers down there couldn't hand on heart say they've done a stellar job. I suppose the Swansea manager deserves great credit for the way he has pulled them out of the ****. I think Benitez, Hughton, deserve credit too as they have amassed points of late when its mattered. Solid jobs. Watford put their points on the board early which was credit to Silva. Southampton and West Ham are the ones who have few excuses on paper. Everyone bangs on about Hughes, Pardew, Pulis etc etc. There are plenty of dud foreign managers too. Plenty not pulling up any trees and just doing a solid job for a few years. Nothing wrong with that but then Hughes did a solid job with Stoke for a few years, same at Man C, same at Blackburn. Pardew did a solid job with us for 4 years. Pulis did a solid job at Stoke for a few years. They haven't really done any worse than the more revered foreign coaches. It is really difficult to get yourself out of that zone without big money. I mean Sean Dyche wouldn't get a look in at a big job. Yet he has done a miraculous job in comparison to every single manager down the bottom end of that table. If he was in another country he'd get a look in to at least the 2nd tier roles.
There are definitely managers just as bad as the aforementioned, however I think the main gripe is that the foreign ones don't tend to get a look in after **** up no.1 in the prem. Allardyce, Hughes and Pards (maybe even Moyes) are all guaranteed at least one more job in the PL after their current ones, regardless of how it goes, and that's the difference.
True enough. I suppose we have a few things going on don't we. Those managers don't get top clubs generally - but then the ones that have like Hughes at City and Allardyce at Everton, Moyes at Man U have done no more than middling jobs. Then you have the foreign managers who come in and do a crap job, then are ridiculed and disappear. It all points towards English football being a completely ****ed system. We should not be appointing all these foreign managers into the PL. There should be genuine progression from the lower leagues and youth systems like days gone by, and in the countries of our foreign counterparts. This multi-nation international league is serving no one but the money men. It is certainly not designed to help league football in this country, players or coaches, or the international side for that matter.
Southampton have quite a passing and skillful team, they won't be suited to Hughes style of booting chunks out the opposition. West Brom already ****ed. Stoke good as ****ed after bringing in that clown Lambert. Soton more than likely ****ed after bringing in Hughes.
Hard not to agree with you, but say Koeman ended up ruining his career in Englad in his time at Everton, despite Europa League qualification in his first season. Allardyce done a far worse job both here and there. Was watching prem years recently and they were going on about Wenger being the first foreign manager to win the prem in 1998. ****ing laughable that Fergie is now the last British manager to do so, and that doesn't look like changing for a number of years sadly.
The sad thing is there are better English managers down the leagues, much more modern than the current dinosaurs (both British and Foreign). The top clubs are just worried they need a big name figure head to attract the players. They are probably right too.
