A Gay Schoolboy

[quote user="SeattleCanary"]The only positive I can take from today [Y][/quote]I''d say two positives were Howson returning, creating a good chance and not misplacing passes like the rest of our midfield, and clutching at straws, we''ve just made Stoke a must win game and we''re normally quite good at those.

On the bright side Howson looks sharp considering he hasn''t played in ages

Everyone except Wes and Hooper is having an utter nightmare. Takes the piss as Villa look utterly awful at the back.

Our Chris took a bit of a beating on today''s [url=http://www.theguardian.com/football/audio/2014/feb/13/football-weekly-extra-podcast-liverpool-fulham-fa-cup]Football Weekly[/url] podcast from the Guardian. When discussing the West Ham game all the talk was how his substitutions were a negative attempt to stick with a point which gave West Ham the impetus to attack us. Worse still, later in the podcast they were discussing who, in terms of tactics, the best and worst managers in the league are, no prizes for guessing who was suggested to come last.I remember there was a lot of talk on here about how if we sacked Hughton the press would be up in arms at an ''unfair'' sacking. I think now they are more surprised that we''ve stuck with him for so long.

[quote user="Long drives home"]He has to go or we are down, 61 subs made this season and not one has led to a goal or assist. [/quote]I dunno they led to two tonight

[quote user="Bethnal Yellow and Green"]Olsson is my POTS so far - was delighted when he signed and surprised that Norwich could get him for such a cheap price considering his age and regular appearances for Sweden.[/quote]Absolutely agreed. The amount of last ditch blocks and goal line clearances he''s done have saved us many a point.

He''s on the bench for Swindon''s match today

[quote]Although Laudrup and Jenkins vowed to put that episode behind them, it was clear that the two men were no longer singing from the same hymn sheet. In an interview with the Observer in November Jenkins outlined how unhappy he was with the mentality among some staff and players, whom he accused of adopting a defeatist approach against the better teams in the league. Laudrup was never mentioned by name but it was clear, from the language Jenkins used, that he was referring in part to the manager."We have to make sure that whoever comes in to manage, coach and play for us in the future, they can''t be talking about different levels of leagues within a league. To me that is complete failure," Jenkins said. "I find that the hardest thing to take, that we have actually got staff and players that struggle at this point in time to see where we can compete. "And that''s the biggest challenge I''ve got, to make sure that turns around and that everybody working with the club believes that, if we keep doing things differently, we can compete, irrespective of the size of the club or budgets."[/quote] Interesting stuff from Huw Jenkins

[quote user="Thirsty Lizard"]The NFL is run along ruthless - almost Stalinist - lines to ensure fair competition between the competing teams. Quite ironic really given that the USA is meant to be the home of free-market capitalism. Football here and in Europe has unfortunately evolved in a very different way.[/quote]This is because we in Europe look at the NFL through with an incorrect view informed by European football norms. We expect each team to be its own separate entity competing against each other (I mean this in economic terms), with the ''product'' being individual teams. In American sports the product is the league itself.Its still just as hyper-capitalist as our football, perhaps even more so as the major leagues in America have so thoroughly crushed any competition that they have an effective monopoly.

Unless he''s lost the dressing room, which he clearly hasn''t, sacking him now would do more harm than good imo. The time has passed and now we''ve just got to hope he and his team can keep us up.

I don''t think the decision has been made, I think it will depend on if we see any improvement between now and the end of the season. We obviously won''t though so I firmly believe that Hughton will not in charge come the start of the next season.

Change a few words in [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5EmnQp3V48]this song[/url] and we''ve got our new chant

I don''t think its fair to judge any striker playing in a Hughton''s Norwich side

[quote user="Lavanche"]Important point. After poor first half team did well to rise up. Also good changes from Hughton. Would have prefered Snoddy out instead of Pilkington, but I understand his choise because of our poor midfield display. Also changing Tettey was very important. Playing only Fer against Anita, Tiote and Sissoko and we would have gotten ripped in half. Elmander showed again that 2 pure strikers is wrong way to go and either play him or third midfielder when we get one back in line up again ^^ Can''t blame either Wolf or Hooper. Wolf did defend in our own box at times to get ball back upwards. Almost never see pure strikers do that. Hooper did what he could with the delivery he got, but was drifting a bit out of game. Passing is again the keyword. Every and each player needs to step up in this department.[/quote]If only we had a player who could play behind the striker and midfielders who can keep possession.

[quote user="Monty13"]Really? That''s about as far away from the first half performance against Man U as it would be possible to get.[/quote]I''m not saying it wasn''t an awful half, but we''ve seen lots of awful halves like that under Hughton and none have received that response.

Thats an awful lot of booing. Seems a bit disproportionate as we haven''t really been any worse than we normally are.

To put it in perspective, Pilkington is more productive goal and assist wise than Lallana, and how much do you think he would go for? 15m? 20m? 3m is a joke bid.

All the players he''s signing belong to the same agency that he has shares in, he''s taking Tan for a ride and it''ll all end in tears.

[quote user="Ginja"] Becchio never criticised Hughton and actually said that there was no problem between him and the manager. I won''t lose much sleep over the parting swipes of failures Morison or Butterfield[/quote]You asked for players who have criticised the manager, don''t move the goalposts now you''ve been proven wrong. The point was that squad players get short shrift under Hughton so the players criticising him are obviously going to be ones who didn''t get a look in.Also worth noting that "failure" Morison scored more Prem goals in a supposedly worse side than any Norwich striker has under Hughton.

Players criticising their former or current manager is pretty rare and we''ve had four do it in a short amount of time, Holt, Morison, Butterfield and Becchio.

Its not so much who the players are, its what they say after they leave. Did anyone have a bad word to say about Lambert after he sold them on as we outgrew them? I don''t think you can really argue with the idea that Hughton is not particularly good at keeping squad players happy and valued.

[quote user="littleyellowbirdie"] I don''t see what the rationale is behind that assertion. There''s no question we need a playmaker along the lines of Wes in there, but I think they''d need to be able to win the ball for themselves as well as be a playmaker to cope with the extra strain of a four man midfield.[/quote]The rationale is that we''ve seen time and time again that our coaching staff values positional discipline and defensive solidity over everything else. All our players deemed deficient in those areas have been phased out or simply marginalised since Hughton came in.The sort of players who are ''Hughton'' style players defensively but also able to create are the Yaya Toures of the world and stand way outside our price range.Its likely that any replacement we can afford will have to be a comprimise and I think we all know which side of the balace will be favoured. I expect to see a Toivonen style attacking midfielder who can also act as a target man instead of a Hoolahan esque player.

If you think we''re going to be replacing Wes with a similar pass and move style tricky playmaker I think you''re setting yourself up for disappointment.

[quote user="Phillip J Fry"]Money being the most obvious one.[/quote]Yep. I suspect however that if we really wanted to keep Wes then we could match or better any offer Villa make. They are under orders to slash their wage bill while we have loads of room to grow as we have one of the lowest wages/turnover ratio in the league.I think we have a situation where the coaching staff don''t care if he leaves, the CEO doesn''t want to give him a new contract, but also doesn''t want to deal with Villa.

Hughton also played Holt in basically every game and it didn''t stop him wanting to leave by January. Players can have other reasons for wanting a move other than time on the pitch.