Sorry, but Hughton has to go. Here we are 16 games into the season with goals for a miserly 15 and goals against 29, when he has spent over £13M on 2 strikers - albeit, one of them now has 4 goals in 6 games (1 a debatable penalty). Fans on here always said it was a risk spending so much money on 'unproven' PL strikers. He makes ridiculous substitutions, sometimes bringing off players who are performing well and bringing on 'donkeys' just to give them 'match time' and keep the fringe players happy.
This thread is doing my head in, but in a good way (if that makes sense)! It's certainly refreshing. EDIT - I'm still on the fence, so I'm struggling to make an argument on here.
Chris Hughton has done exceptionally well, he inherited a squad that had over achieved and were ready to be found out. Full of lge 1 and championship cloggers. Look at most of the previous incumbants players now. Barely one playing regular football at the highest level. Not even George 1-0 Graham could of so successfully shored up the leaky defense. Look at all the clean sheets last season and this. You can't lose if you're not conceding. Football is all about money now, so it matters not if we entertain the media or the cronies on match of the day. As long as we keep averaging 1pt+ per game we should all be happy including all those deluded enough to think we might do better on one of the lowest playing budgets in the division. There is progress with better football being played and once the injuries have gone we will be all the better. He still has not got his best eleven on the park together, which I'm quite certain he had in his head as he signed the new players. His late substitutions may seem bizare but provide invaluable game time towards match fitness and every minute of experience in the first team is invaluable to the youngsters Bah!
He is a truly dreadful manager with absolutely no idea of his best 11- the notion that there are better players to come back into the side is true, but then he will play them in a position that they are comfortable with, but are not best for the team. The team selection he has to go with is the result of injuries and the players are doing their best to make the most of their opportunity- this has nothing to do with CH. He sets teams up to press or hold a back line, but this does not appear to have been done with much thought and either approach goes wrong when he does modify things- they make no difference. The win at WBA was down to two good strikes and 101 dreadful strikes by WBA. We were lucky to get back in the game against West Ham, and could easily be 6 points worse off. These factors hardly instill confidence going into a busy christmas period. Get rid now.
The draw with Cardiff could be decribed in much the same way. Only we had the resolve and good defense to keep it goalless unlike West brom, I bet their fans wish they had a pragmatic manager who will not lose first and plays football later as they search for their new manager. Bah!
If a new member decided to join at the moment, and his first thread was this one, what a distorted view he would get of us all. Then he'd come back the next day and we'd all be saying exactly the opposite of what we said the day before. "Oh ****! I'm going back to the Pink Un!"
Yep, and me I'm sure this thread is a good idea and I'm sure it is stirring the old grey matter for many, but I'm afraid for me it's on the verge of making my brain explode - I've come over all discombobulated and don't know whether I'm coming or going! And for that alone I'm not going to get involved. Damn you Carrabuh and your novel way of looking at things <shakesfistemoticon>
We created no sitters against Cardiff, despite having lots of posession WBA created several against us and missed opportunities they'd take more often than not
And of course how could I forget, CH signed (thankfully only on loan) and gave some game time to Harry Kane...
This is true, however no team wins every game that they should, particularly when the opposing team stick 10 behind the ball. We are not Man City and cannot rely on a ridiculous strike force. With regards to West Brom, we definitely threatened and not with long shots etc, we had the ball to the byline on many occasions, in part due to our intentionally deep defending to draw out West Brom. Perhaps that is the sign that CH has been correct all along and those fans after attack after attack are missing the point.