Lavanche

Well we play solid formation which tends to take some power out of the legs as you constantly have to move with rest of the team. This at least tend to show in midfielders legs at the end of the game. We could add some pressure, but it cant work with solid formation too well in defence as ofc when one or two run off from formation to press we lose the formation. I would prefer pressing thought as your backline has been very crappy apart from Olsson and few odd games from right backs, so doesnt matter if we are in formation, if they cant do the simple marking in the box.

I just want to get rid of this two strikers style.. We dont have creative strikers outside of Elmander who in the other hand isn''t very dangerous or mobile, so better play just with Hoolahan or even Johnson, if we have third midfielder ready for Hull. In my opinion our poor results are from the fact that space between Fer and strikers has become too big so only way to get rid of it is either place real midfielder between them or move Fer a bit further up. In any case I have fingers crossed that Tettey will be in full fitness soon. He just gives so much extra energy and most of all doesn''t give ball away and gives Fer easy sideways pass that he doesn''t always have to try get past of players where he often loses the ball.

I personaly agree that they play a bit better football than us, but not that much that people tend to think because what is written in media. Swanselona is a term that makes them look a much better than they really are. About their players giving their best in every game , I just want to point out players like Johnson and Snodgrass who run end to end day after day and even thought they have bad games more than often this season, they always give their best. Our players are not given up any more than Swansea''s and they do what they can on the field apart from few, but that is case in every other club too. I would just want to add that you clearly see what continental manager do for team. They might not be that much succesful, but looking Everton, Swansea and Southampton they tend to look a bit more fluid than they were under their english predecessors. But at the end points tell you that Swansea haven''t been any better team in real world than us. They might have been more stable, but we are only point away.

Managers wouldn''t be managers if they wouldn''t know anything about the sport and for example if you look our previous year deals. Which one of them was unknown for you as a pure watcher of the sport? In top leagues scouting gets quite much easier and easier as you have smaller pond to fish from, if you dont want to take huge risks. Even when you look the names we got you see Hughton''s mark under their names. Jonas, Redmond and Bassong for example. Snoddy and Butterfield were probably picked from old scouting information, but rest of them seems to be quite much what Hughton has wanted. Only Tettey seems a bit of an risk buy which probably has been found via scouts shortlist because we couldn''t land our first choise target. You are way off, if you dont give major credit to manager from selecting players who we go after.

CB for me. Either a experienced loan as with Jonas or spend some real money for quality in younger age. Ranocchia might be a bit too far fetched, but for example Kamil Glik or even young talent Kurt Zouma could be in ours to take.

Citys1st as usual you are taking it out of context in lot of the ways. Our players (not at least younger players) have not taken any steps backwards. Bassong and Snoddy might just have had that honeymoon season previous year and this might be their true form. Redmond has taken good jump to premier legue winger and even Murphy has seemed to be a bit more team player than before. Howson and Fer have had decent season and I never expected much more from Fer for a first season. Our strikers are no bad either, tactical problem to deliver them good ball doesn''t make them poor players. Also manager is main person who brings players in or at least who we are trying to get here. Scouts may give him shortlists and agents offer players for the club, but most of the time in teams where there is no "player coordinator" manager is the person who most of the time gives shortlist to the scouts and still at the end when manager meets board he says try to get this player first and gives alternative choises for him. After that it is of course mostly about the board to seal the deal. I agree with Parma with his analysis. Most likely McNally and the board would like to keep Hughton if possible in current atmosphere and look for alternative at summer. Ofc some of the reason is that there is no clear option at the market. Malkys and Phelans are just average choises that shouldn''t be considered, if we want to develope as a club. If it must be someone from England I would suggest going for young ex-player black horse with attitude for modern game who could bring some fire for the team. And I know already I get some sarcastic answer for this to just try to make me look bad, but this is my honest opinion and I stand behind it.

Yellow wall. Yes someone out of England. Knowing players doesn''t matter at all. He can watch videos to know where they are good at and see in training who responds in his style best. Also if we change Hughton I would prefer us to go for a manager that would continue style we are trying to play with his own vision.

Yeah even thought I like the football Hughton tries to play I''m bit worried about confidence of some players. Other thing is that he got so easily rid of 4-2-3-1 after we had succesful previous season with it. Ofc this is a bit squad related issue, but I still can see no point of playing 4-4-1-1 or 4-4-2 if we get crushed so easily at midfield. So in my opinion we should start to look improved version of Hughton, if player confidence doesn''t improve and he keeps playing out of his comfort zone under the pressure of playing more open football from the fans. And what comes to those quotes, it was all quite much true. We had our moments in the game, but abysmal errors made Fulham''s road clean for easy victory. Also about the passing the ball I could disagree a bit with him. Our central passing needs to improve.

No he wouldn''t. This is the main reason I dont want to change manager. All the names given in this forums wouldn''t give us anything more in respect of staying up and moving forward as a team.

Both goals were a big personal mistakes, so just stop pointing manager bench. Horrible defending from all the defenders and midfielders. Fox doesn''t give the team enough cover to play straight front of CB''s. Also snodders hopefuly is replaced by Jonas in next real game, if Pilkington isn''t yet fit as I have no idea why he cant keep the ball anymore on his feet.

RvW > Hooper / Jelavic > Long

Yeah finnish forums seemed to appreciate the fellow even thought he was considered to be a squad player and couldn''t think why he didnt get some odd minutes this season when they needed a bit more experienced strong player on the field in certain situations. Also few mentioned they would have got rid Obertan before Jonas. This way or that we know quite much what we get by signing Jonas. Hard working wide midfielder and as long as we play with 4-4-2 he is quite much better choise there than our current left wingers at least against the sides who play with 5 man midfield. In my opinion he is good tactical loan, if not direct upgrade what we have already and every team needs tactical variations.

snake my point wasnt to state that you know nothing. It was to suggest that think about it from the players perspective. If you have played football. I dont know if you have, I expect most of us have played game at least for fun with friends, you know what I stated about long balls and other aspects of the game is true. This was my point nothing else. My real problem is that I cant express myself completely trough english and I apologise if you took it like I would have ment that you know nothing. Also by modern football I mean that we play the game instead of letting opponent set up the tempo. ManU and Chelsea were at their prime very uninspiring teams in their normal league match, this was mainly because they set their own tempo to break up opponents game. Mourinho are considered to be best manager in the world playing very similar wayt to setup his team than Hughton does and with few hundred millions more to spend. We dont do the Stokes and put 10 wrestlers there. Ofc in modern football you still have to mix things up and in my opinion we set up ourselves a bit different in every game. Foghorn: Playing in formation doesnt mean that your players cant move outside one area, but that when they move they need to be covered and they have to realise when to move and when not. Moving as a team is a hard thing to do and at least for our midfield where the pressure for covering and moving at right time is hardest players have struggled to adapt completely. In my opinion Hughton asks a bit too much from a players like Johnson and Howson and in lesser extent Fer as we dont have decent playmaker in that only free role we have in the field. Also we might be unsurprising and easy to defend against, but then you look Everton. They play quite much same game week out week in and how much that has done for them this season. Same goes for Dortmund and Barcelona. You know when they field their team what is comming for you. Unsurprising doesn''t mean that your concept of football can''t work. But here we come again to the lack of creativity and passing ability what we lack at the middle. I cant answer is our sguad wrong or manager, or is it only one piece away of complete puzzle, but in my opinion Hughton should be given time for the end of the season. Nuances are what makes this game so great and we have lot of good things in our game which most of our fans seems to completely ignore as it isn''t anymore typical english end to end football week after week or just because Hughton isn''t Lambert and has quite gray personality too which normaly isn''t mark of ambitious manager. And as I have stated so many times, I think we havent played the game as we should this season, but there is lot of other reasons there too than just Hughton couldn''t do the job, but our situation really isn''t that grim and in my opinion in the same basket with us there is only Swansea and Southampton that try to play clearly better football at the moment than we do and if we are looking for a new manager I hope we do like they did and try to find someone who can take Hughton''s approach to the another level and try to find a manager outside of England. Instead of taking someone from the England just to please fans and taking our football back to stoneage. (Just watching AV play under Lambert and I again seem to struggle understand why we moan so much about Hughton)

He is not most exiting signing, but he isn''t that bad player that he should be judged before he has played single game for us (if the rumour has anything behind it, in first place) If roled right, he can be great player for us and specially if we keep playing that annoying 4-4-2 he gives us one midfielder more instead of pure winger.

Great back up work there from journos. Anyway I can''t see any good reason to sell our best winger, if not for mega millions and even that should be done only if replacement is ready and sure to come with same potential level.

Heh stat wise Fer has been most succesful player this season in our midfield after Tettey. He was cheap as hell and he is still young and he is box to box midfielder, not a defensive one. Sometimes he is a bit frustrating, but nothing new there. I can remember my ManU supporting friend being very frustrated to C.Ronaldo., "Who killed their game and didnt do anything to cover his fullback" Problem is that neither Johnson nor Fer are that fast players and both of them get more out of their game when they have someone like Tettey covering lot of ground next or behind them. Johnson has improved his game during this season, but at the start of it, it was very clear that Fer and Johnson were not best midfield pairing. Fer has done enought and seems to have decent attitude in the field and even thought he still makes mistakes, he has been very good for us. As said he makes mistakes here and there, but +30 million euro Illarramendi in Real Madrid makes same ammount of mistakes. It just is that decision making in that age isn''t normaly fully developed and DM is probably hardest position to play because your every bad pass and poor tackle is noticed. I dont even touch the hook about RvW thrown later in this thread. Blind is blind.

Well if you have played football you know why I think it is ambitious. It is always easier for players to retreat back and get out of there by long balls like we did under Lambert. We instead try to play the game with bit slower attacks even against the top sides. Tactical it is because our players have to stay in formation. There is no free role except for Elmander/Hoolahan for any players. We have very strict and modern way to play the game. Also we are one win away from the 10th place. In my opinion it is quite good position in mid season. Taking account our major injury problems and that few key players like Bassong and Snoddy haven''t been able to keep their level from previous season. This season has been poorer than previous season and as I said either this thread or some other I have not been very happy that Hughton has given up for the fans and got out of his own style of game to get better results, but at the end there is nothing wrong in the style we are trying to play this game. Sometimes we look very dull when everything goes wrong, but normaly we look very decent team and all the barking comes from the mass hysteria of Hughton just being Hughton and reality that it is really hard to improve our status in this league.

For me it is quite clear how I would want us to play so. ----------------Ruddy------------------------ Whittaker-Turner-Bassong-Olsson -----------Fer-------Tettey----------------- Redmond----Hoolahan---Pilkington ---------------------RvW--------------------- Arguably I could play Hooper instead of Redmond and Martin intead of Whittaker, but in 4-2-3-1 I just think two wingers and a bit better attacking player as fullback would be better thought as overall player I rate Martin over Whittaker and Redmonds endresult is sometimes a bit shameful.

None that is profilic English manager. I would go for Cristophe Galtier, if he would like to move bigger league. Anyway would keep Hughton at least until the summer. I''m still quite sure we will stay up and changing now would risk our survival. Not that we would need a change in my opinion.

The point was that we werent playing bad football and at the end luck plays quite big part in this game. Those injuries hurt our tactical possibilities quite much as our chance to get fresh legs in the field when we need them.

Bad football is using only long balls and physical attributes to cover the fact that either team is full of talentless players or their manager is from stone age. I know that in England playing on the ground and playing with little bit slower attacks is considered somewhat dull. I find it funny that some english think Arsenal was a dull team even in their glory days with lots of short passing, when their football was clearly just level above everyone else. We have come quite far in tactical sense in last season and start of this season from our league 1 and championship football. Thought after losing Howson and Tettey I think Hughton has lost a bit of his confidense in his own way of playing which is never a good sign, but I think he will get his mojo back after injuries are over. Even against big sides we try to play the game. It doesn''t always work as our midfield has problems and Hughton still haven''t found a key to get those passes behind opponent''s back 4, but in tactical sense we have made a big leap forward in past 1 and half season. If I compare us to West Ham or Fulham who have had quite much more money to build their teams than us and in lesser extent same goes to Aston Villa. We play so much more tactical and ambitious game and only thing that is missing is the end result.

It is not and excuse.. It is a fact that this game is sometimes about the luck and our current "form" is quite much about having too thin team to compete. And in my opinion our form isn''t even that bad. We could have won ManU we could have drawn Fulham and we could have won CP. Only small margins mostly late at the game made us take only 1 point from these 3 games. Everton was clearly better team yesterday and with only 1 loss this season it was no wonder we didnt take any points there.

Garrido on left wing was good decision. It was clear Redmond needed resting and Murphy isn''t consistent enough to start games yet. And why Garrido instead of Olsson? Garrido has better crosses and Olsson is faster and has better engine. He can do overlaps and get back. Also Everton threats have been whole season good two fullbacks so gettin some extra defensing power there was good option. I''m with the OP that people expect too much from the team and even thought I dont agree with some things like playing front two instead of Hoolahan , I think we play decent football.

Well again before we play him with decent playmaker night to night he wont score 8 goals. Yesterday was again perfect example why we need 3 man midfield and if we want to play two strikers we should sacrifice winger, not a midfielder. I dont know if Hughton reads these forums, but for some reason further this season goes he seems to do more and more things that were not normal in his first season. And dont get me wrong I still think Hughton is good manager and he has done our game lot of favours since Lambert left and we are far more better football team than we were back to then. But either for pressure or lack of providing players we have started to play with this 4-4-2 which clearly isn''t working in our favour and as I have said before more strikers doesn''t mean more goals. Yesterday there was still small hints of his talent. That curved shot for example was technically a great shot and some of other players could take a hint how to slot the ball instead of always going for power. We were not sitting deep yesterday we were forced to play there because Fer and Johnson couldnt compete against firm Everton midfield, but because of quality of some of our players we still managed to get six shots on the goal.

Ambition doesnt mean spending silly, it means taking calculated risks. For us it could mean buying young promising players or decent already peaked players. But also trying to get high profile targets instead of just trying to get someone who would be certainly happy to come here. We need to expand our stadium at some point, but in my opinion only planning it at this moment is better as we are not yet established premside. Also before getting huge stadion etc we should still try to improve our training facilities and youth setup. Sport science is something where we probably are light year away from top clubs and it gives great advantage in long run. Also we need to get some prestige before we can rise up. It can come from successful signings or a lucky cup run, but at the moment we are very badly known outside of England and that will We can be more than yoyo club and archieve same status than Everton for example thought our relatively small fanbase is a bit problem. Anyway there is no real reason why we should become yoyo club and not become top half club.