Chris Hughton

[The Great Mass Debater 1,076]

So Hughton has got Brighton up, apparently with an attacking style. As Norwich fans we are perhaps uniquely placed to speculate about him next season.

My thoughts on Hughton are that he essentially felt the team he inherited was not good enough, nor did he want to replicate the approach that our success and survival had been built on. Managers perogative. In bringing in Garrido (and later the excellent Olsson), Turner and Bassong (and Whittaker?) he certainly improved our defence, and when we were on that unbeaten run we really did look the business. First time in a long while I had utmost confidence in the defence. Bassong and Turner were collossol in that period. Whilst we ground out victories through attrition, it was effective, even if the result was a clipping of our attacking wings.

Hughton''s main mistake for me was undervaluing Grant Holt (and arguably Wes, thought I think he was right in recognizing Wes was not right for every game). Holt may have been in decline, but not replacing his role in the team and ''upgrading'' him to RvW and Hooper/Elmander is probably why it went tits up.

I think Hughton honestly thought that RvW and Hooper would score goals on their own due to their prolific records, and although to some extent he kept the goals out (argue all you like that attack is the best form of defence) being unable to score them at the other end due to your restrictive style of play and possible drop in morale is what did for him.

So at Brighton, he is playing attacking football, as he was when he got Newcastle promoted - but that was his approach to the Championship. Now he has to crack the Premiership again. So what do we think?

Will he approach the problem differently this time? Will he do the exact same thing? Will he have greater resources for the players he needs? Will he be a success this time around, or is he doomed to repeat the mistakes of previous?

I think it will be fascinating to see how he approaches it this time round. Has he learned from his mistakes, or will he take the same approach and might it work with different players - might it say something about our club at the time?

Opinions?

[TCCANARY 263]

Yes they are opinions.

[Thisisbabyish 0]

I find it fascinating what people find fascinating! 😳

[Bethnal Yellow and Green 1,557]

Hughton strikes me as the ultimate pragmatic manager. He doesn''t seem to have a set style or philosophy but will set out a team to do what he believes it needs to do.

In his first season with Norwich, he knew with the squad he was given and the limited transfer resources he had that making them solid and hard to beat was the way to go - he was right there.

Over the close season before the second season (and even before with the early signing of RvW) he realised that he needed to add some quality in the attacking third and replace an ageing attack. If you look at the set up on early on in the season Norwich were pretty attacking and he really went for it - however when it became clear that the signings weren''t what had been hoped for he resorted to his previous plan - the solid and hard to beat. If your team plays defensive and wins then no one really minds, not for a good while at least, it is only when you are doing that and losing that it matters. Norwich should have survived the 2nd season, Sunderland''s recovery was remarkable and Norwich choked some key games.

I think Hughton wanted Norwich to become more expansive and attacking but losing Elliot B so early in the season hindered his options, as did RvW being a bit (a lot) rubbish.

I think he will prioritise Brighton being hard to beat, but that is probably something most managers of promoted clubs would do - it was certainly Sean Dyche''s first instinct. But that doesn''t make him a purely defensive manager.

[Woodman 92]

It''ll be interesting to see if/how Murray and Knockaert fit in to their squad next year. Murray is a good Championship striker (see Jerome), and Knockaert was lively too, but both will struggle against better defences.

[Platonic 1]

I''ll be interested to see if he and Brighton can cope with the pretty much new standard of teams playing 3 at the back with wingbacks covering and then pushing on to create four or even five attacking players. There was a really interesting article somewhere (the Guardian maybe) about how this won Chelsea the title, and I don''t know enough to know how you would go about combating such a flexible formation with limited resources. I suspect Brighton will struggle.

[king canary 7,562]

Got to say Bethnal I really don''t remember us ever ''really going for it'' in that second season. VS Everton maybe but after that came us failing to remotely trouble a 10 man Hull team, a relatively fortunate win v Southampton (a Redmond hit and hope I seem to remember) and the awful game away at Spurs.

[Guest]

[quote user="Platonic"]I''ll be interested to see if he and Brighton can cope with the pretty much new standard of teams playing 3 at the back with wingbacks covering and then pushing on to create four or even five attacking players. There was a really interesting article somewhere (the Guardian maybe) about how this won Chelsea the title, and I don''t know enough to know how you would go about combating such a flexible formation with limited resources. I suspect Brighton will struggle.[/quote]

How many teams will be good enough for three at the back next season? Chelsea were in great shape to play that system with their squad but I don''t see many trying it with the same success.

[Essex_Canary 6]

My abiding memory of Chris Hughton will be the exact opposite of ''going for it''. Games like Hull away where we had the chance to go and win a game against a newly promoted side yet Hughton opted for 4 central midfielders with no attacking attention at all, or shutting up shop and holding on for a 0-0 draw at home to Cardiff.

Hughton took a free flowing attacking side that was exciting to watch and full of players who gave 110% and decided fro day one that we needed to be more defensive. What he turned us into was an uninspiring, boring to watch side where you knew of the opposition scored first we would get beat. The irony of it all was that our goal difference got worse under Hughton.

We picked up 22 points from 10 games in his first season, yet scraped over the finishing line to avoid relegation by beating West Brom and Man City teams that were well and truly on the beach by that point!

I cannot see Brighton staying up, them with Knockeart reminds me exactly of us c.2003-2005 with Hucks. He is their creative spark and at Championship level good enough to win games on his own, but completely nullified in the top flight. I can''t see them, like Huddersfield, scoring enough goals to stay up.

[The Great Mass Debater 1,076]

Scoring goals was the problem under Hughton though, so a number of years on, has he solved this problem do we think?

Will he basically do the same as he did with us and turn a free-scoring side into one which plays attrition football (ie does he still think this is the way to go, and is he likely to be any more successful with this than he was with us) or is he likely to take a different approach?

If he took the same approach as he did with us but was successful with it beyond a brief purple patch it would be a vindication of his method during his time at Norwich.

You dont get promoted by not playing attacking football, but he has a different challenge now, and as Norwich fans we know better than most what his solution to it was last time. Now he has a similar challenge. Will he stick or twist?

[king canary 7,562]

I hues my answer is... I don''t really care.

Good for him that he got promoted and all that though.

[Yellowbeagle 0]

I guess time will say whether he adopts an attacking approach particularly away from home next season, i somehow doubt it and think he will always be aiming for a point away from home like he did with us. Whenever i saw Brighton on TV and the home game against us they never looked as expansive as the media are making out.

[Indy_Bones 441]

I respected Hughton''s professional demeanor and always felt he conducted himself extremely well in interviews and suchlike, but I will never forgive the god awful brand of football he brought to the club, nor his disgraceful misuse of numerous players in the process, and for that reason alone, I hope he crashes and burns with Brighton, and that he dumps them back down just like he did with us...

[Coq au vin 0]

For me H''Field and Brighton are going to seriously need some quality signings especially up top. And as we all know, to our cost, strikers, decent ones that can put goals away in the Prem, are like gold hen''s teeth.