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bjornagain

Birmingham Fan in Peace - Hughton

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I have read some threads on here and I get the general feeling you all want him gone? but have I got that wrong.. what is the main overall feeling on Hughton, do you want him gone?personally and I must add I don''t speak for all Birmingham fans, But I never rated the guy.  He signed some horrendous players on loan for us, Peter Ramage being one, another Adam Rooney and there''s more.  We played some Horrible football, worse now I grant you but under Hughton there was no conviction in the play.  We''d basically go through motions in most matches and you couldn''t really put your finger on specific reasons why we bottled it in Europe and then the play offs.   Some Birmingham fans will say he did a wonderful job.  I would argue that although he lost around 4 or 5 Premiership players in that first summer, the squad was basically the same and but for a few personnel he had a squad easily capable of at least reaching the play offs and thats what he did.    For some unexplained reason the media fall over themselves for quiet Chris, I myself see him for what he''s been all his career, a professional ordinary player who has carried this trait into being very ordinary manager.thoughts?

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I accept that Birmingham have had to cut their budget further since Hughton departed, but the bottom line is: he got you to a playoff semi final. He did achieve that under difficult circumstances. There are a lot of relegated sides who get nowhere mounting a serious promotion challenge. The fact you are now in bottom 3 of the Championship shows that for all Hughton''s faults he is a good manager. I will readily admit I thought he was the outstanding candidate for the job when Lambert left.

 

Unfortunately, aside from a wonderful 10 match unbeaten run it has never really clicked here for him and I think it is probably time for a change of manager. It seems like he will get the West Ham game to attempt to salvage things but I think Man City was the tipping point during which supporter opinion went against him irreversibly. I feel a victory on Saturday would only be a stay of execution until another set of adverse results would lead us to same scenario we currently have now.

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The thing is Cambridge, from the few Brum games I watched whilst Hoots was manager the style of football was exactly the same as here. Boring, lacking sparkle, character and without forward penetration.

The play off against Blackpool at St Andrews was simply dire for a Blues fan.

I do agree with your assessment regarding his fate.

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Some guys get promoted beyond their ability because they are "nice" whilst the ones that work hard, achieve results but cause ripples get fired. I have met lots of guys like that in life. They hide with jobs at County Hall, the big Insurance Companies, the NHS and Shell, They retire with good pensions and become presidents of Golf Clubs, Civic Societies and the like. I have never met Chris Hughton but I expect he is one of these people. Promoted beyond his ability. He will eventually "step down" from NCFC with a big pay cheque and quickly be offered a job with the FA or FIFA or the like where he will not make waves but make up the numbers (ten on the committee) and be invited to official dinners and trips overseas. He is perhaps waiting for that job offer now so he is being "nice" and making himself re-employable.

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I would have to be honest Bury and say that I didn''t watch Birmingham at all during that season. However, I would say that Birmingham did manage 78 goals that season. That was the 4th highest the division and only 1 goal less than the ultra offensive Blackpool managed by Ian Holloway. So Birmingham must have had something about them going forward that season. For further context Reading went up as champions scoring a mere 69 goals. So there definitely was more to Birmingham''s play book than being organised and trying to pinch games.

Unfortunately I would concede totally that this has not translated to his performances as Norwich and I would agree our attacking play lacks all of the things you mention. We were far too over reliant on set pieces last season. Snodgrass''s poor start to season means that sadly this source of goals has dried up and we''ve struggled a result.

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hes come into the club with the mentality that the players arent good enough to stay in this league and therefore have to "grind" out results, hang on for draws away from home or against bigger clubsits the complete opposite to the previous manager, hughtons mentality has rubbed off on the players "they are a very good side with very good players........." we know chris, they know, theres no need to tell people that before and after every game, how abut suggesting that your players are capable of beating anyone on their day and instilling some confidence in them to go out and give it a goif someone keeps telling you how good your opponent is instead of focusing on your strengths then it will eventually grind you down

bjornagain - if you would like him back then you are more than welcome, will swap for a box of maltesers and tom adeyami ;)

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Bobert. That''s a fantastic post. I have thought that of Hughton even before he became our Manager. I have known many like him over the years and to add to your excellent and accurate list I would place large charities.

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I agree we did have something going forward, a font line of Zigic King, Burke ( all McLeish Signings) a young Nathan Redmond and various others.  But here''s a stat you may want to consider.  In the 37 ghames Nathan Redmond played in for Birmingham that season, we won only 15 of them.  admittedly he had some hardship to deal with, no money for transfers.  however he was still able to bring in some players and he brought in some dire rubbish.  The most endering stat of all was they we limped home into the play offs, sure we was undefeated in 9 games but 5 were draws,  wins against Doncaster (Relegated) Burnley, Palace and an already crowned champions Reading.our opening 11 games were won 3 Lost 5 draw 3we had two purple patches were we won 6 in a row in October and Januarybetween feb - mar we won 3 in 14 games!How we got into those play offs we always remain a mystery to me.basically Hughton for me will always remain the kind of manager who is a yes man, ordinary and uninspiring and with little emotion.  How you going to seriously going to get player motivated with that kind ethos.I''m not looking for Norwich fans to all agree with me, hell who am I.  I do however keep a watchful eye on Norwich''s results and I''d say something thats plainly obvious.  Hughton is out of his depth,I really hope you sort yourselves out and stay up, with hughton or a new manager. Good Luck.

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That may well be the case and I''m sort of willing to accept that however, we didn''t have Jose Mourinho itching to fill Lambert''s shoes, did we?Hughton''s not stupid enough to know how cut-throat Prem. (or any come to that) management is and I really hope it comes good for him and Norwich, primerily because good managers are few, far between and already at richer clubs than Norwich !

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This Birmingham fan is so spot on in his analysis that he could quite easily be a Norwich fan in disguise.

Hughton is a "yes man", he has no charisma, and finds it very difficult to motivate and inspire a group of young footballers.

We don''t need Jose Mourinho, but we do need a manager who can motivate and get the best out of his players.

We have a talented squad and if we go down this year I fear we will never have one as talented again.

The Redmond statistic provided is useless and misleading though, smacks of sour grapes a little. Because when you say "In the 37 ghames Nathan Redmond played in for Birmingham that season, we won only 15 of them"

It would be fair if you would point out that:

1) Only 26 of those appearances were in the league.

2) Of those 26 only 6 were starts.

3) His first start came that season and he was 17.

4) "Only 15 of them" is better placed in context when we consider that Birmingham won 20 league games that season.

5) Redmond scored 7 goals that season in 7 different games, 6 of which were wins and 1 of which was a draw.

Easy to use statistics to further an argument isn''t it.

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It''s always difficult to compare managers records at various clubs, all of whom have different cultures, expectations and budgets etc. But bjorn makes some telling points.

There is a widely held belief that Hughton was harshly treated at Newcastle, but, through family connections, I know quite a few toon army, and they tell me that opinion is fairly split, with yet again a sizeable number feeing he is desperately dull, tactics wise and attitude wise, and ,strategy wise, simply not up to being a PL manager.

Now there are those who will argue that if Mc Nally is the smart operator that he likes to think he is, he''d have known all this before he appointed Hughton. A phrase that was regularly used immediiately after his appointment was "safe pair of hands". Unfortunately those four words have a wide range of interpretations, and, what''s come to pass with Hughton has been the "boring, lacking in flair and imagination " one.

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Very well said Bobert, never thought of it that way but it does make sense! even I can''t decide if I want Hughton in or out, but my thought of keeping him is down to him being a good honest guy who just doing his job, but then the results don''t lie, the performances are not there and had this been any other manager we would all be putting a shed load more pressure on by now!

 

Sometimes people just don''t fit the job and this is true of Hughton with City, he''s just not for us as he wasn''t for Newcastle those years ago.

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Bobert wrote the following post at 04/11/2013 11:

Some guys get promoted beyond their ability because they are "nice" whilst the ones that work hard, achieve results but cause ripples get fired. I have met lots of guys like that in life. They hide with jobs at County Hall, the big Insurance Companies, the NHS and Shell, They retire with good pensions and become presidents of Golf Clubs, Civic Societies and the like. I have never met Chris Hughton but I expect he is one of these people. Promoted beyond his ability. He will eventually "step down" from NCFC with a big pay cheque and quickly be offered a job with the FA or FIFA or the like where he will not make waves but make up the numbers (ten on the committee) and be invited to official dinners and trips overseas. He is perhaps waiting for that job offer now so he is being "nice" and making himself re-employable.

I guess your the type that works hard and gets fired eh, ending up up with a bloody big chip on his shoulder.

I have read some crap on here over the last few weeks, but this post is setting new standards.

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[quote user="iron_stan"]hes come into the club with the mentality that the players arent good enough to stay in this league and therefore have to "grind" out results, hang on for draws away from home or against bigger clubs

its the complete opposite to the previous manager, hughtons mentality has rubbed off on the players

"they are a very good side with very good players........." we know chris, they know, theres no need to tell people that before and after every game, how abut suggesting that your players are capable of beating anyone on their day and instilling some confidence in them to go out and give it a go

if someone keeps telling you how good your opponent is instead of focusing on your strengths then it will eventually grind you down


bjornagain - if you would like him back then you are more than welcome, will swap for a box of maltesers and tom adeyami ;)
[/quote]

 

Once again failing to recognise every manager praises the opposition........

Lambert was actually a lot worse for doing it than Hughton, can''t rememeber you picking up on that though?

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Interesting balanced view from outside, agree with most of what has been said unfortunately. I have tried to back the manager up until Saturday but feel the way we set up just screamed a "holding up the white flag mentality" then the two subs used only thing in my opinion helps to kill any belief in the players on the bench. So the squad as a whole is feeling it.

I watched Birmingham a bit that season in the Europa League, whilst accepting it has become a bit of a modern day anglo-italian cup, easy and convenient to forget its on with lots of strange teams, as well as the inconvenience of the timing of the matches when the football league sometimes has games on a tuesday. I thought Redmond was a particularly good promising player and Birmingham looked OK without really impressing me greatly. But I sensed that was probably because the Europa League team was reserve players getting a run out as that competition wasn''t a priority.

Just out of interest at Birmingham what was the supporters view of the coaching team as a whole?

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[quote user="bjornagain"]I have read some threads on here and I get the general feeling you all want him gone? but have I got that wrong.. what is the main overall feeling on Hughton, do you want him gone?

personally and I must add I don''t speak for all Birmingham fans, But I never rated the guy.  He signed some horrendous players on loan for us,

Peter Ramage being one, another Adam Rooney and there''s more.  We played some Horrible football, worse now I grant you but under Hughton there was no conviction in the play.  We''d basically go through motions in most matches and you couldn''t really put your finger on specific reasons why we bottled it in Europe and then the play offs.   Some Birmingham fans will say he did a wonderful job.  I would argue that although he lost around 4 or 5 Premiership players in that first summer, the squad was basically the same and but for a few personnel he had a squad easily capable of at least reaching the play offs and thats what he did.   

For some unexplained reason the media fall over themselves for quiet Chris, I myself see him for what he''s been all his career, a professional ordinary player who has carried this trait into being very ordinary manager.

thoughts?
[/quote]

 

Huzzah![Y]

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My brother works at Birmingham airport and he says that when a plane load Brummies returns from thier holidays it always takes the ground crew a while to realise that the engines have stopped and the whining is coming from inside the plane.

 

 

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Hughton has a brief managerial career. A good season at Newcastle before being harshly sacked the next. A good one at Birmingham, look at them now. His first season here was successful, it is in the record books that we were 11th, although the football was at times horrible. This season looks and has been bad, he has possibly till the end of the month the change things, only time will tell

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I''m starting to wonder how much of that season at Newcastle was having a lot of premier league quality players in a squad such as Coloccini Gutierez, Carroll, Nolan, Barton. They kept the squad together and those players and he upped the morale after a pretty turbulent relegation then maybe it was very easy. West Ham did something similar although needing the playoffs, and QPR are doing so now.

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This thread is all very well and good. I don''t know enough about Birmingham, the business managers, charity managers so I''ll take you guy''s word for it.

 

But the problem I have with this is that it suggests Bowkett and McNally didn''t just make a mistake but were incompetent. Even negligent in giving Hughton the job.

 

What you are all saying on here rather suggests we don''t want the current board anywhere near the next appointment.

 

 

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Your first paragraph is absolutely correct Nige.

And the other two are basically the same point as I made re whether Mc N should not shoulder some of the blame if what the Brum and Geordies are saying is true.

But the final point is another example of your mischief making though. The fact is that this board have in the main done a bl**dy good job for this club, and what''s certain is that they''ll be the ones pulling the levers in the next few days/ weeks. For you to suggest that there is some sort of anti-board feeling amongst the core of fans is disingenuous .

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[quote user="Reggie Strayshun"]Your first paragraph is absolutely correct Nige.

And the other two are basically the same point as I made re whether Mc N should not shoulder some of the blame if what the Brum and Geordies are saying is true.

But the final point is another example of your mischief making though. The fact is that this board have in the main done a bl**dy good job for this club, and what''s certain is that they''ll be the ones pulling the levers in the next few days/ weeks. For you to suggest that there is some sort of anti-board feeling amongst the core of fans is disingenuous .[/quote]People on this forum have started to question McNally and the board though.

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Would Hughton have gone by now if he were a d*ck?  It was easy to hate someone like Roeder. Its hard not to feel sorry for Hughton. We all want him to do well. If this was Roeder with the same football and results, do people think HE would still be here?

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Fair enough Morty, but asking a few pointed questions to Mc Nally is a world apart from Nigel''s rather frantic suggestion that there are lots on this forum who" don''t want the board anywhere near this appointment" ?

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[quote user="morty"][quote user="Reggie Strayshun"]Your first paragraph is absolutely correct Nige. And the other two are basically the same point as I made re whether Mc N should not shoulder some of the blame if what the Brum and Geordies are saying is true. But the final point is another example of your mischief making though. The fact is that this board have in the main done a bl**dy good job for this club, and what''s certain is that they''ll be the ones pulling the levers in the next few days/ weeks. For you to suggest that there is some sort of anti-board feeling amongst the core of fans is disingenuous .[/quote]

People on this forum have started to question McNally and the board though.
[/quote]

 

Is that a representative sample of supporters though?[:^)]

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[quote user="Reggie Strayshun"]Fair enough Morty, but asking a few pointed questions to Mc Nally is a world apart from Nigel''s rather frantic suggestion that there are lots on this forum who" don''t want the board anywhere near this appointment" ?[/quote]

 

It''s probably a no more ridiculous suggestion than the discounting of results on Hughton''s record. Or the suggestion about our comeback wins and draws on the other thread.

 

 

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When he got the push from Newcastle I did actually say (including on here) that I didn''t think it was that bad a decision - which wasn''t an overly popular view.

 

But to me he''s always just been a very bland, unadventurous manager. I can tolerate it to an extent if the dull football keeps us in the league but there has to come a point when you bring the enjoyment of football back to both fans and the players.

 

Despite being in the early ish stages of his managerial career Hughton has already got himself stuck in his ways. Going into last season we knew the defence needed tightening up and he did a good job of that - credit where it''s due. But it came at the expense of our attacking football. This season, in my opinion, he needed to  find a balance between defence and attack. He hasn''t.

 

We could all tell last season that he had seriously restricted the threat Holt carried in order to serve the defensive shape he wanted to use. The end result of that was that Holt, who had scored the goals to put us where we are, was no longer enjoying his football at the club. Bit of a shame, if you ask me.

 

So in the summer he''s spent a lot of money on new forwards and so far they all look less of a threat than Holt. Slightly concerning. Even last season Holt managed 7 or 8 goals and it is actually hard to see RVW and Hooper getting those between them, let alone individually.

 

It''s also a worry that he still hasn''t really seemed to realise that if you sit back against the best players in the world they will find ways through. Players want to show what they can do, they get fed up having to play within a very small box and not being able to express themselves. The result at the weekend couldn''t have shown this more. If Hughton has got any chance of turning it around he has to realise his approach is killing us and have a rethink.

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Again, two completely different things, Nigel. Agree with you 100% about the discounting of results. You can only judge a guy on his recent record as a whole. And, in my view it''s p!ss -poor.

But the stats re comeback wins/draws , is extremely relevant, as our failure to achieve them has impacted directly on the above.

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