Beefy is a legend

[quote user="Mr Brownstone"]That''s just it though isn''t Beefy. If results/performances don''t improve then 15th isn''t going to happen. I believe the statistic is 0 wins in the last 8 games, with just 4 goals scored in that sequence. Are our players better than that? I certainly think so, especially given the opposition. Can he turn it around and stop the rot? Given his failure to arrest our awful run of form and results post Christmas last year and the abject performances we''ve witnessed in recent weeks (United aside) I wouldn''t put any money it. Could someone else come in and instill some confidence and belief into the squad and get them performing at levels we know they''re capable of? I think so. 3 years ago it was widely perceived that the team was more than the sum of it''s parts, I personally feel the opposite is true now.[/quote] Fair points Brownstone. I''m not saying things are great, just that they are not as terrible as many posters are making out. Look at the league table. We ARE 15th. 3 other Clubs below us must do better than us for the rest of the season for us to go down. How do you like their chances? Think on this, Steve Bruce has been seen as an unqualified success this season. If we beat Hull on Saturday, we will be level on points with them. Is our squad really that much better than theirs that our aspirations should be that much greater?

Exactly Juge. We''ve so far got 12th and 11th. This year currently 15th. Not bad considering we are way below those positions in terms of our overall financial strength in the division. Now to City1st as he clearly didn''t like my previous post...let''s just go verbatim shall we. "just as there wasn''t any time for Lambert to bring in any new players - remind us what happened there" I think I addressed this but correct me if I''m wrong. "No but as with the games before it is indicative of how we ''will be playing the rest of the PL season''. Nobody is asking for Hughton to be sacked over last night''s result. It is about all the games before. Last night merely removed any lingering doubts. Personally I would prefer no manager than Hughton, as then the players would be able to play as they know and not be crippled by these flawed and one dimensional tactics." If any lingering doubts are removed by a cup exit when we played half a team, I''d suggest your standards of evidence are somewhat low. I take that the decent home performances v Man Utd, Chelsea, Southampton, West Ham (*second half) are also indicative of how we will play the rest of the season? Perhaps you would like to expand on the flawed and one dimensional tactics given that we have 20 points, more than five other PL sides presently. I suppose Jol, Holloway, Mackay, Allardyce and Di Canio are all equally flawed and one-dimensional? How about Steve Clarke and Michael Laudrup - their Club''s have a paltry one extra point than us. Considering how useless Mr Hughton is, shouldn''t Laudrup also be sacked? "Just as retaining the manager guarantees nothing at all but does give a very good indication that things will remain as bad as they are now." So ''as bad'' meaning 15th place then. I''ll take that.

So it appears you pretty much agree with me City1st. You accept that changing the manager guarantees nothing and, of course if things remain ''as bad'' as they are now and we finish 15th then it will be job done as far as I''m concerned. I won''t dignify the suggestion that ''no manager'' is better than Hughton with a response. In relation to Lambert, he succeeded, in League One, with probably one of the best squads in that league, replacing a manager with no experience past about 15 league games. Hardly a comparable situation. Regarding this suggestion that the majority of fans want Hughton out, why have we not seen any ''Hughton Out'' chanting in the ground, a la Worthington? I can''t even remember a ''what a load of rubbish'' or ''Hughton, sort it out''. We can still see that the players are trying for him. In an earlier post someone suggested we have a squad that should be ''comfortably mid-table''. What is the evidence for that? I''ll give you Palace but who, apart from there, do we clearly have a better squad than? McNally has suggested we are still going to be around 19th in terms of our wage budget out of the 20 PL sides. On what basis should we expect to finish ''comfortably mid-table''? I believe that there are some unrealistic expectations. Read Mick Dennis'' latest article on myfootballwriter and he will show you the finishes season by season of the likes of Fulham and Stoke. Every season is a battle, a war to get to 40pts. It is always going to be tough for us, and I''ll wager whoever eventually replaces Hughton, when the time comes, will do very well to get us up to 50pts in a season.

I''m sorry but I just don''t accept this ''majority'' fans thing. Take another poll after we''ve just won a game and the outcome will be totally different. No one in the group of some dozen pals that I go to games with thinks the manager should be sacked right now, because the reality is that it may well cause more harm than good - there is just no time for a new manager to bring any players in and no guarantee that we can bring in a manager at this stage who will improve us. I''d rather see a more considered appointment in the summer when we have several weeks to sound out potential targets. There''s no getting away that last night was awful, but by the same token it wasn''t really representative of the team that will be playing the rest of the PL season. Alot of other sides are in the same boat as us. Villa, Fulham, West Ham, WBA, Cardiff, Palace and Sunderland are all equally struggling and you''ll read similar stories on their message boards as on here. Has Poyet really improved Sunderland? Will Solskjaer? Apart from an early bounce, is Pulis doing enough to keep Palace up? On the other hand, an under fire Allardyce went to Cardiff and won. Changing the manager guarantees nothing at all.

Well, I for one (and it does appear I am the only ''one'') happen to agree with LDC. Aligning yourself as a group against the manager, is by definition aligning against the Club until such time as they dismiss the manager. That creates a divide. We all know that a united Club has a much better chance of success. We need to make Carrow Road a tough place for sides to come. Creating a morgue atmosphere isn''t going to help us. We need to be more positive and try to help the players to maintain our PL status. We can then review in the summer and, for me, unless there is a big improvement for the rest of this season we need to look at a change of manager. However, at this stage I''m not convinced that a change is going to help us. Let''s not forget that our league position really isn''t all that disastrous - a couple of wins could change everything.

No disrespect but it was obvious we would play a reserve side tonight, respect but to go to Fulham tonight is bordering on insane!

There''s no evidence at this stage to suggest he''s going at all, just speculation. Will be interested to see if he''s in the squad tonight though...

Evidence is required in order to substantiate a claim Mr Dogg.

I''d be quite surprised if his tactics/selections were micro-managed in that manner. There is more likely to a be a monthly meeting to discuss progress in terms of league position, transfer targets and resources etc but I''d be very surprised if any of the board were asking CH why, for example, he didn''t play Wes on Saturday.

Fer is clearly a very talented player as his through ball for Hooper at WBA hints at his strength. What I''ve seen is that in defensive areas his positioning doesn''t always seem right - I thought he was majorly at fault for Barry''s goal - watch it again he should have come across so Bennett could back into the defensive line but doesn''t. It''s not the first time either.

[quote user="lake district canary"][quote user="Dave"]If they are going to sack CH it''s got to be this week to give a new guy chance to invest during the transfer window. If he does not go this week then I guess they will stick by him[/quote]IMO the board have spoken - in the loudest possible terms. The silence is deafening. If we were to be changing managers at all it would have been done by now. Any window of opportunity has now gone. We may as well get used to the idea. Hughton is here to stay - at least to the end of the season. [/quote] Couldn''t agree more LDC. Despite the mumblings of this board, there has been no pressure applied to the manager by the board publicly, and in all honesty little true discontent being shown from the stands. The odd substitution has been booed but we''ve not seen the chants of ''You don''t know what you''re doing '' or ''Hughton Out'' that are associated with a real loss of supporter confidence. I''ve said all along that CH has not been near the sack this season and that was certainly the impression that McNally gave at the supporter forum I attended back in November. My feeling is that we will get sufficient points to stay up and I don''t think now is the time for change as any new manager will not have any opportunity to recruit. The summer however is perhaps a time to take stock. If we do not see an improvement in performances then the board may consider their options.

Ticket available in lower barclay for Hull at home. Please private message me if you''re interested. Cheers

Some remarkable posts on the Brum mail website - this one could easily have been written about CH by one of our fans. Aston Villa have the manager they deserve, We had a manager that won things, that produced a team that played with flair. His name, Brian Little! The boo boys sent death threats to his daughters, so he resigned. Maybe he was not such a bad manager after all. Bring back Brian Little. I not seen such poor football as from this clueless crop of idiots. Its pedestrian, lacks passion, lacks ideas. The lack of attempts on goal for the last 10 matches says it all. What the ginger idiot taught us was that when you defend for 70-80% of the game you get more injuries. Is this just a Scottish style of football? On paper going into that run of 10 almost all of those games were winnable. A bore draw with West Ham, beaten by Fulham and Crystal Palace says it all. PULL YOUR FINGER OUT MR LAMBERT. I do not mind my team getting beaten when they have played with passion and given heart and soul for the club. Give me 11 player fans like Gabby, but get rid of these gutless, clueless performances. And another... The usual inane mutterings from this guy. He is now repeating what most supporters have been telling him since he joined the club. "We need a creative player, I call them number 10''s". This guy talks like an 8 year old, but doesn''t think as quick. Don''t know about "number tens" Mr Lambert, I think you have guided this club into a pile of "number two''s". Trouble at mill.

[quote user="YellowNets1901"]Not at all. Felt Hoolahan had more of an impact under Lambert, who knew when and how to use him. Not the same with Hughton.[/quote] The point is, Yellownets, as others have tried to point out, that your ''feeling'' is irrelevant. You have to look at the evidence. Wes undoubtedly achieved more in the lower leagues, because the standard is lower. You are saying that he achieved more because Lambert was manager, not Hughton. Where is the evidence for that? He played the same number of games for CH last season as he did under PL the season before. In 2011/12 under PL he made 29 starts and 8 sub appearances, scoring 5 goals and 8 assists. In 2012/13 under CH he made 29 starts and 7 sub appearances, scoring 4 goals and 3 assists. The difference is hardly overwhelming, though a slight downtrend perhaps indicates the fact that we were playing one up front through alot of the 2012/13 season.

[quote user="BarclayUpperCut"]This game showed that the manager hasn''t got a clue! 1. Takes of Wes when Snodgrass should have gone 2. Brings on a defender (Martin) for a striker (Hooper) 3. Continued to play the long-ball in the 2nd half (when he should have stopped it) Maybe it''s not the manager who''s the only problem, maybe the board haven''t got a clue either if they remain happy with this dire situation.[/quote] That post is utter garbage. Firstly Wes came off for Elmander because Wes was playing in the role off the front man, so it allowed a like for like change. Snodgrass provides better defensive cover on the wing and it just wasn''t the sort of conditions that Wes was going to thrive in. Second, I think you may recall we had Fer sent off before Hooper was taken off? Did you want us to carry on with only Bradley in midfield? Thirdly, the conditions dictated a more direct game was needed today. You didn''t want to be messing about at the back with the ball when you couldn''t be sure it would roll properly.

[quote user="killiecanary"]No - where we are awful (Fulham) then by all means we have every right to blame the management. Saturday I thought we were very good. As I think we have been on many occasions (especially at home). - wins this season over west ham. Stoke, WBA, palace, Southampton) So I disagree with your premise. But you obviously think that we should be walking all over these teams every week. Finally, there is an arrogance inherent in the constant slating of Hughtons coaching team - he is regarded I believe as an excellent training ground coach, and the bile for calderwood seems to stems rom the fact that grant holt didn''t like him. You have absolutely no way of telling the input or impact of any member of the back room staff - but are happy to make negative judgements based on no information whatsoever. If you have better evidence to inform your views on this I apologise and look forward to hearing them[/quote] Excellent post Killie. I''m really looking forward to a detailed, evidence based analysis of the merits of Gary Karsa v Paul Trollope.

City2nd, Hughton has fulfilled the Club''s primary objective last season and so far this season we are on course to stay up again. There have been numerous good performances in that period, just as there were poor performances under Lambert. We need to stop making such generalised statements and try to consider the grey areas rather than Lambert = good and Hughton = bad.

It''s a shame CH didn''t have Welbeck to bring on, and only two fit centre midfielders. He might have had more options otherwise.

What were your thoughts on the Man Utd game then Jim? Are you going to give CH any credit for bringing in Martin and Wes and dominating the champions? You say ''consistently poor performance'', yet we are 15th in the table. How is that possible if we are so consistently poor? Our board will back our manager, I''ve heard enough from McNally to believe that is the case. We need to stop moaning and groaning after a result today that was much better for us than for Palace, and get behind CH until the end of the season.

Watched the whole game on a stream, sorry if that''s not good enough for you. Still, at least I watched the game with an open mind and not a pre-disposed anti-Hughton agenda.

I watched it Jim. I thought it was a decent point. The onus was on Palace in a game they needed to win. They failed and overall it''s a good day for us. We had 55% possession in the game. It wasn''t pretty, conditions didn''t help, but it was job done and certainly not the sort of display that should lead to the inevitable myopic criticism of the manager.

Not ''end of'' Danny - where is the evidence that we will go down given our league position? Were we ''seriously sub-standard'' against Man Utd on Saturday? Or do you ignore that good performance because we lost?

How is he incompetent given he kept us up last season and has us in a solid position this season? Did we lose 7-1 today or draw 1-1? You''d think it was the former with all these threads popping up. New year, same old whinging.

The league table suggests otherwise.

Total nonsense. Did you watch the game? The conditions were awful and it was a solid point against a side who have won 3 of their last 6.