Egg on the face

[Robert911 0]

I am over the moon that we have stayed up. But I cannot believe that all of a sudden Hughton is a tactical genius. The first game that we actually put a team away all season. We need someone to take this team forward. In my opinion (and this is my opinion and it may not agree with yours, but that does not allow abusive vitriol) he is not the man to do it. He has shown little or no tactical awareness this season. Can we not forget that we''ve had games where we haven''t even had a shot on target? I hope he leaves me with massive egg on my face next season and we push forward. But my opinion is such that I don''t believe him the man, nor have I since the Fulham debacle. Again, this is my opinion and I know you do not agree with it but that does not warrant abusive comments

[ABC (A Basingstoke Canary) 26]

Robert, unfortunately I think you have become caught up in the vitriol of the HOB''s. CH''s objective (which he actually came out and admitted on Sunday) was to keep Norwich in the PL for this season and then to build for the future.

 

I think if you do some research, you will find that CH has managed to produce some very exciting football prior to his arrival here.

 

Since his arrival here, he has got us PL safety, and currently in the same league position where we finished last season! He currently has us higher than the manager who left us for AV, to the team who almost achieved Champions league football (Newcastle) and even to the team who turned us over 5-0 (I think you referred to it as the Fulham debacle). For someone whom you claim has "little or no tactical awareness", he hasn''t really done too badly has he?

 

However, I will ask you the same question that I asked a certain "vanwink" - who would you replace him with? (I think he eventually mentioned "Martinez" which was an interesting choice - a nice enough chap, but nevertheless, a manager who perenially fights relegation.)

[BarclayWazza 91]

I''ve been in two minds about Hughton for the last couple of months. He''s either been:

a) Trying to see the season out without any strikers of real quality and showing form and the reason for our poor attacking is that we haven''t got the players to do it. Therefore I''ve been looking forward to getting the season over with, getting RVW in plus a few more players and seeing what Hughton can do with them.

b) Not up to the job. I won''t go into his deficiencies I think he''s shown because its all been said before here. But this team is a stronger one than Lambert had. We''ve got full backs who are good going forward and until yesterday it seemed they had orders not to pass the half way line.

What we saw yesterday was something we haven''t seen over an entire game all season. Full backs consistently overlapping wingers, not sitting on one and two goal leads, general positivity going forward. Granted this was against a team with their minds on Marbella but they didn''t offer much less than Newcastle and Fulham. This only leads me to the conclusion that it''s down to Hughton''s tactics - which was also instrumental in Holt''s loss of form. As such, for me, he''d get 10 games at the start of next season and a review then.

[a1canary 0]

I think also you''d have to look at where we were last summer once Lambert had left. We were all pretty worried and if you said to us that we could replace Lambert with a manager who is almost the opposite of his predecessor, would give us some great results, and some awful results (as did his predecessor) and would keep us up, you''d have taken it all day long with bells on.

It seems churlish to now be saying he''s not the right guy. Listen i don''t always like his management style, i got absolutely pilloried on here for disagreeing with the way we were running down the clock vs Reading, but even if the situation might have warranted it, i stand by it because it was a symptom of the manager''s almost pathologically cautious style which frustrates fans sometimes. At the same time though, that caution has been to our benefit in other situations. Signing Bunn was a strange one for some fans when it came, yet that turned out to be one of our most important signings of the year. At the end of the day, you have to decide as a manager if you want to be an all out attacking side or to be a hard to beat side. It''s much too easy as fans to complain about the cautious approach becasue it''s not as exciting to watch. But if you look at the evidence, which approach works more often for smaller teams?

On the hard to beat side, you have the number one proponent, Stoke City! Six or is it seven straight years in the league by being hard to beat. Steve Bruce''s Birmingham would be another example who had some good years. Then you''ve got those who have tried and failed at being attacking - Blackpool, Reading, Hull...

As for the successes at the attacking philosophy, you''ve got Swansea, us under Lambert, Southampton currently who have looked very easy on the eye under Pochettino.

For me, i''d rather CH does what he knows than tries to do something he''s not comfortable doing. Having said that, i don''t think we''re aiming to be the next Stoke, just that our approach has been to be more like Stoke than like Lambert''s Norwich this year because that''s the approach CH took for keeping us up this year. And now that he has done that who''s to argue with him. Let''s see what he does with a squad that he''s had the chance to embellish with some exciting attacking talent. It would be absurd to not give him the chance he has earned to develop the squad for next season now that he has kept us up.