[News] Chris Hughton mind games?

[Hugo Rune]

Drawing your last 3 games instead of winning them at this stage of the season is pressure enough for Boro. If we beat Derby, the pressure will be increased a notch on them and Burnley too.

 

[TSB]

Quite enjoying a Boro fan debating a Burnley fan on spend, right here on NSC.

Not going to get that in a week's time.

 

[Beach Hut]

Let's face it, it really doesn't matter who cost what. Next Saturday is almost certainly a cup final and the only thing that really needs to be settled is who needs the draw and who can get the title of the three of us. We won't know that until Monday evening.

Hughton is right to say the pressure's on Boro though. They're at home and should have pissed this league along with Derby if it was based on squad strength alone. You've got to be disappointed if you have Ayala, Rhodes, Clayton and Downing starting and Nugent only on the bench and you don't go up from this league. I've thought the quality of a lot of teams I've seen this season has been poor.

Is the right answer.

 

[KZNSeagull]

No mind games are required here. If you look at it from Boro's point of view, they are having to play the in-form team from the last 5 games of the Championship and will probably have to beat them to get promoted.

 

[Bring back Bryan wade!!]

Dimi 0
Nsue free
Gibson free
Ayala 250 thousand
Friend 100 thousand

Leadbitter free
Clayton 1.8 mil

Adomah 1 mill
Ramirez - loan
Downing 5 mill

Rhodes 9 mill

Compare that to Hull, Derby and Burnley and we're still over achieving. The only side we really can't argue with is your good selves.

Stockdale 1 mill
Bruno 250k?
Dunk Youth Team Free
Goldson 750k
Rosenior Free
Kayal 500k
Stephens 1 mill
Skalak 1.5 mill
Knockeart 2 mill
Hemed 1 mill
Baldock 1 mill

You could put Wilson in for Baldock who is on loan from Man Utd and would be even less but roughly half the cost of the Boro team.

(Disclaimer - those figures are off the top of my head so could be 250-500k out.)

 

[Langley]

Skalak £2m? Do you have a source for that? Also add in Huenemier £1.5, KLL £1m and murphy £1.5m which adds another £4m to the total.

Where does Elvis feature in all this?

 

[GingerBeerMan]

Where does Elvis feature in all this?

Good point, I forgot about our £1.5m man who has barely played 90 minutes for us in a year. Our squad isn't a cheaply assembled squad.

 

[Diego Napier]

Where does Elvis feature in all this?

He's left the building.

 

[Bring back Bryan wade!!]

Where does Elvis feature in all this?

Talking starting 11's yes all 3 squads have other players who they paid fees for.

 

[sparkie]

What about the cash we shelled out on O'Grady.

 

[Diego Napier]

Our squad isn't a cheaply assembled squad.

More to the point, it's an astutely assembled squad.

 

[GingerBeerMan]

Talking starting 11's yes all 3 squads have other players who they paid fees for.

No, we're talking squads. Why would we miss out most of our expensive players to try and fit the 'little old Brighton' narrative?

 

[GingerBeerMan]

More to the point, it's an astutely assembled squad.

True, where borough have downing for £5m we have bought 3 wingers of good quality for the same amount.

 

[Surf's Up]

A local rag trying to stir up hatred between fans when tbf there should only be mutual respect for two very good sides

The original article was in The Guardian .....

rom the glistening stadium to plush training ground, the facilities at Brighton & Hove Albion’s disposal are unmistakably Premier League standard. Materially, everything is in place for a third south coast team to join the top flight, but of the three clubs fighting for automatic promotion they remain the outside chance.

In a season where the bounty for elevation is greater than ever, Burnley are justifiable favourites to make an immediate return thanks to the astute management of Sean Dyche and retaining most of last season’s squad. Middlesbrough, exiled from the top flight since 2009, have a team packed with high-level experience on the back of significant investment.


Middlesbrough let lead slip as David Davis draws Birmingham City level
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But if the playing budget is, as statistic boffins suggest, intrinsically linked to where a team finishes, Brighton, with four seasons in Division One, from 1979‑83, should not even be competing. The manager, Chris Hughton, has previously said he did not expect to be promoted at the beginning of the season, but altered their objectives after an impressive 21‑game unbeaten run. They were the last team in the country to suffer defeat – at home to Boro on 19 December. When they lost three of their next four, many concluded they were spent. Not the case: they have lost one of 18 games played since.

Burnley, a no-nonsense team guided by a no-nonsense manager, are unbeaten since Boxing Day and Middlesbrough’s last loss was on 13 March. However, crucially, Aitor Karanka’s team have drawn their last three. Now is not the time to suffer a dip.

With the new £5.1bn television deal kicking in, this is the campaign to go up. Analysts estimate that whoever gains promotion this season will instantly be among the top 40 richest clubs in the world. Missing out would be a grievous blow.

Hughton believes there is additional pressure on Middlesbrough because of the money they have spent on transfers in the past 12 months, but hopes that does not affect Karanka’s players. The carrot of going up should be motivation enough. “When it comes to pressure, I don’t think there is any different pressure on the players,” Hughton says.

“I would like to think that the pressure on our players to get promotion is very much the same as it is on the other two groups of players. And I would want that because it is a healthy pressure and a welcome pressure. But certainly there is more pressure on the two other clubs because of their expectations and perhaps on Middlesbrough because of what they have spent over a season.”

If there is a relaxed air on the south coast, on Teesside there is tension. Steve Gibson’s sizeable investment and their defeat in last year’s play-off final to Norwich has put a considerable squeeze on Karanka. Being denied victory by an inattentive linesman in the 2-2 draw at Birmingham on Friday was a cruel twist – has a result to go top of the table ever felt like such a kick in the teeth? – but in a season of 46 games and doses of bad luck for every club the errant raising of an assistant’s flag will not hold much weight as an excuse.

Boro remain in control of their destiny. Winning against Brighton next Saturday will be good enough to go up. If they are to remain in the Championship next season it will be considered a resounding failure, likely making Karanka’s position untenable. It is important to remember he threatened to resign two months ago after falling out with some players on the training ground.


Jiri Skalak strike keeps Brighton promotion push going against Charlton
Read more
While that Riverside battle will command most focus, Burnley’s conclusion is daunting for other reasons. A final-day trip to Charlton will provide disruption. Disgruntled Charlton supporters have promised “unrelenting” protests against the club’s owner, Roland Duchatelet, following match-delaying demonstrations, coincidentally, against Boro and Brighton. What their intentions are is unclear but Dyche will need to factor that element into his preparations.

Hughton described Brighton’s 3-1 win at The Valley last Saturday as surreal, adding that there was no way they could prepare for dozens of beach balls causing the referee to stop play for several minutes. Charlton defeated Boro on the day Karanka was in absentia, his future as manager in doubt after apparently telling his players 48 hours previously he did not want to manage them.

That rift was healed and Boro won their next six games before their spate of draws, but undeniably the pressure is greatest in the north-east following expensive additions to the squad in the summer and further bolstering by the signing of Jordan Rhodes on 1 February. As Joey Barton remarked when Boro defeated Burnley 1-0 in December to create an eight-point buffer between the two: “We’re aware of the spending power of [other] clubs. Boro are spending a lot more than us.”

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But if transfer fees are to gauge a team’s promotion chances, Burnley, who splurged £9.3m on their top scorer, Andre Gray, must also be well clear of Brighton. In comparison, Hughton’s big spend this season was the £2.6m on Anthony Knockaert a couple of weeks before Rhodes went to Boro for £9m.

In the prolonged, acrimonious debate over money, Brighton have worked quietly. Plus, as Hughton says, sensibly, expenditure does not guarantee success. “It’s not necessarily about what is spent. It’s about how you use what you have and getting the best out of the team and doing the best you can.”

Barring an unlikely collapse from Burnley, the loser at the Riverside will enter the play-offs. While Karanka will not discuss the live possibility of picking his players up from the canvas and fight again so soon, Hughton holds no fear. “The plus advantage is you don’t have to wait very long,” he says. “There isn’t time to dwell on it too much. It’s not that you have to wait too long. It’s six or seven days to get into preparation mode again.”

They would all like to be on the beach toasting success by then, but it is hard not to fear more for Boro if the next six days fail to pan out as planned.

 

[NooBHA]

Wilson will score the winner at Boro.

I have a feeling that Jamie will score it. Not just coz I like him but there is just something at the back of my mind that it will be a scramble in and around the 6 yard box and he will lash it in with about 10 mins to go. It might not be the winner, it might even just be to earn a draw if that's what we need to go up.

And for the earlier posters who said that CH doesn't play mind games. Of course he does. Not disrespectfully like Mourhino or Alex Ferguson do but he will say things which might put pressure on the opposition or just enough to make his own players hungrier for the win

 

[Bring back Bryan wade!!]

No, we're talking squads. Why would we miss out most of our expensive players to try and fit the 'little old Brighton' narrative?

Because we want to win the mind games and take the pressure off to achieve promotion!!

 

[mona]

Hull and Burnley have the benefit of parachute payments so they don't have the same FFP pressure that the other teams guaranteed the play offs have.

 

[Loftslaces]

I think he is completely right. The type of pressure we are under is allowing the players to play with no fear. Look at burnley and boro they look terrified of not getting up. I imagine that pressure is coming straight from the board room


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[Easy 10]

3 hours ago
TonyNardone
Absolute rubbish from hughton. It just happens Boro has the best chairman in the land, who knows exactly what he's doing, and if i was him i wouldn't be that confident his team is going to roll over Boro. We're in the box seat not him. They won't be coming away from the Riverside rejoicing. you can bank on that one.

1 hour ago
DAVEGUY
He's right we spent big and have best squad in league. So f***
Get behind them and send that town full of rent boys back to the beach

 

[Shuggie]

So, in short, you can get one of the following for 9m quid
- Jordan Rhodes
- Andre Gray
- A Brighton Squad

Give or take.