[Albion] Hughton Article in the Argus today.

[portlock seagull]

CH is a diplomat. He's never going to do a Jose and slate his own players. However, him saying that you can't expect many goals with the players he has is as near as we've ever been to him saying he hasn't got the attacking quality he needs. For this I'm guessing he's saying Locadia, Ali J and Andone haven't improved the squad as he'd anticipated.

He ought to. They’re going to get him sacked after all!

 

[Biscuit]

I have faith in CH that he will revert to a more expansive game when the opportunity presents itself, but right now just get us over the line with crappy attritional football. This is what he's done before and I think we'll reap rewards if we keep faith in him. But even if you disagree with me, he deserves a lot better than some of the rubbish in this thread insinuating that he doesn't know what he's doing and is defensive for the sake of it.

What a fantastic post. 100% nail on the head.

 

[Shooting Star]

I'm officially HughtonOut, but I kind of agree with him here. His successes with us have all been based on ultra conservative defensive solidity, keeping it tight and then exploiting the few chances we get. Assuming that he is unable of getting us to ping it round like Ajax in a week, and assuming that we're far less proficient at exploiting chances, our best bet is definitely to hunker down further.

Absolutely this (though I'm Hughton IN). A lot of our earlier success this season was almost being a counter-attacking team at home (Wolves and Arsenal games spring to mind). People didn't like it but it was effective and meant we'd only concede to wonder goals or tricky strikers like Aguero. Recently it seems we've been offensively minded but lose the ball before we do anything remotely effective with it, meaning that teams are picking us off on the break.

Getting us playing better football is the summer's concern. The job right now is to make sure Cardiff don't gain three more points than we do.

 

[peterward]

We have stopped shipping goals. Opposition goalkeepers may as well bring a deckchair and a beer cooler-they never have to make a save.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

 

[BensGrandad]

There's a fair argument to be made that we lost to Cardiff because we tried too hard to score. We were too open and got caught on the break. I think CH's comments that we need to be tighter because we're not a free scoring team hardly controversial.

No we lost to Cardiff by poor defending to give away the 2nd goal from a move that everybody knows they perform well. At 1-0 we always stood a chance of a draw at 2-0 it was all over.

 

[B52]

The most important thing is we need to defend and if we stop the opposition scoring we get a point.. Nick 1 goal and we win..beat wolves 1 nil on Saturday and Chris will be a hero again

Sounds very easy put like that, no problem

 

[Bozza]

*I have faith in CH that he will revert to a more expansive game when the opportunity presents itself, but right now just get us over the line with crappy attritional football. This is what he's done before and I think we'll reap rewards if we keep faith in him. But even if you disagree with me, he deserves a lot better than some of the rubbish in this thread insinuating that he doesn't know what he's doing and is defensive for the sake of it.

Well, he DID revert to a more expansive style this season, largely going 4-3-3 when we were looking nice and safe a few months ago.

Our lack of points since then is primarily the reason we're in this mess.

 

[BLOCK F]

The most important thing is we need to defend and if we stop the opposition scoring we get a point.. Nick 1 goal and we win..beat wolves 1 nil on Saturday and Chris will be a hero again

Sorry, but he won't be for me.
I would be mightily relieved though.

 

[SeagullDubai]

If we aim to increase our defensive stance against a background of an already super enhanced defensive stance aren't we inviting teams to come onto us and score hatfuls. It will all end in tears.

Sent from my MI 6 using Tapatalk

 

[zefarelly]

This is fact. If we go down without any fight at Wolves, as we have done in the last 2 home games, he has to go to give ourselves any chance of staying up . . . . if TB is happy for us to go down then so be it. . . stagger onward and downward.

If we play well at Wolves, almost regardless of the result, it suggests that our players are scared of playing at home . . . . they can't take the pressure and the crowd are turning on them. . . .

He had been shithouse most of this season, apart from that flukey three wins in a row period. These last three months he has been double shithouse. No goals in five home games (any wonder with his team talks?), 4 shots at home in three games. Then on to his away record-it has been shithouse for TWO seasons. I know, I was at most of them.

Now he comes out with his latest moment of inspiration.

I've had enough of the man and clearly the players have too.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

 

[Bwian]

* We stayed up in the Championship because the first thing CH did was to tighten up our defence - he recognised we couldn't score for shit. Remember Millwall at home (0-1) under Sami - and they were crap.
* The next two seasons were characterised by bold free scoring play. We scored for fun.
* Last season we stayed up because our defence was superb (Dunk got an England call up) and we scored enough goals. It HAS to be worth pointing out that last season's 2nd and 3rd highest goalscorers (Gross, Jose Iz) have both been out for a large part of this season, and our new recruits up front haven't been good enough. Locadia is a flat track bully and Andone has been crap too - he is living off his Palace worldy and a couple of textbook headers, both unmarked and against by far the poorest side in the league.

These are the facts.

I have faith in CH that he will revert to a more expansive game when the opportunity presents itself, but right now just get us over the line with crappy attritional football. This is what he's done before and I think we'll reap rewards if we keep faith in him. But even if you disagree with me, he deserves a lot better than some of the rubbish in this thread insinuating that he doesn't know what he's doing and is defensive for the sake of it.

When do you see this opportunity to be more expansive happening?

Away to Wolves?
Away to Spurs?
Away to Arsenal?
Home to City?
Or home to Newcastle,?

Playing more expansive football, trying to score goals should have been against: Cardiff, Southampton, Bournemouth, and all other clubs around us. It shouldn't be at the ass end of the season, against top 6 sides.

Defend him all you like but a good tactician he ain't.

Decent or half decent players don't suddenly become L1 standard.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

 

[Stat Brother]

But when you are where we are, every minute that passes is a minute you might have the confidence you will score. Conceding is a hammer blow when your confidence is on the floor. We'll never know, but had we not conceded that first goal Tuesday, perhaps the shots on target would have started to come. We have to give ourselves that chance.

When you're not scoring very many, and it's feeling like you're not going to, once a team scores, it's like going 2 nil down at any other time. We have to give ourselves the chance that 1 goal will be enough to win a game.

conceding at the rate we are = no points

71 PL games played, wins after conceding the first goal = 1

Logically therefore don't concede the first goal, and we may have a chance

CH is a pragmatic manager defensive solidity reigns supreme, we all know that, we all admire(d) that, he's done very well because of it.

For whatever reason the club hasn't given him a free scoring team, money being the obvious one, but CH does have the final say on all transfers.

Sadly, for everyone, the pressure being applied to the team (and unimportantly the fans as well) by not having the release of even potential goals is finally coming home to roost.

Worst still is this isn't a new occurrence.

We were warned that this is how it would end, it's hard to see this as being anything other than the end.

Relegation from the Premier League screws over all the players. playing with a 'must to concede - must not concede' mantra will lead to only one outcome, and from that moment 1, 2 or 5 goals conceded it really doesn't matter.

 

[Biscuit]

No we lost to Cardiff by poor defending to give away the 2nd goal from a move that everybody knows they perform well. At 1-0 we always stood a chance of a draw at 2-0 it was all over.

Oh right. Thanks for clearing that up. I thought we we're caught on the break trying to get an equaliser. Next time I'll make sure I get the facts from you. Cheers,

 

[Simster]

He had been shithouse most of this season, apart from that flukey three wins in a row period. These last three months he has been double shithouse. No goals in five home games (any wonder with his team talks?), 4 shots at home in three games. Then on to his away record-it has been shithouse for TWO seasons. I know, I was at most of them.

Now he comes out with his latest moment of inspiration.

I've had enough of the man and clearly the players have too.

Most of that is a crock of shit. Sorry but it is. We haven't been shithouse for most of the season at all. Beating Man Utd EASILY, we even played really well at Liverpool. There are loads of examples of us playing really well actually, I'm not going to list them all.

And if you're going to use those "flukey" results as a stick to beat him with, you have to be even handed - we deserved more from other games than we got. Leicester at home, arguably Liverpool away, Fulham at home, Cardiff away was robbery, Watford at home was a 0-0 thrashing and we should have gone 3 up at West Ham before they pegged us back to 2-2. I have sympathy with your away record comment, but look at the table and you see that not many teams outside the top 6 have anything like a decent record away from home.

And the whole point is that this isn't a moment of inspiration, it's a newspaper article where all he's said is that we need to tighten up. But moaning nobs on here are just using that as a stick to beat him with, despite the fact that he's right.

 

[Biscuit]

When do you see this opportunity to be more expansive happening?

Away to Wolves?
Away to Spurs?
Away to Arsenal?
Home to City?
Or home to Newcastle,?

Playing more expansive football, trying to score goals should have been against: Cardiff, Southampton, Bournemouth, and all other clubs around us. It shouldn't be at the ass end of the season, against top 6 sides.

Defend him all you like but a good tactician he ain't.

Decent or half decent players don't suddenly become L1 standard.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

I'm sorry you're hurting Bwian but you really need to grow up and stop lashing out because you're upset. He's clearly not a L1 standard manager (whatever that even means)

I also think you've rather spectacularly missed Simster's point. The opportunity to play more expansive isn't available until we're safe so we won't be playing that way against any of the fixtures you've mentioned. What we did do is move to a 4-3-3 (almost EVERYONE on here wanted him to) after we were all but safe in early Dec. That didn't work out, perhaps we don't have the players, and now we're in a bit of a pickle. Still want us to play that way? Or would you rather we revert to type and play defensively to try and edge over the line? Something that despite not being pretty - we did rather successfully.

 

[Simster]

When do you see this opportunity to be more expansive happening?

Away to Wolves?
Away to Spurs?
Away to Arsenal?
Home to City?
Or home to Newcastle,?

Playing more expansive football, trying to score goals should have been against: Cardiff, Southampton, Bournemouth, and all other clubs around us. It shouldn't be at the ass end of the season, against top 6 sides.

Defend him all you like but a good tactician he ain't.

Decent or half decent players don't suddenly become L1 standard.

Read what I wrote. I said he needs to get us over the line this season - I don't care if the football is shite in doing so, that's his remit. Next season - with the dross shipped out and replaced with better - is the time to play more expansively. You know, like he did when he turned our relegation haunted side to 2 season promotion contenders in the space of ONE summer.

Just because you've got the hump with him, doesn't mean you shouldn't ignore the facts.

Well, he DID revert to a more expansive style this season, largely going 4-3-3 when we were looking nice and safe a few months ago.

Our lack of points since then is primarily the reason we're in this mess.

Correct. He clearly thought it was safe to experiment at that time, and now it sounds that he realises we are shit at putting the ball in the net and we need to tighten up. Go back to 4-4-1-1, eek out the odd point, bin off the dross in the summer and then give him a chance to have us playing the football we all want to see.




Or we just stroppily hound him out despite the clear evidence over the 4 years prior to this month that he knows what he's doing.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

How the hell does that work?

We have 2 points on Cardiff. They have Fulham to play-guaranteed 3 points for every team except us.

We have Wolves, Spurs and Arsenal away. Newcastle at home and they've woken up at the wrong time for us.

Fast forward to last day. We have City who probably need to win. Cardiff have Palace who will be on holiday by then.

Tell us how we will get any more points from our games? Especially with Hughton Out preparing to fail before a f.ucking ball is kicked.



Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

He did say IF.

 

[SollysLeftFoot]

But he hasn't said that has he ...still it wouldn't suit your having a bash

Hughton said: “We haven’t been a big goalscoring team. For what we have, we’re not going to be that.

“If we’re not going to score the goals, we need to be more resilient.

No, of course not.

 

[Bwian]

* We stayed up in the Championship because the first thing CH did was to tighten up our defence - he recognised we couldn't score for shit. Remember Millwall at home (0-1) under Sami - and they were crap.
* The next two seasons were characterised by bold free scoring play. We scored for fun.
* Last season we stayed up because our defence was superb (Dunk got an England call up) and we scored enough goals. It HAS to be worth pointing out that last season's 2nd and 3rd highest goalscorers (Gross, Jose Iz) have both been out for a large part of this season, and our new recruits up front haven't been good enough. Locadia is a flat track bully and Andone has been crap too - he is living off his Palace worldy and a couple of textbook headers, both unmarked and against by far the poorest side in the league.

These are the facts.

I have faith in CH that he will revert to a more expansive game when the opportunity presents itself, but right now just get us over the line with crappy attritional football. This is what he's done before and I think we'll reap rewards if we keep faith in him. But even if you disagree with me, he deserves a lot better than some of the rubbish in this thread insinuating that he doesn't know what he's doing and is defensive for the sake of it.

Picking out your comment about Groß and Jose being out for a large part of the season begs the question:

Why The Hell did Hughton and Barber tell us that our team and squad didn't need strengthening I January?

The are both responsible for the mess we're in. Hughton more so because he sees the squad in training every day. Every one of the 28000 or so regulars at The Amex knew the team wasn't good enough. Why was nothing done to strengthen?

Pah!

Had enough of him and Barber.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

 

[Steve in Japan]

And the whole point is that this isn't a moment of inspiration, it's a newspaper article where all he's said is that we need to tighten up. But moaning nobs on here are just using that as a stick to beat him with, despite the fact that he's right.

To be fair the moaning nobs are not so short of ammo that they need an Arsegas article to fire them up.