[Albion] Chris Hughton leaves with immediate effect

[Thunder Bolt]

Palace beating Cardiff saved us

No, beating Palace twice, and getting the two extra points against Newcastle and Arsenal saved us. Do you really support us?

 

[chaileyjem]

We fluked three wins in a row in October . .

this is repeated again and again on here. There's plenty to criticise Hughton for (although i think sacking him is short sighted) but to not give him or the players credit for these wins is unjustified and illogical. Were the multiple draws , narrow defeats flukes as well ?

 

[blockhseagull]

No, beating Palace twice, and getting the two extra points against Newcastle and Arsenal saved us. Do you really support us?

Actually every result saved us if you want to be a pedant.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

this is repeated again and again on here. There's plenty to criticise Hughton for (although i think sacking him is short sighted) but to not give him or the players credit for these wins is unjustified and illogical. Were the multiple draws , narrow defeats flukes as well ?

One of those 1-0 flukes was against Wolves. Wolves couldn't even beat us at home resulting in a 0-0 draw so was that a fluke as well?

Posters are desperate to show how much they 'know'.

 

[GT49er]

Palace beating Cardiff saved us

The 36 points we won for ourselves saved us.

 

[dingodan]

No, beating Palace twice, and getting the two extra points against Newcastle and Arsenal saved us. Do you really support us?

To be fair, I think there is a valid point there.

In that we stayed up, but could have gone down, decided by one other result which we had no control over at all. It's difficult to feel that Hughton and the teams performances could both have "kept us up" or "sent us down" without changing anything we did under either set of circumstances.

I suppose you could always argue that a different result here or there would have meant a different outcome, but at the very least it was way too close for comfort this season. We stayed up, but we had to depend as much on luck and other results as we did on our own performances, and that for me means we neither earned safety nor relegation, all we earned was the right to hope for the best. We got lucky this season, and we don't want to depend on luck to keep us up, because luck being in or out can never be relied upon. That's how luck works. Nobody understands that better than Tony.

 

[Nobby]

We did get the results to get over the line. The draws with Newcastle and Arsenal saved us.

And Wolves and nearly Spurs

 

[Seagull73]

this is repeated again and again on here. There's plenty to criticise Hughton for (although i think sacking him is short sighted) but to not give him or the players credit for these wins is unjustified and illogical. Were the multiple draws , narrow defeats flukes as well ?

Seriously? Were you at the games?

v West Ham - Possession 35%-65% Shots for 9 (On Target 4), Shots against 17
v Newcastle - Possession 32%-68% Shots for 8 (On Target 2), Shots against 27
v Wolves - Possession 40%-60% Shots for 7 (On Target 1), Shots against 25

Stats don't tell everything, but I was at both those home games against West Ham and Wolves, and nobody could have complained if we had been on the wrong end of a 1-2, 1-3 scoreline. I don't think anybody should kid themselves that we were where we deserved to be after those games.

Man United and Palace at home are the only times this season that we have genuinely played well - possibly Arsenal when we were already safe. Otherwise, most of this season has been a turgid, painful, horrible, funless grind.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

To be fair, I think there is a valid point there.

In that we stayed up, but could have gone down, decided by one other result which we had no control over at all. It's difficult to feel that Houghten and the teams performances could both have "kept us up" or "sent us down" without changing anything we did under either set of circumstances.

I suppose you could always argue that a different result here or there would have meant a different outcome, but at the very least it was way too close for comfort this season. We stayed up, but we had to depend as much on luck and other results as we did on our own performances, and that for me means we neither earned safety nor relegation, all we earned was the right to hope for the best. We got lucky this season, and we don't want to depend on luck to keep us up, because luck being in or out can never be relied upon. That's how luck works. Nobody understands that better than Tony.

His name is Hughton. At least give him the dignity of getting his name right.
We have been very 'lucky' in the last 4 and a half years.

 

[Mellor 3 Ward 4]

4.5 years in the job and the first 3.5 were great, we couldn’t have asked for any more. He excelled himself and will always have my respect for that.

However, the facts do not lie and this season (the whole season, not just the second half like some would have you believe) has been abysmal. We fluked three wins in a row in October that gave us a false sense of safety, but the reality is we’ve been truly hopeless for a long time. We can’t score, we can’t attack, we’ve got no pace, we move the ball slowly, we are cautious and timid, we show too much respect to opponents, we have won four away games out of the last 40, we only make subs at 70 minutes. Most worryingly of all, he’s done nothing to combat the critical issues even a layman like me can see occurring throughout the season. He appears to me to be a manager with his head in the sand. It’s absolutely woeful stuff and completely untenable at this level. I could go on but most of all, I’m just bored of my team being so spineless, defensive and dull.

Finally, the inevitable came in recent months as our home form fell apart. Hughton had been boring his way to enough points at the Amex to keep the more blinkered fans on side but finally the players couldn’t cope with such a mentally and physically draining style any longer. You just can’t lose 5-0 at home to Bournemouth, a team that had just lost nine consecutive away games. You can’t lose to Southampton, Burnley and Cardiff with barely a shot on goal.

Hughton has actually been a dead man walking for a long time. I called it in 2018 after the Leicester game. Losing a 60 minute match at home to ten men because we sat on the edge of our own box and failed to lay a glove on them was embarrassing at Premier League level. I don’t think any other manager in this division would have done what he did that day. There have been countless other opportunities missed this season, going all the way back to Fulham and Southampton in the first month, as a direct result of the manager’s approach. So regrettably, he had to go and he should have gone months ago.

Absolutely spot on.

Interesting that you mention the Leicester game - my son said exactly the same at the time - how negative we were, inviting pressure and offering zero going forward. The 'problem' was that we had got away with it so often that he wouldn't, or couldn't, change.

It doesn't mean we don't respect what he did, or admire him any less as a person, and it certainly doesn't mean we have delusions of grandeur as to what our club is and should be.

A lot of the drivel in the on-line press saying we have made a huge mistake clearly comes from people who haven't watched us in the past 6 months.

 

[dingodan]

His name is Hughton. At least give him the dignity of getting his name right.
We have been very 'lucky' in the last 4 and a half years.

Sure we have, I just don't think we've had to depend solely on luck, with so much at stake, like we have in the last couple of weeks. It has been positively frightening. I was mentally preparing myself for relegation.

Fair point about my spelling mistake, corrected.

 

[Driver8]

The more I think about it I cant help feeling the “teams at our level” mantra repeated by CH in almost every interview for weeks has been his “glass ceiling” moment. It was pretty much his admission that this was as good as it gets.

Time will tell if he was correct.

 

[Nobby]

Already heard, indirectly, from one player who had no clue it was coming.
Mental.

Some of the players may have heard it but were too p*ssed to remember.

 

[Seagull73]

The more I think about it I cant help feeling the “teams at our level” mantra repeated by CH in almost every interview for weeks has been his “glass ceiling” moment. It was pretty much his admission that this was as good as it gets.

Time will tell if he was correct.

Poyet wasn't right (although it took a while after he left to prove him wrong!). I agree about the "teams at our level" mantra hasn't helped him - only time will tell now.

 

[dazzer6666]

Seriously? Were you at the games?

v West Ham - Possession 35%-65% Shots for 9 (On Target 4), Shots against 17
v Newcastle - Possession 32%-68% Shots for 8 (On Target 2), Shots against 27
v Wolves - Possession 40%-60% Shots for 7 (On Target 1), Shots against 25

Stats don't tell everything, but I was at both those home games against West Ham and Wolves, and nobody could have complained if we had been on the wrong end of a 1-2, 1-3 scoreline. I don't think anybody should kid themselves that we were where we deserved to be after those games.

Man United and Palace at home are the only times this season that we have genuinely played well - possibly Arsenal when we were already safe. Otherwise, most of this season has been a turgid, painful, horrible, funless grind.

Agreed - ditto Newcastle away. Brilliant defensive performance for sure but we pretty much mugged them for 3 points (even Barber agreed when I spoke to him at the airport on the way home LOL)

 

[Seagull73]

Some of the players may have heard it but were too p*ssed to remember.

 

[Dick Head]

Palace beating Cardiff saved us

Cardiff not beating Palace doomed them.

 

[Exile]

4.5 years in the job and the first 3.5 were great, we couldn’t have asked for any more. He excelled himself and will always have my respect for that.
.

Personally I'd say the first 0.5 was shocking, and THEN the next 3.0 were fabulous.

 

[dazzer6666]

Racing Post Article by Mark Langdon....................well thought out IMO

https://www.racingpost.com/sport/pr...tent=Langdon on Hughton sacking&utm_term=Null

Text for those unable to open link :

Be careful what you wish for.

It's a warning which is always trotted out when a club, possibly punching a little above their weight, make a decision to change manager in the hope of improving the club.

Alan Curbishley and Charlton is the one which is always mentioned.

Charlton were a mid-table Premier League side and some supporters wanted more. A better brand of football. Something different from what they were watching every week.

Now Charlton are in Sky Bet League One. Be careful what you wish for.

Those doomsday predictors never mention the times when replacing a safe pair of hands works out for the best.

Liverpool could have stuck by Brendan Rodgers - he was not doing a terrible job - but they are unquestionably in a better place for hiring Jurgen Klopp.

Southampton were ridiculed in some places for sacking Nigel Adkins and replacing him with a man who could barely speak English in Mauricio Pochettino.

Adkins is now in the Championship, Pochettino is in the Champions League final with Tottenham.

Brighton may well get relegated next season and if they do many will inevitably say they were wrong to get rid of Chris Hughton, not least because he seems to be a fantastic human being.

Hughton, however, has been in football all of his life and will know the brutal nature of the business.

Brighton need a new dynamic. It may not work, but they need one anyway after winning just two Premier League matches in 2019 - and one of those was 1-0 at home to Huddersfield.

Albion totally lost their attacking intent.

One shot at home to Southampton and Bournemouth, two against Cardiff and Newcastle at the Amex. That's just not enough to win matches regularly and they finished the season averaging fewer than three shots on target per game.

Cardiff gave the relegation dogfight a proper go but Brighton were just hoping their rivals would not be good enough and that's no way for a club to aim for relative long-term success.

Some felt brave Brighton performed well to keep Manchester City to just one goal in their FA Cup semi-final defeat last month, although in some respects it's better to lose by three or four to nil trying to win rather than trying to keep the score respectable.

Look how Swansea attacked City in the quarter-final. That was real sporting bravery.

The architect of that magic performance was Graham Potter, the man who is supposedly the number one target for Albion chairman Tony Bloom, and a fine appointment he would be.

As one of the world's most respected punters Bloom knows all about the potential risks and rewards involved in taking chances and sacking Hughton is a gamble worth taking.