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flecky76

Chris Hughton: Mr 'Nice' or Mr 'Stubborn'?

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Its been portrayed quite often that Hughton is one of the nicest men in football. I agree that CH has a friendly demeanour about him and is undoubtably a genuinely polite person.

However, I increasingly believe under this facad that he is actually quite a stubborn person and is actually unwilling to shift from his own rigid beliefs.

Let me explain some examples of the evidence I''ve noticed to back this up:

1) decides very early on that he does not ''fancy'' a player and will not have in his plans, rather than giving the player a chance to impress, even when needed. See Fox, Becchio, Ayala and Butterfield. To an extent, I feel Hoolahan is half in this bracket, as it only seems he is picked when we have relatively few alternative options.

CH rarely goes back on his words - yes, Fox played yesterday, but there is no way CH will pick him for the Prem (apart from filling the bench like Becchio).

2) Formations far too rigid. CH will always pick a flat 4-5-1 or 4-4-1-1 formation. Personally, I am less concerned about an outright 2 up front, but it''s the midfield which I get most frustrated about. Without Howson or Hoolahan, we have no passing ability. Invariably a combination of Tettey, Johnson and Fer possess far too little creativity for what we should be able to demonstrate at this level. With Fox yesterday, you can see the effect a deep lying playmaker can have on a team - you play through him and you are able to keep the ball for short periods. Unfortunately we''ll be back to the flat lines next week as CH will not change the fluidity of our midfield.

3) CH does not base his game around keeping possession - we have 3 midfielders in our squad where you would say their passing is their biggest strength: Howson, Hoolahan and Fox. Fox has been bombed out from day 1. Hoolahan isn''t wanted by CH and appears to be reluctantly chosen when he does play - remember a few weeks back CH suggesting Wes has to take his chance when given it? A bit rich when it was his first start for 3 months and when no one else exactly did any better! Only Howson is seen as a regular starter now of the 3 under CH, yet he himself was often overlooked last season. Oh, and CH had the wisdom of starting the Hull away game with Howson on the right wing!!

Wes and Foxy may not be the answer to all NCFC issues at present, but they are virtually the remaining playmakers We have at the club - to sell either and not make use of them when we so clearly are in need of it, will be scandalous in my opinion.

4) I rarely see CH take the bull by the horns and visibly change a game significantly while it is taking place. All too often I see games drift without any real obvious purpose from NCFC. Only when you are losing do you see anything resembling a positive substitution, but usually too little to late. If the scores are level, the game maintains stalemate - until the opposition score that is.

Our away results to last seasons relegated teams - QPR 0-0, Reading 0-0, Wigan 0-1.

This season, the bottom 3 so far: Sunderland 0-0, Palace 1-1.

It''s no coincidence in the pattern of these results - a draw is aimed for without any real ambition to realistically go out and get the 3 points on offer.

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Stubborn and not very assertive. Not a risk taker.I dont think hes a very good manager all in all. Shame cos hes such a swell guy

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 Calling someone "nice" is fairly meaningless and subjective.  If you call him stubborn you are saying he is doing something wrong and sticking with it despite evidence that he should do it differently.   But who is to say he is doing things wrong?   Us fans?  Do we know more than a player/coach/manager who has been successful wherever he has gone in football throughout his entire career - including Norwich? (11th place last season don''t forget).     I would say he is single minded - in other words he believes in the way he does things and will stick with it because he knows in the long run it will work.   That is where my support for him is based.    I trust his footballing ability.  I trust his past record.  I trust that he is doing things the right way and that it will work out better as time goes on and our team progresses to a more consistent  fluid and effective football team.    Your points:1.  If he does not "fancy" a player it will be for footballing reasons.  The best will play and if the others want to play they''ll have to step up to the plate. 2.  Many people on here have pointed out the systems we play is not so rigid as popular opinion suggests.   Yes we fall back and defend - but when we get the ball we don''t keep it - so we end up defending again, falling back into those positions.  That is not wrong tactics. It is an inability to hold on to the ball.  3.  Possession is one of the most important factors in a Hughton team. I don''t know where people get their ideas from, but if you control the ball you control the match.  Again, that has been our problem - players inability to hold on to the ball or pass it accurately to one of our own team. 4.   The myth of substitutes has been disproven time and time again. THe average time for substitutes coming on is 70 minutes, and they are more often than not attacking substitutions. Finally,  I suspect that a draw - particularly away from home against any club in the premiership is  a good draw.   Despite our spending we are still one of the least resourced teams in the league.   Draws away from home are good draws and of course the idea is to win - as at Stoke and WBA - but even Lambert used to say - if you can''t win a game make sure you don''t lose it.   Stubborn?  No.   Strong willed and with self-belief based on years of success within the game? Yes.

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MR Nice is Mr McNice in the boardroom long gone is the ruthless hard nosed businessman image I had of him, now he''s kept this disaster rolling from week to week it was obvious as fook in Clueless (untis''s first preseason he was the wrong man for us. McNice must have been worried towards the end of last season regardless of what he said publicly "it was never in doubt" or some bullocks. IT was in doubt we COULD of gone down when we should of been long out of site.

However the only way my voice will be heard by the board and (untis who-ton? Is to not buy anything from the club shop until there''s a change, on top of my season ticket I normally spend 3-400 in there, however not anymore until there''s a change.

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Flecky, if the league was just between the bottom half Hughton would be top right now. So singling out a couple of away games doesn''t really prove anything. His problem is no wins and only one draw against the top 8.

 

 

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nutty nigel wrote the following post at 05/01/2014 6:45 PM:

Flecky, if the league was just between the bottom half Hughton would be top right now. So singling out a couple of away games doesn''t really prove anything. His problem is no wins and only one draw against the top 8.

Lol. That is the most pathetic Pro Hughton nonsense i''ve seen yet.

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"but when we get the ball we don''t keep it"that''s because we seem to be stuck with this lunatic ''zonal sh ite'' whereby when we have posession our players do not move and offer options but remain static base on some notion that you can ping the ball backwards and forwards without the opposition oing anythingthey do, they close us down which leads to more desperate passing to get the ball to our own players - which usually means we lose the ball .......conversely we will not close own on players as it means our players having to move out of their ''alloted space''the problem with Hughton is that he is a very weak manager, stubborn and dictorial he may be, but a man waving a whip about is not necessarily a strong man or charactertime and time again we have seen substitutions where he simply swaps like for like on the basis that it is not the formation or tactics that need to change, but one of the players who have tried to implement those tactics - a more assured and competent manager would have seen what was needed, or perhapswhat might work better, and swapped things aroundhis weakness was clear to see with Becchio, when after comments were published in the media he immediately gone onto the pitchat the moment we are being over coached, smothering the players natural abilityfor the time being I feel he should give Redmond a break and let him spend his Sat afternoons on shooting practice and if there is no improvement then move him onto practicing crossing and passing to his team mates when he gets near the box .... and if the players are not allowed to close down the opponents then at least remove that requirement near our own 18 yd box

or simply replace him with a decent manager

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Lake District - points 2 and 3 that you make are valid, you identify our inability to keep hold of the ball as a weakness, I agree. But why doesn''t Hughton select the more technical players, i.e. Fox & Hoolihan, to help us control possession? This comes down to using tactics appropriate to your players.

If he doesn''t deem them good enough, his call, then why hasn''t he improved on them in the transfer market? You could argue that he has bought better individuals, but as a team our ball retention is worse.

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I do apologise nutty I originally missed the point you were making. I thought you were cherry picking results and conveniently ignoring results against the top teams. Having re read the thread I see your point now.

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[quote user="Europe_93"]Lake District - points 2 and 3 that you make are valid, you identify our inability to keep hold of the ball as a weakness, I agree. But why doesn''t Hughton select the more technical players, i.e. Fox & Hoolihan, to help us control possession? This comes down to using tactics appropriate to your players.

If he doesn''t deem them good enough, his call, then why hasn''t he improved on them in the transfer market? You could argue that he has bought better individuals, but as a team our ball retention is worse.[/quote]

I think he expects more of our midfield than they have been able to deliver - not helped by injuries of course - but no excuses, they need to work better as a midfield.   Link up play has been good on occasion, but as soon as we lose the ball we revert to a defensive shape - and despite what City 1st says - there is nothing wrong with that.  

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[quote user="JF"]I do apologise nutty I originally missed the point you were making. I thought you were cherry picking results and conveniently ignoring results against the top teams. Having re read the thread I see your point now.[/quote]

 

 
 
 
If we carry on as we are but manage to pick up a few points from the others, maybe Spurs/Newcastle at home, we will be comfortable.
 
But we could just as easily start losing to those around us and start beating the top teams. Sunderland have beaten Newcastle, Man City and Everton but nobody else! It''s a funny old game....
 
 

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At this level nutty it''s fine lines between success and failure isn''t it. Had we got the points we should have against 10 men hull, had snoddy not taken that penalty against villa or one chance out of 30 gone in against Cardiff, the ref against palace. then we could have had one foot safe by now. Doesn''t change my being bored to tears by the football though!

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Must admit LDC I thought it would take you a bit longer to reduce your happy clapper arguement to the depth of poor language.

Deary Deary me

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[quote user="lake district canary"][quote user="Europe_93"]Lake District - points 2 and 3 that you make are valid, you identify our inability to keep hold of the ball as a weakness, I agree. But why doesn''t Hughton select the more technical players, i.e. Fox & Hoolihan, to help us control possession? This comes down to using tactics appropriate to your players.

If he doesn''t deem them good enough, his call, then why hasn''t he improved on them in the transfer market? You could argue that he has bought better individuals, but as a team our ball retention is worse.[/quote]

I think he expects more of our midfield than they have been able to deliver - not helped by injuries of course - but no excuses, they need to work better as a midfield.   Link up play has been good on occasion, but as soon as we lose the ball we revert to a defensive shape - and despite what City 1st says - there is nothing wrong with that.   [/quote]oh dearyou really haven''t a clue have you, or is it that you have stuck your head up your own backside so far in your defence of Hughton that you cannot see what is obvious to most othersyou offer no explanation of why we lose the ball, other than it is the midfield''s problem of delivery"he expects more of our midfield than they have been able to deliver" what sort oif gibberish is that ... even for you ?surely Hughton should know his players capabilities and adapt the game plan accordingly ... or is it that the game plan is so flawed that it will fail time and time again ... a game plan where players remain static and hope the opposition do the same, fine if you are playing Subbuteo but not PL football"but as soon as we lose the ball we revert to a defensive shape"defensive shape ! are you totally barking ? there is nothing defensive about sitting off the opposition any more than a boxer who stands with his arms down a few inches out of the arm reach of his opponent (yes Ali did it, but we are no Ali)it is one of the notable failures of Hughton''s management that we are unable to defend properly, that we allow the opposition to stand unmarked outside the 18 yard box time after time, and allow them time on the ball ...in the PL you will get hammered for that, and we have been hammered I can only imagine LDC that you are on some giant wind up and you are posting up this endless stream of nonsensical old tosh as part of thatsadly I have to fear that it is not the case and that you are indeed serious

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[quote user="City1st"][quote user="lake district canary"][quote user="Europe_93"]Lake District - points 2 and 3 that you make are valid, you identify our inability to keep hold of the ball as a weakness, I agree. But why doesn''t Hughton select the more technical players, i.e. Fox & Hoolihan, to help us control possession? This comes down to using tactics appropriate to your players.

If he doesn''t deem them good enough, his call, then why hasn''t he improved on them in the transfer market? You could argue that he has bought better individuals, but as a team our ball retention is worse.[/quote]I think he expects more of our midfield than they have been able to deliver - not helped by injuries of course - but no excuses, they need to work better as a midfield.   Link up play has been good on occasion, but as soon as we lose the ball we revert to a defensive shape - and despite what City 1st says - there is nothing wrong with that.[/quote]oh dearyou really haven''t a clue have you, or is it that you have stuck your head up your own backside so far in your defence of Hughton that you cannot see what is obvious to most othersyou offer no explanation of why we lose the ball, other than it is the midfield''s problem of delivery"he expects more of our midfield than they have been able to deliver" what sort oif gibberish is that ... even for you ?surely Hughton should know his players capabilities and adapt the game plan accordingly ... or is it that the game plan is so flawed that it will fail time and time again ... a game plan where players remain static and hope the opposition do the same, fine if you are playing Subbuteo but not PL football"but as soon as we lose the ball we revert to a defensive shape"defensive shape ! are you totally barking ? there is nothing defensive about sitting off the opposition any more than a boxer who stands with his arms down a few inches out of the arm reach of his opponent (yes Ali did it, but we are no Ali)it is one of the notable failures of Hughton''s management that we are unable to defend properly, that we allow the opposition to stand unmarked outside the 18 yard box time after time, and allow them time on the ball ...in the PL you will get hammered for that, and we have been hammered I can only imagine LDC that you are on some giant wind up and you are posting up this endless stream of nonsensical old tosh as part of thatsadly I have to fear that it is not the case and that you are indeed serious[/quote]

Sadly, I am getting tired of defending a manager against people who are so closed minded and  in your case, someone who plainly has a chip on their shoulder about the club.  Your descriptions of the way we play or are trying to play are so one sided as to be ridiculous.   Talk about black and white.   You only see black.   The mechanisms, formations and tactics involved - not to mention pressures, confidence (or lack of it) injuries, new players, opposition teams - all go together to make a far more complex state of affairs than your simplistic "static" description.  Plainly one sided - and your attempts at persuasive rhetoric fools me not.   You may be a long standing supporter, but  your arguments are mischevious, divisive and innacurate.

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"[quote user="lake district canary"][quote user="City1st"][quote user="lake district canary"][quote user="Europe_93"]Lake District - points 2 and 3 that you make are valid, you identify our inability to keep hold of the ball as a weakness, I agree. But why doesn''t Hughton select the more technical players, i.e. Fox & Hoolihan, to help us control possession? This comes down to using tactics appropriate to your players.

If he doesn''t deem them good enough, his call, then why hasn''t he improved on them in the transfer market? You could argue that he has bought better individuals, but as a team our ball retention is worse.[/quote]I think he expects more of our midfield than they have been able to deliver - not helped by injuries of course - but no excuses, they need to work better as a midfield.   Link up play has been good on occasion, but as soon as we lose the ball we revert to a defensive shape - and despite what City 1st says - there is nothing wrong with that.[/quote]oh dearyou really haven''t a clue have you, or is it that you have stuck your head up your own backside so far in your defence of Hughton that you cannot see what is obvious to most othersyou offer no explanation of why we lose the ball, other than it is the midfield''s problem of delivery"he expects more of our midfield than they have been able to deliver" what sort oif gibberish is that ... even for you ?surely Hughton should know his players capabilities and adapt the game plan accordingly ... or is it that the game plan is so flawed that it will fail time and time again ... a game plan where players remain static and hope the opposition do the same, fine if you are playing Subbuteo but not PL football"but as soon as we lose the ball we revert to a defensive shape"defensive shape ! are you totally barking ? there is nothing defensive about sitting off the opposition any more than a boxer who stands with his arms down a few inches out of the arm reach of his opponent (yes Ali did it, but we are no Ali)it is one of the notable failures of Hughton''s management that we are unable to defend properly, that we allow the opposition to stand unmarked outside the 18 yard box time after time, and allow them time on the ball ...in the PL you will get hammered for that, and we have been hammered I can only imagine LDC that you are on some giant wind up and you are posting up this endless stream of nonsensical old tosh as part of thatsadly I have to fear that it is not the case and that you are indeed serious[/quote]

Sadly, I am getting tired of defending a manager against people who are so closed minded and  in your case, someone who plainly has a chip on their shoulder about the club.  Your descriptions of the way we play or are trying to play are so one sided as to be ridiculous.   Talk about black and white.   You only see black.   The mechanisms, formations and tactics involved - not to mention pressures, confidence (or lack of it) injuries, new players, opposition teams - all go together to make a far more complex state of affairs than your simplistic "static" description.  Plainly one sided - and your attempts at persuasive rhetoric fools me not.   You may be a long standing supporter, but  your arguments are mischevious, divisive and innacurate.

[/quote]I would ask you to deconstruct my points with a counter argument but as you have carefully avoided doing so with others it would be a rather silly of me to expect you to make an exception in thus caseInstead you revert to the old ''wiz defence'' "I am getting tired of defending a manager" ie you run awayso I shall simply have to enjoy another bit of contradictory nonsense from you -"someone who plainly has a chip on their shoulder about the club"or"You may be a long standing supporter"

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[quote user="City1st"]"I would ask you to deconstruct my points with a counter argument but as you have carefully avoided doing so with others it would be a rather silly of me to expect you to make an exception in thus caseInstead you revert to the old ''wiz defence'' "I am getting tired of defending a manager" ie you run awayso I shall simply have to enjoy another bit of contradictory nonsense from you -"someone who plainly has a chip on their shoulder about the club"or"You may be a long standing supporter"[/quote]

There is no need to deconstruct your points as I am not interested in your pathetic attempts to sound knowlegdable.  I''m more interested in your attitude to the club which as far as I can see is based on what you "hear" from people around the club.   Your chip is so obvious to all of us and although I spend a lot of time "deconstructing points" on this board, I have no need to in your case because it is easy to tell that your motivation is somewhat antagonistic towards the hierachy of the club and not necessarily to do with what happens on the pitch.  Your attitude to the club shows a bitterness that is that you really ought to address.   You never know, if you do, you might learn to respect and understand what is really going on instead of trying to invent conspiracy theories and putting out corosive and totally one sided views of what goes on, both on and off the pitch.

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Sorry LDC, but City1st has got a point here.You can''t go into a debate where the other person offers information and justification for their opinion and you respond by blowing a raspberry and refusing to reciprocate in an appropriate manner...I often try to utilise statistics to help back up my opinion, and whilst they''re not the be all and end all - they do offer more justification than stuff like "I just don''t rate the guy" (Not a direct quote btw, simply an example of the responses we often get on here) without any reasoning for this unfounded opinion...So how about you actually try to refute the points your fellow poster has made, instead of turning it into an attack regarding their support of the club???

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[quote user="City1st"]"but as soon as we lose the ball we revert to a defensive shape"defensive shape ! are you totally barking ? there is nothing defensive about sitting off the opposition any more than a boxer who stands with his arms down a few inches out of the arm reach of his opponent (yes Ali did it, but we are no Ali)it is one of the notable failures of Hughton''s management that we are unable to defend properly, that we allow the opposition to stand unmarked outside the 18 yard box time after time, and allow them time on the ball ...in the PL you will get hammered for that, and we have been hammered I can only imagine LDC that you are on some giant wind up and you are posting up this endless stream of nonsensical old tosh as part of thatsadly I have to fear that it is not the case and that you are indeed serious

[/quote]
Everything City1st has said is bang on. Sorry LDC, but as said above you just look like you''ve lost the argument mate and not to gracefully I might add.

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[quote user="Indy_Bones"]Sorry LDC, but City1st has got a point here.You can''t go into a debate where the other person offers information and justification for their opinion and you respond by blowing a raspberry and refusing to reciprocate in an appropriate manner...I often try to utilise statistics to help back up my opinion, and whilst they''re not the be all and end all - they do offer more justification than stuff like "I just don''t rate the guy" (Not a direct quote btw, simply an example of the responses we often get on here) without any reasoning for this unfounded opinion...So how about you actually try to refute the points your fellow poster has made, instead of turning it into an attack regarding their support of the club???[/quote]

OK. If you look further back on this thread I answer people''s points quite thoroughly. My patience ran out with City 1st due to his constant diatribe of derisory remarks.  However, despite my reservations about City 1st and his "agendas" I''ll answer him."that''s because we seem to be stuck with this lunatic ''zonal sh ite''

whereby when we have posession our players do not move and offer options

but remain static base on some notion that you can ping the ball

backwards and forwards without the opposition oing anything
""Zonal sh ite" which has seen us improve our goals against quite markedly.We move into a defensive shape as soon as we lose the ball - all teams do.Also, pinging the ball around is what good teams do. "they close us down which leads to more desperate passing to get the

ball to our own players - which usually means we lose the ball

.......conversely we will not close own on players as it means our

players having to move out of their ''alloted space''"
They close us down like all teams do, innacurate passes, or slow to release the ball  is the only thing that makes us lose the ball."the problem

with Hughton is that he is a very weak manager, stubborn and dictorial

he may be, but a man waving a whip about is not necessarily a strong man

or character
"Weak to the extent we finished 11th. last season and are in the mix for tenth place this (yes I know we''re three from 18th as well)"time and time again we have seen substitutions

where he simply swaps like for like on the basis that it is not the

formation or tactics that need to change, but one of the players who

have tried to implement those tactics - a more assured and competent

manager would have seen what was needed, or perhapswhat might work

better, and swapped things around"
This is not always true.  Even if it was, like for like subs happen all the time in football.   Its only wrong in Hughton''s case because to some people he can do nothing right."his weakness was clear to see with Becchio, when after comments were published in the media he immediately gone onto the pitch"No.  Becchio said his piece, Hughton must have said alright then, lets see what you can do - and did Becchio do anything to show he should be picked more regularly?"at the moment we are being over coached, smothering the players natural ability"No we are not.  We are being coached to learn how to achieve a balanced footballing approach.  It doesn''t always work and will take time and upgrades to come to fruition.   "for

the time being I feel he should give Redmond a break and let him spend

his Sat afternoons on shooting practice and if there is no improvement

then move him onto practicing crossing and passing to his team mates

when he gets near the box .... and if the players are not allowed to

close down the opponents then at least remove that requirement near our

own 18 yd box" 

How can you give one of our best players a break when all the other wide options are injured.?

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When in possession our movement off the ball is very poor and has been for a long time, limited passing options leading to balls being passed back, hoofed by the keeper and lost, or misplaced passes going astray and being mopped up by the opposition.

I think we all see this week in week out LDC and you havnt really addressed that point.

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[quote user="Vanwink"]When in possession our movement off the ball is very poor and has been for a long time, limited passing options leading to balls being passed back, hoofed by the keeper and lost, or misplaced passes going astray and being mopped up by the opposition.

I think we all see this week in week out LDC and you havnt really addressed that point.[/quote] I have addressed this on several occasions.  When we are playing with purpose and confidence - which we do sometimes, believe it or not - we do pass and move well.   That is doesn''t happen often enough is obvious, but it is not the doom and gloom scenario that some like to make out.  When we are confident it works well.   Confidence is still shaky in my view, but will improve - I would say is improving.  Look at the last few results. 2-0, 1-1, 0-0, 1-2, 0-1, 1-1.    Not a doom and gloom scenario at all, results wise, could be getter of course.  Not great, but in those matches, where were we good?   WBA - good defence.   Good on the break. Swansea - a tough game for most teams possession wise, but still emerged with a pointSunderland - a good performance with lots of good passing and movingFulham - well, it could have gone either way, but yes, not great.MU - excellent play first half, MU showed their class second half.CPalace - I thought it was a good performance to come away from there with a point.Confidence is the key for me - and it is improving - but slowly.  Its not all bad..............

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