[Albion] Hughton supporters

[Bozza]

I totally agree that @chailejem did go off topic to support his views; however I don't like to contradict his posts as he and I sort of have the same agenda and support the same point of view.

That said. It was roughly around the same time that Southampton changed manager that we changed too. OK there wasn't a change of manager but there was a change in the way we tried to play. There were people screaming for the new signings to be played. Locadia was running to the Dutch Press at every opportunity claiming he should be in the team - Others like Andone and Jahanbkhsh hadn't played much - Solly was being accused of being too defensive.

What then seems to have ensued - The manager seems to have yielded to that call for change. So people claiming he is Pragmatic and Stubborn are conveniently sweeping these changes under the carpet because they didn't work. it was probably done I will concede because we did have a bit of a cushion in terms of points.

In my opinion and I do concede I will always be bias in favour of Chris - He stuck with other peoples cries for a different style of play too long. because by the time he reverted back to his own ''default'' style of play, the confidence of a lot of players was shot to pieces.

The last 2 games is about getting over the line. Then in the close season you take stock of the players in more detail and come up with a formula to rectify what has gone wrong in the last few months. There are still some very good effective players at the club. There truly is but there are some who are also good players who haven't shown that yet and you need to then decide to stick or twist with them. And finally there are a few players who I think are too old for this level now. Even though they have been a couple of the best performers this season. Their lack of pace and fitness began to show when they were asked to play more expansively.

There is no problem getting the ball to the edge of the opponents box but when goals don't come from those attacks, they are so vulnerable on the counter attack and that has been costly of late.

Yep - agree entirely.

And, allmost replying to myself here, clearly there was no way we were going to change manager around the time Southampton did - we had just beaten Palace 3-1 and were sitting very pretty in the top half of the table. We'd never had it so good..

Our good start to the season (in terms of results, anyway) gave Hughton the luxury of being able to tinker with things, in a way that is rare for our club such as ourselves in the top flight. It didn't work, and we've paid the price. It doesn't look like we're going to pay what would be the ultimate price, relegation, so the Summer provides a chance to properly regroup.

 

[chaileyjem]

That's not what he said though is it. He said that Southampton had changed and improved.

Not enough to beat Cardiff in either game but yes. this is fair.

 

[amexer]

In defence of Hughton did try and change. I went to Leicester away and the most attacking away performance i had seen, Stand to be corrected but think we had about 15 shots. But we lost and think there were a few similar games around that time. Such small margins

 

[Bold Seagull]

View attachment 108547

Hasenhüttl's record:
P21 W8 D5 L8

Hughton's record (from start of season):
P21 W7 D5 L9

I'm not going to denigrate what Hasenhüttl has done, their form has been 3 points better than ours from the start of the season, and they've had some much improved performances, but our first half of the season does stand up to scrutiny to the teams we look at now, Southampton, Newcastle and Burnley as having revivals. Of course 2 of those didn't need to change manager's to do that, they stuck by them despite a dire run of results.

 

[chaileyjem]

But Southampton did change and improved greatly.

PS: Their results have improved dramatically since Ralph arrived and he has ultimately kept them up. But they still lost to Cardiff twice
But [MENTION=6886]Bozza[/MENTION] right to call me out for being churlish.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

I am another on the fence and a lot of it shows how you, get so much less criticism, when as Hughton is,such a nice person. However doing same every game does get to me. Out of top 6 we will get maybe 4 points out of 18 this season.and score 4 goals. Are we really saying if we showed a little more intent our record would be worse. Also no evidence of any training ground moves during games. Just because we scored a few from corners set plays early in season does this really justify every set play aimed at far post. (know we tried something different on Sat) I may moan at continual long balls from Dunk etc but reality is our midfields are usually too close to our defenders . I will be there whatever division but find it very frustrating watching when in managers words the main objective is staying in game.

We have gone backwards this season which is down to poor recruitment. Spent £60m and not one is a regular.

We've already taken 4 points off of the top six this season, with two games still to play. There is no maybe about it.

 

[Greg Bobkin]

Yep - agree entirely.

And, allmost replying to myself here, clearly there was no way we were going to change manager around the time Southampton did - we had just beaten Palace 3-1 and were sitting very pretty in the top half of the table. We'd never had it so good..

Our good start to the season (in terms of results, anyway) gave Hughton the luxury of being able to tinker with things, in a way that is rare for our club such as ourselves in the top flight. It didn't work, and we've paid the price. It doesn't look like we're going to pay what would be the ultimate price, relegation, so the Summer provides a chance to properly regroup.

I'd be fascinated to see where the club would've finished if he had stuck with the players that he WAS using, before introducing the new names who – let's not dress it up – have been mediocre at best. The headache over the Summer for Chris (and I think it should still be Chris) is whether or not he thinks he can get a tune out of them with a decent pre-season, or if it means spending MORE money on players to replace the big money signings...

 

[Ecosse Exile]

I totally agree that @chailejem did go off topic to support his views; however I don't like to contradict his posts as he and I sort of have the same agenda and support the same point of view.

That said. It was roughly around the same time that Southampton changed manager that we changed too. OK there wasn't a change of manager but there was a change in the way we tried to play. There were people screaming for the new signings to be played. Locadia was running to the Dutch Press at every opportunity claiming he should be in the team - Others like Andone and Jahanbkhsh hadn't played much - Solly was being accused of being too defensive.


What then seems to have ensued - The manager seems to have yielded to that call for change. So people claiming he is Pragmatic and Stubborn are conveniently sweeping these changes under the carpet because they didn't work. it was probably done I will concede because we did have a bit of a cushion in terms of points.


In my opinion and I do concede I will always be bias in favour of Chris - He stuck with other peoples cries for a different style of play too long. because by the time he reverted back to his own ''default'' style of play, the confidence of a lot of players was shot to pieces.


The last 2 games is about getting over the line. Then in the close season you take stock of the players in more detail and come up with a formula to rectify what has gone wrong in the last few months. There are still some very good effective players at the club. There truly is but there are some who are also good players who haven't shown that yet and you need to then decide to stick or twist with them. And finally there are a few players who I think are too old for this level now. Even though they have been a couple of the best performers this season. Their lack of pace and fitness began to show when they were asked to play more expansively.


There is no problem getting the ball to the edge of the opponents box but when goals don't come from those attacks, they are so vulnerable on the counter attack and that has been costly of late.

In my opinion, the loss of confidence was more the managers than the players.

When we changed to the more expansive style, it coincided with a run of fixtures that were never going to yield many points, i remember many on here saying late December and January may not see another win, yet we beat Everton, drew away at West Ham (could and probably should have won), beat Bournemouth comfortably in the cup (ok, Bournemouth weren't at full strength but we made 8 changes ourselves) and battered Watford 0-0, had it not been for an exceptional goalkeeping display that game would have finished very differently. Hughton deserves a huge amount of credit for the change in philosophy, whatever the reasons behind it.

Then came Burnley, a Burnley team that were below us in the table and had been pretty poor all season, an easy 3 points surely. Well it could have been, what is easy to forget is once again we were the better team, should have had an absolute stonewall penalty which may have changed the whole outcome of the game, once again the opposition goalkeeper had an inspired game, but we got done on the counter, something that i'm sure would have grated with Hughton big time. I remember saying to my son after that game, i hope Hughton sticks with the new formation because ok, we lost, it happens, but it's coming together, we are playing bloody well.

However, that was the last we saw of 433, (possibly Leicester away?, where we still played well, but lost, cant remember which fixture came first) sure Hughton was still saying we were playing 433 but we weren't, it was very much 451, had Hughton lost confidence in his players ability to play a more expansive game? Or had the players lost confidence? I cant possibly be sure, but i believe it was Hughton.

I praised him for changing to a more expansive system, but i feel he deserves criticism for not sticking with it.

 

[Gritt23]

Explain to me why we should continue to back him?

Because managers as good as him do not come around very often. Arguably the best manager we've ever had, so it could be a VERY long time before we find ourselves with a better one.

We will look back on his time as a truly great era in our history, and him as the catalyst, the man that delivered the success, and some will then have a strange "why was I so keen to see it all end?" look on their face.

 

[Mackenzie]

I am another on the fence and a lot of it shows how you, get so much less criticism, when as Hughton is,such a nice person. However doing same every game does get to me. Out of top 6 we will get maybe 4 points out of 18 this season.and score 4 goals. Are we really saying if we showed a little more intent our record would be worse. Also no evidence of any training ground moves during games. Just because we scored a few from corners set plays early in season does this really justify every set play aimed at far post. (know we tried something different on Sat) I may moan at continual long balls from Dunk etc but reality is our midfields are usually too close to our defenders . I will be there whatever division but find it very frustrating watching when in managers words the main objective is staying in game.

We have gone backwards this season which is down to poor recruitment. Spent £60m and not one is a regular.

Hopefully they'll come good next season.

 

[Sarisbury Seagull]

I'd be fascinated to see where the club would've finished if he had stuck with the players that he WAS using, before introducing the new names who – let's not dress it up – have been mediocre at best. The headache over the Summer for Chris (and I think it should still be Chris) is whether or not he thinks he can get a tune out of them with a decent pre-season, or if it means spending MORE money on players to replace the big money signings...

The only ‘new’ player who came in regularly during this period rather than the rest of the season was Locadia. Bernardo played but I can think we can all say he’s overall been a big plus this season. Murray was mainly used up front and the midfield 3 was usually Stephens, Gross and Propper with March on the other wing. Ali J was with Iran.

The accepted and constant criticism of and blame attached to the new signings by some is just wrong. Bernardo, Bissouma, Montoya and Andone are all good signings with a lot to offer. They’ve all had positive threads on here this season at some point.

Burn, Balogun, Button and Steele have not featured enough to deserve criticism.

There are questions marks over Locadia and Ali J still but overall, I think the OTT criticism of the new signings in their first season is harsh.

 

[Gritt23]

Can I also remind people that back in August 2017 the mood on here was of horror that we were going into the season with Murray still as our main man. We hadn't secured some big money striker, and most people on here thought that had effectively doomed us. The more optimistic seemed to think we may just hang on close enough to the tails of the teams ahead of us, that if this striker was brought in for the January window, there may still be a chance.

Snap back to today, and Murray is still the main goalscoring threat, and we are in touching distance of surviving for the second season. If someone had offered you that in August 2017 as the window shut, and you'd have bitten their arm off, and knighted Chris on the spot for pulling off a miracle, twice!

 

[Gritt23]

I'd be fascinated to see where the club would've finished if he had stuck with the players that he WAS using, before introducing the new names who – let's not dress it up – have been mediocre at best. The headache over the Summer for Chris (and I think it should still be Chris) is whether or not he thinks he can get a tune out of them with a decent pre-season, or if it means spending MORE money on players to replace the big money signings...

Trouble is that they are NOT "big money signings" in terms of the division we are in.

If people are grumpy that we are on the edge of relegation (the right side of it mind, and have been ALL season) then they are looking at being somewhere like where West Ham are I presume. To get there they have spent £35m on Anderson, and pay £100k+ a week for 3 or 4 players. That is "big money signings" for the World everyone on here seems to think we should be moving in, and by that measure the likes of £15m for Locadia are not going to cut it. Seems a lot to us, but just isn't for the World we are now in.

 

[Greg Bobkin]

The only ‘new’ player who came in regularly during this period rather than the rest of the season was Locadia. Bernardo played but I can think we can all say he’s overall been a big plus this season. Murray was mainly used up front and the midfield 3 was usually Stephens, Gross and Propper with March on the other wing. Ali J was with Iran.

The accepted and constant criticism of and blame attached to the new signings by some is just wrong. Bernardo, Bissouma, Montoya and Andone are all good signings with a lot to offer. They’ve all had positive threads on here this season at some point.

Burn, Balogun, Button and Steele have not featured enough to deserve criticism.

There are questions marks over Locadia and Ali J still but overall, I think the OTT criticism of the new signings in their first season is harsh.

I probably shouldn't have generalised so much. I'm thinking about Locadia and Ali J, specifically. I accept the others either have done enough (although personally I'm sometimes not convinced that Bernardo and Montoya are better DEFENDERS than Bong and Bruno, but as players going forward then yes, they do offer more), I'm just thinking about how big money (in terms of the Albion) signings haven't really produced – certainly not a criticism of the squad as a whole.

Trouble is that they are NOT "big money signings" in terms of the division we are in.

If people are grumpy that we are on the edge of relegation (the right side of it mind, and have been ALL season) then they are looking at being somewhere like where West Ham are I presume. To get there they have spent £35m on Anderson, and pay £100k+ a week for 3 or 4 players. That is "big money signings" for the World everyone on here seems to think we should be moving in, and by that measure the likes of £15m for Locadia are not going to cut it. Seems a lot to us, but just isn't for the World we are now in.

No grumpiness here – I've said on numerous occasions that we are where I expected us to be. I'm not sure I'd even WANT to be moving in those worlds of £35-40m on players, but maybe we have to to move a rung or two up the PL ladder Or maybe not, as indicated by the first half of the season. As above, the squad has done well, but for the money spent out (I should've written record signings, not big money players, even though they ARE big money players in terms of what Brighton spends) Locadia and Ali J have not really delivered a return on the investment. I like them and think they both have potential – and I'm not just talking about the low number of goals and assists – but their overall play at times is baffling. Just seems like sometimes they can't be bothered. Not what you need when it's backs to the wall and not what's expected of a professional footballer (or record signing). IMO, like.

I think I've confused myself with my logic (or lack of it)

 

[sussex_guy2k2]

I wonder if Ingolstadt sacked their manager then? He played here for half his games in Germany and created more chances than anyone else in the league.
Fans had been crying out for 2 up top but there is no natural way to fit Gross in the same team as Murray and Andone. He tried something - it didn't work so he changed it.
In terms of March moving to the left I think the issue is that we have no natural left winger other than Jose (who does not look fit) - This needs to be addressed in the summer imho.

He played on the right hand side of midfield in Germany? Then how come he looked so utterly confused about how to play the role for 30 minutes until the tactical change?

The bigger question is why someone who has been in a managerial role as long as he has is trying something so utterly nonsensical tactically this far into his term as manager in such a crucial fixture? It screams of a man who has run out of attacking ideas.

 

[sussex_guy2k2]

I’d certainly agree that moving Solly across to the left (and indeed not starting him) was baffling, Solly was tearing their left back to shreads every time he got the ball.

I like Hughton, he could well be our best ever manager, but sometimes a fresh voice on the training pitch, some new ideas and drills a bit of a shake up can be a positive thing. We all become stale/complacent when repeating the same things over and over again, it’s just human nature.

He’ll most likely be our manager next season, he’ll have my full backing, but if we do replace him I don’t see that as a failing.

To be honest, I don't support Hughton, I support the football club. And when I'm at games I support the team 100% even when the failings are painfully obvious within seconds of the match starting, as they have been in many recent games. But I don't think Hughton is the right man to take us forward and I'm yet to see any reasonable evidence or arguments that suggests otherwise. If indeed he is our manager next season then he's going to have to make a number of changes to get me back onside.

 

[Lever]

Because managers as good as him do not come around very often. Arguably the best manager we've ever had, so it could be a VERY long time before we find ourselves with a better one.

We will look back on his time as a truly great era in our history, and him as the catalyst, the man that delivered the success, and some will then have a strange "why was I so keen to see it all end?" look on their face.

Absolutely agree.

 

[Weststander]

We should be beating sides like Southampton though...

View attachment 108547

Classic [MENTION=31]El Presidente[/MENTION], annoyingly countering vendettas with facts.

 

[sussex_guy2k2]

Because managers as good as him do not come around very often. Arguably the best manager we've ever had, so it could be a VERY long time before we find ourselves with a better one.

We will look back on his time as a truly great era in our history, and him as the catalyst, the man that delivered the success, and some will then have a strange "why was I so keen to see it all end?" look on their face.

You're thinking like a supporter of a League One side. We're in the Premier League now.

Plus the opposing logic could easily be applied. We could easily get a better manager who leads to a better form of football and to us establishing ourselves higher up the table for years to come, at which point some of you may be sitting there thinking "I can't believe I sat through the dross that Hughton used to serve up - it turned out to be a really good decision to change managers".

Ultimately, the outcome of such change would depend solely on who that manager is.

 

[Icy Gull]

You're thinking like a supporter of a League One side. We're in the Premier League now.

Plus the opposing logic could easily be applied. We could easily get a better manager who leads to a better form of football and to us establishing ourselves higher up the table for years to come, at which point some of you may be sitting there thinking "I can't believe I sat through the dross that Hughton used to serve up - it turned out to be a really good decision to change managers".

Ultimately, the outcome of such change would depend solely on who that manager is.

I totally agree, have we peaked with manager acquisitions? There are plenty of fans who seem to think so

Let’s not even consider looking for better, we were lucky to get CH.

I like CH and he has done a fantastic job, he’s not doing one at the moment though, imo. But as long as TB is happy with him that’s also fine with me.