[Albion] Chris Hughton leaves with immediate effect

[Icy Gull]

In the 4 performances before Man City , we had 3 points from Wolves, Newcastle and Arsenal , which in the end kept us up.
I'm not denying that our results for the 2nd half were largely poor, and sometimes shocking but the players and Hughton turned it round when it mattered.
including coming from behind to get a point. Twice.

You have to question how we came to be in that position in the first place, I would suggest that CH lost some of the players belief in him en route to it.

None of us thought TB would sack him but I am pleased he did, something was very wrong behind the scenes.

My enthusiasm for next season may prove to be a false dawn but it’s a chance I’m happy for us to take. I have always felt enjoying watching the Albion is, as a fan, my main concern. I did not enjoy last season, a handful of games apart, and even the semi final didn’t thrill me given the way we play.

 

[chaileyjem]

You originally said...." our last four performances kept us up.".....it didn't.

Yes. i meant ...before Man City.

 

[chaileyjem]

You have to question how we came to be in that position in the first place, I would suggest that CH lost some of the players belief in him en route to it.

Well its a bit of a moot point now but if the glib argument is he lost the players or the "dressing room" then for those four games and half an hour at Man City at least he found it again.

 

[drew]

Our last four performances kept us up, two of which were after we had gone behind. How do you explain them ?

What kept us up was the point gained at Wolves and the fact Palace beat Cardiff. The Wolves match was dire park the bus stuff. We didn't stumble over the line, just that Cardiff fell further short than us.

 

[Icy Gull]

Well its a bit of a moot point now but if the glib argument is he lost the players or the "dressing room" then for those four games and half an hour at Man City at least he found it again.

I said lost SOME of the players. I have no doubt it didn’t include the back bone of his defensive players and Murray. We limped over the line, and you seem to be finding that a reason to ignore the way we lost the games that mattered, that we should have been more competitive in, and should have seen us safe long before the end of the season.

How do you explain the Saints, Bournemouth and Cardiff games?

 

[Blue3]

You have to question how we came to be in that position in the first place, I would suggest that CH lost some of the players belief in him en route to it.

None of us thought TB would sack him but I am pleased he did, something was very wrong behind the scenes.

My enthusiasm for next season may prove to be a false dawn but it’s a chance I’m happy for us to take.

I think (no evidance to support this) that we might have a Barack room lawyer on our books

 

[chaileyjem]

What kept us up was the point gained at Wolves and the fact Palace beat Cardiff. The Wolves match was dire park the bus stuff. We didn't stumble over the line, just that Cardiff fell further short than us.

We found three more points from somewhere. And I think that shows Hughton and the players resilience which the op was questioning.

Why it had vanished in the weeks leading up to April is another question.

 

[Anya1000]

You have to question how we came to be in that position in the first place, I would suggest that CH lost some of the players belief in him en route to it.

None of us thought TB would sack him but I am pleased he did, something was very wrong behind the scenes.

My enthusiasm for next season may prove to be a false dawn but it’s a chance I’m happy for us to take. I have always felt enjoying watching the Albion is, as a fan, my main concern. I did not enjoy last season, a handful of games apart, and even the semi final didn’t thrill me given the way we play.

Yes something was wrong behind the scenes and it wasn't Hughton. Hughton questioned the poor recruiting set up (money ball) but cracked on with the resources he had with no complaints and still prevented relegation. How is that not obvious look at his mainstay players, he only trusted a few. He was made a scapegoat, I assure you we will get relegated next season if we don't spend big and bould and recruit established players who are fit for the league. And yes I have the inside scoop...

 

[Springal]

Think it is very much the wrong decision and fear we will regret it.
Playing expansive football means nothing if we get relegated.
Having said that I think it's important that everyone, whatever they thought of Hughton, gets together and supports the new manager.

Do you think this season was as good as it gets then? There is middle ground between super defensive & expansive attacking football.

 

[Jim in the West]

Chris is an amazingly decent guy. His persona seemed to fit perfectly with a club I think we all regard as almost unique in the way we do things. I’m very disappointed to see him go, but ultimately things were going badly wrong. Some managers wouldn’t have survived a calamitous second-half against one of the nailed-on relegation favourites where we managed to concede four goals out of nowhere. Many would not have survived a 5-0 home defeat to a team who were already “on the beach”. Most wouldn’t have survived meekly succumbing to your chief relegation rivals in a “must not lose game”. Chris survived all those, during which we played some absolutely dire football. And our record in the second half of the season was Huddersfield-esque. Since we beat Everton just before Christmas we have played 18 games, and “amassed” 11 points, with two victories and eleven defeats. We scored just 13 goals in that period, but conceded 33. These are truly dreadful stats, and I’m 100% certain that - had those 18 games been in the first half of the season, rather than the second half - then Chris would have been sacked in December (if not before), and no-one would have batted an eyelid.

Relieved as I am (and grateful) that we stayed up, it was pretty clear that something very significant was going to have to change to keep us in the Premier League come May 2020. Chris is the victim of that disastrous run of results, and a victim too of the turgid football we have played in 2019. I know we scoff at the quality of the Dutch Eredivisie, but somehow Chris/his coaches/his tactics have reduced Jahanbaksh to a semi-competent left-back. This is someone who scored 21 goals with 12 assists in 33 games last season. The guy clearly has huge amounts of skill, but we seemed more interested in turning him into a decent defender! Bissouma - a player with bags of energy, skill and an infectious enthusiasm - was restrained, and even dropped for the heinous crime of not tracking back. The one guy who could really break through the midfield with speed and intent was, too, being turned into a bl00dy defender!

The biggest issue I have with CH is, however, the fact that our slow, methodical, defensive style is completely at odds with that of just about every other Premier League club. Even Cardiff moved the ball quickly, and created chances. If we’d gone into 2019/20 playing the same brand of football it would have been a disaster. Of course, we don’t know who the new guy is - and we don’t know how we’ll play next season. But I’m pretty sure we will be looking for a lot more pace, strength and attacking intent. It may or may not work, but carrying on with our recent approach was not, imho, an option.

But good luck Chris - you are a wonderful person, a very good manager, and will always be remembered fondly at B&HA.

 

[chaileyjem]

I said lost SOME of the players. I have no doubt it didn’t include the back bone of his defensive players and Murray. We limped over the line, and you seem to be finding that a reason to ignore the way we lost the games that mattered, that we should have been more competitive in, and should have seen us safe long before the end of the season.

How do you explain the Saints, Bournemouth and Cardiff games?

I’m not ignoring them at all. It was horrible, at times shocking. I sat there with my head in my hands. Was it because Hughton “lost the dressing room” - no.
Not sure I even know what that means. It’s just a simple explanation for something that is far more complicated.

 

[colonies man]

Chris is an amazingly decent guy. His persona seemed to fit perfectly with a club I think we all regard as almost unique in the way we do things. I’m very disappointed to see him go, but ultimately things were going badly wrong. Some managers wouldn’t have survived a calamitous second-half against one of the nailed-on relegation favourites where we managed to concede four goals out of nowhere. Many would not have survived a 5-0 home defeat to a team who were already “on the beach”. Most wouldn’t have survived meekly succumbing to your chief relegation rivals in a “must not lose game”. Chris survived all those, during which we played some absolutely dire football. And our record in the second half of the season was Huddersfield-esque. Since we beat Everton just before Christmas we have played 18 games, and “amassed” 11 points, with two victories and eleven defeats. We scored just 13 goals in that period, but conceded 33. These are truly dreadful stats, and I’m 100% certain that - had those 18 games been in the first half of the season, rather than the second half - then Chris would have been sacked in December (if not before), and no-one would have batted an eyelid.

Relieved as I am (and grateful) that we stayed up, it was pretty clear that something very significant was going to have to change to keep us in the Premier League come May 2020. Chris is the victim of that disastrous run of results, and a victim too of the turgid football we have played in 2019. I know we scoff at the quality of the Dutch Eredivisie, but somehow Chris/his coaches/his tactics have reduced Jahanbaksh to a semi-competent left-back. This is someone who scored 21 goals with 12 assists in 33 games last season. The guy clearly has huge amounts of skill, but we seemed more interested in turning him into a decent defender! Bissouma - a player with bags of energy, skill and an infectious enthusiasm - was restrained, and even dropped for the heinous crime of not tracking back. The one guy who could really break through the midfield with speed and intent was, too, being turned into a bl00dy defender!

The biggest issue I have with CH is, however, the fact that our slow, methodical, defensive style is completely at odds with that of just about every other Premier League club. Even Cardiff moved the ball quickly, and created chances. If we’d gone into 2019/20 playing the same brand of football it would have been a disaster. Of course, we don’t know who the new guy is - and we don’t know how we’ll play next season. But I’m pretty sure we will be looking for a lot more pace, strength and attacking intent. It may or may not work, but carrying on with our recent approach was not, imho, an option.

But good luck Chris - you are a wonderful person, a very good manager, and will always be remembered fondly at B&HA.

All so true.

 

[dazzer6666]

Fair point.
Arsenal was a good all round performance.
Newcastle also proved that Hughton is able to change things with substitutions.

However it was nonetheless, disappointing that the team and fans seemed to give up after such a great start.
Particularly in a match that didn't really matter to us.

It was City.......we and the players basically knew they could score when they wanted, and crucially perhaps the result wasn’t important to us. Combine those factors and it’s no great surprise everything went flatter than a witches tit when they went ahead. So wish we could have held on to the lead for a bit - City would have got increasingly twitchy.

We found a bit of the ‘old togetherness’ and dogmatism for the Wolves game (that was the crucial point IMO as it meant Cardiff needed to win twice, but it was dire to watch), same at Spurs (even though we were a bit embarrassing, simply hoofing the ball upfield to no one time and again), and had two decent second halves (one after a desperate first v Newcastle and one when the shackles seemed to be relaxed v Arsenal).

 

[dazzer6666]

Chris is an amazingly decent guy. His persona seemed to fit perfectly with a club I think we all regard as almost unique in the way we do things. I’m very disappointed to see him go, but ultimately things were going badly wrong. Some managers wouldn’t have survived a calamitous second-half against one of the nailed-on relegation favourites where we managed to concede four goals out of nowhere. Many would not have survived a 5-0 home defeat to a team who were already “on the beach”. Most wouldn’t have survived meekly succumbing to your chief relegation rivals in a “must not lose game”. Chris survived all those, during which we played some absolutely dire football. And our record in the second half of the season was Huddersfield-esque. Since we beat Everton just before Christmas we have played 18 games, and “amassed” 11 points, with two victories and eleven defeats. We scored just 13 goals in that period, but conceded 33. These are truly dreadful stats, and I’m 100% certain that - had those 18 games been in the first half of the season, rather than the second half - then Chris would have been sacked in December (if not before), and no-one would have batted an eyelid.

Relieved as I am (and grateful) that we stayed up, it was pretty clear that something very significant was going to have to change to keep us in the Premier League come May 2020. Chris is the victim of that disastrous run of results, and a victim too of the turgid football we have played in 2019. I know we scoff at the quality of the Dutch Eredivisie, but somehow Chris/his coaches/his tactics have reduced Jahanbaksh to a semi-competent left-back. This is someone who scored 21 goals with 12 assists in 33 games last season. The guy clearly has huge amounts of skill, but we seemed more interested in turning him into a decent defender! Bissouma - a player with bags of energy, skill and an infectious enthusiasm - was restrained, and even dropped for the heinous crime of not tracking back. The one guy who could really break through the midfield with speed and intent was, too, being turned into a bl00dy defender!

The biggest issue I have with CH is, however, the fact that our slow, methodical, defensive style is completely at odds with that of just about every other Premier League club. Even Cardiff moved the ball quickly, and created chances. If we’d gone into 2019/20 playing the same brand of football it would have been a disaster. Of course, we don’t know who the new guy is - and we don’t know how we’ll play next season. But I’m pretty sure we will be looking for a lot more pace, strength and attacking intent. It may or may not work, but carrying on with our recent approach was not, imho, an option.

But good luck Chris - you are a wonderful person, a very good manager, and will always be remembered fondly at B&HA.

Great post.

 

[colonies man]

I’m not ignoring them at all. It was horrible, at times shocking. I sat there with my head in my hands. Was it because Hughton “lost the dressing room” - no.
Not sure I even know what that means. It’s just a simple explanation for something that is far more complicated.

As none of us are players we can only guess what the mood of. the dressing room was but from the outside the together. seemed to be missing.

 

[TWOCHOICEStom]

So, the day after... I'm still not sure how I feel about this.

I want to believe that next season, Chris would have identified what had gone wrong, made some changes and we would have progressed. We were progressing until January. With some new personnel I think next season we'd be fairly certain to stay up.

I think this would have been a really hard decision for Bloom to make. He's thinking about the liklihood that we start badly next year and the chaos of changing a manager during a campaign. So making a harder decision now might be better than making an easy decision with worse consequences. I can respect that and I think it's what a lot of the pundits and twitter experts are missing.

The split in opinion between fans and the wider footballing community is heavily influenced by what a model pro Hughton has been. He's the perfect figurehead for this club and I don't think any of us will forget that in a hurry.

Saying that, I think that's our biggest problem. We're a bit of an Arsenal. A bit of a soft touch. We never come back from a losing position. We rarely show true courage in matches. We love being the underdog, but can't motivate ourselves against lesser opposition. That's a big problem and one which has ultimately been Hughton's undoing. We show grit at the back, but toothless going forward. That's not really sustainable.

So we bring someone in to fix it. But who? Who is going to be more likely to lead us to safety before May? Graham Potter?... I hope so, but I'm really struggling to have that kind of imagination.

 

[chaileyjem]

As none of us are players we can only guess what the mood of. the dressing room was but from the outside the together. seemed to be missing.

If you’re losing and out of nowhere at threat from relegation then no wonder you’re under a lot of pressure but clearly something changed again pre Wolves .

 

[Icy Gull]

I’m not ignoring them at all. It was horrible, at times shocking. I sat there with my head in my hands. Was it because Hughton “lost the dressing room” - no.
Not sure I even know what that means. It’s just a simple explanation for something that is far more complicated.

So you don’t accept that some of the players may not have been 100% behind CH and his tactics and therefore their performance levels fell off? OK then.

 

[chaileyjem]

So you don’t accept that some of the players may not have been 100% behind CH and his tactics and therefore their performance levels fell off? OK then.

I think that describes every football club in the country - it’s not my definition of “losing the dressing room”.

 

[Icy Gull]

I think that describes every football club in the country - it’s not my definition of “losing the dressing room”.

So does a manager have to lose every player before he can be said to have lost the dressing room. For a club at our level wink EVERYONE needs to pull together, three or four players not giving 100%, consciously or otherwise, means we are probably fecked in a game.

Those three winnable three home games looked to me like everyone was not pulling together, which is why we found ourselves where we were in the last few games.

I find it hard not to think CH and his rigidity on tactics were part of the problem.

I imagine everyone sucked it up in the last few games because none of our players wanted to go down so were obliged to give it their all for those games.