Please, everyone, I don't want this thread to turn into a 'Hughton out' or a 'slag-off player X' diatribe. I'd just like other people's ideas about what is going wrong. My feeling, for what it's worth, is that Hughton's negative approach has fed through to the players and affected their confidence. He has told them so many times that they are not good enough/other clubs have such superior players that they have started to believe it. On the ten-match unbeaten run, this seemed to be working 100%. But now that things have started to go wrong, we have no inner self-belief in our own creativity. I think CH has the makings of a very good manager, but this deep negativity will always hold him back. Matches we should have won (West Ham, QPR, Newcastle at home, Reading, Villa away) we didn't because Hughton didn't want to risk the defeat even when we were clearly the better side during the match. So let's say we go for it and win three and lose two - that would have been four extra points! I feel angry at any fans calling for Hughton's head right now - he has got us into a great position vis-a-vis survival - but if we survive he really needs to add something more to his managerial style next year. Dare I say it - he needs some of Lambert's courage and inspirational qualities. The team look cowardly. More technically, we are desperately poor going forward. I don't totally agree with those posters who blame Jackson/Morison/Kane on this - we have looked poor even with Holt. The midfield is simply not creating enough, and the kind of creativity we saw at Swansea has disappeared completely. We are now a hoofball team. And that's depressing. Going down playing football perhaps, but going down looking like a limp version of Stoke? Embarrassing.
I think the problem is multi-factorial, but the form of Tettey has probably played a significant part. Before, he could tackle, play relatively decent balls, and bomb forward to join the attack when needed. More recently, he's just been able to do the tackling, his distribution has been very poor. Johnson knows his job is really just to tackle, not to create, and probably plays even deeper than Tettey, so without Tettey on form, all our creativity is left to Hoolahan. A single creative player in the centre is always going to struggle, and his form has been poor recently too. This has left us offering very little going forward in the middle, relying on crosses and long balls. When you've not got Holty up front, crosses and long balls are going to be ineffectual, so our attacking threat has been pretty much nil recently.
Today? Chronic lack of confidence added to a certain amount of complacency from the players. Apart from that I can't really see what the issue is. Looking at the fixtures for end-Dec through Jan I wasn't expecting much anyway. I thought our 10 game unbeaten run was performing above expectations. Since then it's been under. End of the day our league position is a little bit better than where we ought to be with our current squad. I expect us to survive this season but only just. From there on we can build. And an intelligent, honest manager like CH will serve us well in the mid/long term. I really don't care about the cups, and 17th on goal difference will still suit me fine this year. If we tgen didn't kick on next season, starting with the summer transfer window, THEN I'll start to grumble.
in the PL we will always struggle nothing has gone wrong just normal I see, hopefully we will scramble enough points to stay up but whatever we spend it will be the same next year, we have made the top table but it would be foolish to think we can compete with the money bags over a season. Dissapointed with the approach to cups we should start our best team and go for it if we want to progress or just not bother, think that was my last cup game for a few years will take a lot to convince me to go to one again crowd was totally dead, i was glared at for singing OTBC before the match started!
almost identical to 'total humiliation...' post i replied to yesterday VC, i think youve hit the nail on the head the main problem being the lack in self confidence, CH really looked out of his depth yesterday and when the manager doesnt know what to do what hope have the players got? The players do need to shoulder a large part of the responsibility to but they are the same players who've been with us for some time now, they havent all changed into poor players over night so its plain to see they are not happy with the dressing room methods\tactics CH is using, the results say it loud and clear. CH seems a very good coach and technical manager but im not so sure about his man management skills, the real test is in situations like this and he needs to get them back onboard somehow, how i dont know and im not sure slinging the cheque book at team is going to cure the problem. The questions is do we make some serious deep cutting changes to the team at the risk of what little team spirit we have left or does CH need to swallow the pill and change his methods?
This is a critical week for Hoots anyway. We need at the very least a performance against spurtz and a result against koopeearr. Perhaps more importantly we need a forward and some more creativity in midfield.
I don't think it helped that all our injuries to our better players happened all at the same time. Had we had a fully fit squad through the Christmas period we would not be in the position were in... BUT we are and Hughton has a tough task on his hands in picking these players up but I believe he can do it and that's what the manager and players alike need from us! Belief
The main issue currently seems to be a lack of a viable 'plan b'. The 4-2-3-1 worked brilliantly at the start of the season, but we've become a bit too predictable. Teams know we'l be starting with one up top and most of the play will go through Hoolahan, so all they're doing is man marking the lone striker and forcing Hoolahan onto his non-existent right foot. With the Hoolahan option removed we're just lumping the ball long and ignoring Snodgrass and Pilkington on the wings. Hughton's current Plan B is a flat 4-4-2. A formation that has so far seen us pick up just three wins in the cups (against Scunthorpe, Doncaster and Peterborough) and let in 17 goals in seven games in the league. I think the issue with the 4-4-2 is that the players are still in the mindset of playing the 4-2-3-1 formation. This was evident in the cup game against Villa. We played a 4-4-2, but Johnson kept dropping back into the DM role he had been playing the preferred formation. This left a gaping hole in the middle for Villa to exploit. The other issue is his seeming reluctance to drop players. Its been noted on here for a couple of games now that Pilks, Hoolahan and Tettey haven't been at their best and maybe giving other players a chance may benefit the team in the respect that its shows players they aren't undroppable and that you need to be on your game otherwise you're out. This was Lambert's biggest asset when he was here. Although sometimes he rotated too much, he wasn't afraid to drop players if they weren't playing well, or if someone else was better suited. The final problem is that our Back up players aren't quite as good as the first team. This isn't me slagging off players, its just an observation. Bunn isn't as good as Ruddy. Morrison/Jackson/Kane aren't quite as good as Holt. E.Bennett and Howson have been tried in the Hoolahan role but don't do it as well. R.Bennett and Barnett aren't as good as Bassong and Turner. Martin is really the only player who has come in and looked as good as the player he's replacing (Whittaker). Like I said, I'm not having a go at any of these players, they've all come in and given it their best (yesterdays game aside), but they're not quite up to the standards the first team have set.
I'm thinking we should go 442 against spurs. They play 442 a lot, it's more positive for us especially at home Certainly garrido and Martin/Whittaker will have to be on form to handle bale and Lennon It would be more positive rather than going for the 451 let's not concede which isnt working
