Exciting times ahead........

[Indy 3,298]

I have been very quiet over the past few weeks as I absorb every ones reaction to the season and I am not sure why so many people are so angry!

 

I tend to see the same mistakes as other about the boards choices this year and hindsight is a great thing to beat the board with. No one knew for sure just how big a flop Hughton, his coaching staff (Though I said when Trollop & Calderwood first appeared here they were not good enough) and his summer signings would turn out to be.

 

Given the facts that in his first year Hughton kept City out of the bottom 3 for all but 1 week, finished 11^th and had that 10 game unbeaten run you can understand the boards backing and willingness to back him during last summer……..but why RVW & Hooper (admitadly Hughton did not sign all his targets) than we got the panic signing of Elmander on loan, would have been cheaper and more effective to have kept hold of Holt, in my view.

 

Moving on should Hughton have been sacked earlier or would he got results in the last 5 games to keep us up had the board stuck with him? Who knows, maybe in a parallel universe we still have Hughton and we are in the premiership.

 

All this aside MacNally has been fantastic for this club, since the near death of City in 2009 we have moved through the divisions and secured three years in the top flight, which no supporter on that sad day when we were relegated to that 3^rd division of English football thought would happen in a million years. Please stop with the all the criticism of a very strong board.

 

The names being touted as the next manager are to be expected, Lennon would not be my first choice, Malky would get me nod, his connections to our club aside, his record at this level and having lead Cardiff to a Cup final, narrowly losing out to Liverpool on penalties, shows just how good he is as a manager and for me I doubt he would come here. From the others, I hope to god we don’t get some obscure manager from some far out lesser league (Like Popovic) but I trust the board to get in the right man this time, one with some history in this league but most important a good fit to our club and identity.

 

The players are being set upon on many threads and to be honest most have been assigned a playing style and system by the coaching staff, this has probably lead to their failing as a team, I’m not impressed with the amount of unrest during Hughton’s time here, we had a fair few players complain about City including two darlings of our club in Holt & Hoolahan, so somethings here have been sour for a while. Now we have Fer & Bassong who appear to be the two making all the fuss to leave, not committing to our cause, that’s fine if you want to leave, but please keep it out of the press.

 

I have been bored and frustrated this year, I have lost my love for this club at times and missed more games this year than ever before through choice. I am actually excited for the first time in two years, who will be our new manager, which players will go and will be kept, which of the new crop will make the grade next year and of course who the new players!

 

Long term concerns for me is that lack of money, there are so many clubs now who have rich backing that I feel we will be left in the second tear for a long time, with the odd flurry into the top division and of course our owners are getting towards the end of their long tenure at this club. Will it be hard to sell this club? Who knows.

 

So my thoughts on the season and in summary, the players have for whatever reason under performed under Hughton the players lost the our league status, the board stood by the manager and made the choice to change at maybe a questionable time, too late for any impact.

 

I’m looking forward to some proper footballing battles, winning games and having something to play for again. I love the thought of mullering the binners and Leeds again, I am so looking forward to the summer and the new season, something I had lost in the top division.

[Holtcantshoot 0]

Nothing in Hughton''s previous performances against Fulham (where he lost 5-0 and 3-0 at Craven Cottage), Man Utd (where he lost 4-0 in the Carling Cup and 4-0 at Old Trafford last year), Chelsea (Where we were beaten 3-1 at home in the league), Liverpool (where he''d been thrashed 3 games in a row) or Arsenal (who had beaten us 4-1 away) suggested Hughton would have got the 4 points needed for survival. The negative feelings around the ground towards him would have simply meant if he hadn''t been sacked after losing to West Brom he would have been sacked after losing to Fulham (defeats this calendar year to similar standard teams in Swansea, Aston Villa, West Ham and Cardiff suggest this would happen). But yes, can''t say I''m that angry about us being relegated. Why would you want to watch your team play in a league where you can end up with 4 games in a row that you know the side has little to no chance of getting a result from. The fact the underperforming players are getting grossly inflated salaries as they lose almost every week doesn''t do much for me.

[Norfolk Mustard 94]

We didn’t enjoy success playing in the Prem under Worthington without a recognised striker and central defenders. Some dodgy European signings were made then too. We took regular beatings and most of us didn’t like it.

Thought we’d have learned something from that experience, but apparently not. That’s what makes the passive acceptance of this relegation hard to understand.

Love your upbeat post though!

[lake district canary 4,531]

[quote user="Indy"]The players are being set upon on many threads and to be honest most have been assigned a playing style and system by the coaching staff, this has probably lead to their failing as a team, I’m not impressed with the amount of unrest during Hughton’s time here, we had a fair few players complain about City including two darlings of our club in Holt & Hoolahan, so somethings here have been sour for a while. Now we have Fer & Bassong who appear to be the two making all the fuss to leave, not committing to our cause, that’s fine if you want to leave, but please keep it out of the press.[/quote]

I do think a lot of the problems with players who were already here were down to the fact that they were used to Lambert and he was very successful.  Hughton was always going to be completely different than Lambert and that players didn''t like it is no surprise.   So if the players that were already here were finding it difficult, players that came in to a atmosphere where things weren''t that great were going to find it difficult too.     Hughton takes the responsibility, but the players failure to adapt was just as much a problem as Hughton''s tactics etc imo.   So the Lambert factor should not be underestimated - it had a big effect imo, just as the SAF effect had an effect on the players when Moyes arrived at Manure - he was not SAF.   Add to that the problems with our fans who also seemed to have that hangover from the Lamberet era and it made Hughton''s job doubly hard.  I know some of you will start on about some kind of Hughton love in again on my part - but it isn''t that - its more trying to explain a situation.  The manager was to blame - but so were the players - the fans were a contributory factor too.  Its not blaming people - it is understandable that fans were sceptical - but overall it was just never going to work.   A lot of us were thinking that the board were going to stick it out in the hope that things would improve over time - but they just didn''t - and the inevitable happened. 

All history now of course, but we  moved into a different ball game last season, buying more expensive and technical players. That we struggled is down to a combination of factors - but we can all hope now that we can regroup next season and move on - we are still well run and financially sound - lets hope whoever is manager next season gets us all in a more positive frame of mind.

[Holtcantshoot 0]

I''d agree with that. Hughton looked to try and actively change the team''s playing style when he took over but that was always going to be a difficult task with a side that had only just joined the Premier League. I assume it was done on the belief that playing a defensive style of football is a proven way to establish yourselves as a top flight club as Stoke and Bolton have done previously with their smaller clubs.I just don''t think Hughton had the knowledge, ability or conviction to take on a small struggling team (as we were second half of our first season in the Premier League) change their playing style on a limited budget and change their form at the same time. I think the board made a judgement error in selecting a relatively inexperienced manager to do this when they should have been looking for an Alladyce or a Pulis type with a good decades Premier League experience. The second error was of course not identifying the struggling performances of the team last year and bringing in a more experienced manager to carry on with the project (again Pulis would have completed this).Of course they then fired him when we''d already been doomed to relegation and brought in an even less experienced manager with a completely different playing style again that was never going to do anything but save Hughton''s reputation and make the board and their new manager look bad.