Norwich fan on Hughton

[DerbyCanary]

Anyway, I'll leave it there as I don't think I can add much more to this convo. If you want to absolve Hughton of all blame for everything that happened at Norwich, fine, if you are a bit more realistic, and recognise the opportunity probably came a bit too soon for him, but also recognise that he has great Championship pedigree, and likely will do a good job for you, then also fine.

I've given my perspective, and hopefully a bit of insight into what to expect from Hughton based on our experience of him as NCFC fans. I do think he will be a success for you, and sincerely hope that is the case, it will be interesting to watch for me, to see what he does manage to achieve for you.

 

[Insel affe]

Winning meaningless games at the end of the season to bump the position up from 16th to 11th? Yeah I'd say that was pretty irrelevant to the conversation to be fair. It makes it look much better than it was on paper is the point.

So your not happy and it is irrelevant how far up the table you finish

I am pretty sure it makes a difference to the money paid out at the end of season, and in terms of the tv split maybe.

So no it is not irrelevant and just goes to show some people are never happy even when they are onto a good thing, he may well have kept you up, you cannot categorically say he would have got you relegated.

 

[HCxUK]

As mentioned above. 10 game unbeaten run was great, the rest of the season was dire, and we would have finished in the relegation zone had we not picked the points up in that run. 11th was not a true reflection of the season. 25% of that year was great, 75% was absolute nightmare.

Doesn't make a difference whether the points were picked up on a 10 game unbeaten run or individually throughout the season, enough points were picked up to suggest that you were the 11th best team in the PL under Hughton in 2012-2013.

 

[albionite]

Why is everyone attacking derbycanary because he and Norwich fans didn't like Hughton?We might not like him yet

 

[The Fifth Column]

Im not saying you werent good enough on paper which incidentally is a foolish opinion many fans make (including some of ours this season), im saying you werent good enough FACT, as proven by your relegation. Is the reason you weren't good enough just because of CH? Highly unlikely in my opinion as relegation is rarely just the fault of the manager, its usually a combination of things and factors including fans unrealistic expectations, negative personalities in the dressing room, unsuportive and critical chairmen and a whole host of other reasons. Im not saying any of these things necessarily applied to NCFC but for certain there were other factors that led to your relegation. Take our situation as a prime example, as poor a manager as Hyppia proved to be our downward spiral was due largely in part to a disastrous transfer policy and recruitment structure which saw us sell off our best assets pre season and replace them with lesser quailty players and loan signings. Having got rid of the man running that side of things as well as Hyppia, we are hopeful of an upturn in our fortunes!

In short, laying all the blame for your relegation at the feet of CH is both convenient and a little unfair, there were undoubtedly other things to factor in that caused the relegation.

 

[Puppet Master]

I'm hoping he can learn from his mistakes. Sounds like he thought playing the cautious way was how to keep Norwich up. It failed (ultimately) but it doesn't bother me too much as long as he realises this now.

 

[Blue Valkyrie]

Anyway, I'll leave it there as I don't think I can add much more to this convo. If you want to absolve Hughton of all blame for everything that happened at Norwich, fine, if you are a bit more realistic, and recognise the opportunity probably came a bit too soon for him, but also recognise that he has great Championship pedigree, and likely will do a good job for you, then also fine.

I've given my perspective, and hopefully a bit of insight into what to expect from Hughton based on our experience of him as NCFC fans. I do think he will be a success for you, and sincerely hope that is the case, it will be interesting to watch for me, to see what he does manage to achieve for you.

Thanks for your contribution. IF Hughton gets us to the PL, I'll be happy, and if he struggles, well we can always 'get rid'. I hope he's learned from mistakes and will be more of a success.

 

[symyjym]

Knowing our run of the final 5 games of the season, and having watching 18months of hopeless dross, with no hope of improvement, you'd have said the same. As previously posted, our 5 games after he was sacked, we played Fulham away, Liverpool home, Chelsea away, United away, and Arsenal home in our final 5 fixtures. How many points do you think Hughton would have got out of that run in?

We're not a massively arrogant fan base, we don't expect to be achieving like So'ton have or anything, but the football was dire, the tactics were dire and we simply weren't very good. Blame that on the club if you like but Hughton bought the players, Hughton set up the tactics, and Hughton would have got us relegated, as many fans were saying long before he sacked. That's the perspective from inside, I appreciate that it may have looked different from the outside, but the reality is Hughton was culpable for the relegation in my own, and 99.9% of other NCFC fans' opinion. The fact that so many of us wish him well, and think he will be successful with you, should give you an indication about the character of the bloke, and the fact that we feel he just ended up in a bad situation due to being a bit out of his depth, rather than being a bad manager. I'm sure if you asked him personally, he would hold himself accountable for relegation too, but I'm sure he will have learnt from it, and the Championship is an entirely different league, and one he has a proven record of thriving in. We couldn't keep him as we came down as things had gotten really sour, so I think he has a better chance of success with you than he would have if he had stayed with us.

Yes the fans were on his back, and wanted him out. That was for a reason though, you can't just put us down as expectant glory merchants, because it's not right. We wanted him out because things weren't working out and the writing was on the wall.

You could have got 4 or 5 points from the last games. Could have beaten Fulham, you drew with Chelsea and could have got something from a poor United. The fact remains that change of manager didn't help. People are always going on about the fans being the 12th man and both they and the board need to take responsibility for the relegation. The whole matter was handled badly and teams don't perform under the conditions that Norwich set for themselves.

The worst thing was publicly not backing the manager, yet keeping him on. It does not make any sense to do that because you have to publicly fully back the manager until he is sacked. The whole situation was a farce of Norwich's making.

 

[Hatman1234]

I watched a lot of football last season and I remember how unlucky Norwich were.

Van Wolfwinkle in particular let you down, with miss after miss after miss. Norwich were battling away and made it hard for any team to beat them, with your strikers shooting blanks all season. I always thought Hughton would get Norwich out of trouble until with something like 5 games to go you were 4 points above the drop zone and sacked Hughton. You then got 1 point out of the remainder of your games and, inevitably, went down.

Bringing a midfielder on for a striker when your team is under pressure is a plan B? Limit the damage, try to sneak a goal and last ten, bring on another striker and go for a point. Seems logical to me. To go 3-0 down would be game over.

Norwich have pretty much the same squad that was in the prem, and it is obvious that you are nothing like the team that Hughton was in charge of. No fight or passion.

Hughton is a good all round manager. I like him and we'll never know if Hughton would have kept Norwich up last season. Norwich's loss is very much our gain.

 

[Insel affe]

Why is everyone attacking derbycanary because he and Norwich fans didn't like Hughton?We might not like him yet

Not attacking, questioning.

 

[supaseagull]

Why is it when Norwich fans come on this board that they are all sanctimonious?

 

[junior]

I watched a lot of football last season and I remember how unlucky Norwich were.

Van Wolfwinkle in particular let you down, with miss after miss after miss. Norwich were battling away and made it hard for any team to beat them, with your strikers shooting blanks all season. I always thought Hughton would get Norwich out of trouble until with something like 5 games to go you were 4 points above the drop zone and sacked Hughton. You then got 1 point out of the remainder of your games and, inevitably, went down.

Bringing a midfielder on for a striker when your team is under pressure is a plan B? Limit the damage, try to sneak a goal and last ten, bring on another striker and go for a point. Seems logical to me. To go 3-0 down would be game over.

Norwich have pretty much the same squad that was in the prem, and it is obvious that you are nothing like the team that Hughton was in charge of. No fight or passion.

Hughton is a good all round manager. I like him and we'll never know if Hughton would have kept Norwich up last season. Norwich's loss is very much our gain.

This ^^^^^

With bells on.

 

[Geestar]

Seemed to do a job....unlike the gaffer since

 

[Acker79]

My main problems with him ... and absolute ineptitude with subs. He made 64 subs last year before any of them came on and scored, or even got an assist. No other manager in any division managed to have such little impact when making subs last season.

Either you overstate this (or the degree to which it is under his control), or he has learned his lesson. One game - one double substitution made the game go from 0-0 to us winning 2-0 with the second goal being a combination of the subs who came on.

 

[shaolinpunk]

Bassong will be the replacement if/when bids come in for Dunk this month

 

[Coxovi]

Got a goal from his first substitution today, so at least we do not have to worry about that drought repeating.

 

[saafend_seagull]

No pln B?

He changed our tactics at half time and made two game changing substitutes, one of whom hit post twice and scored.

 

[No. 25]

Apologies for starting a new thread, I did read the one when he was appointed, but can't seem to locate it now after I had to wait a day or two for mods to accept my account.

Firstly, I was disappointed to see all the negative comments about NCFC in that thread. Not sure why so many of your fans seem to have taken issue with us, as we generally get on well with other team's fanbases, and I have particularly fond memories of Brighton away about 10 years ago, my first away game with my mates and how well we were treated by Brighton fans, who were nothing but absolute gentlemen towards us, and helped us out with getting the bus to the ground etc.

Anyway, the main point of my post was to give my insight as to Hughton. I think he is a good appointment for you, with the position you are in at the moment.

He didn't work for Norwich, but I do think he is a very good Championship manager, as opposed to a capable Premier League one.

No doubt he was working against circumstance with the position we were in at the lower end of Prem, but he spent 12 million on strikers and then played a system which played to neither Hooper nor Van Wolfswinkel's strengths, resulting in a haul of just 6 goals between them, which was the primary reason we went down to be honest. He presided over a record transfer spend, then employed awful, negative tactics and never had a plan B. This is epitomised at 2-0 down after 30 mins against Man City, and he took a striker off and brought a Defensive Mid on to limit the damage. You might say that's sensible, but when you're in the moment, it's the most embarassing, disappointing display of lack of faith in his players. Basically he looked out of his comfort zone, and out of his depth.

My main problems with him was the negative, horrible football, lack of Plan B, (at Easter in his first season, we went 4 of 6 games without registering a shot on or off target) and absolute ineptitude with subs. He made 64 subs last year before any of them came on and scored, or even got an assist. No other manager in any division managed to have such little impact when making subs last season.

I do think, with another manager, we would have comfortably stayed up last season, and I said in November that if he was still in at Christmas, we were going down. The football we played was diabolical, I've never been less impassioned about Norwich than I was under CH. You may say that's circumstance, bottom end of the Prem etc. But Swansea, So'ton prove that is not necessarily the case if you have the right man in charge.

Overall CH just didn't fit with us, and what we wanted to achieve, and he never looked like a comfortable fit for the club. He did do some good things in the first season, we went on a 10 game unbeaten run, and put several of the big boys to the sword.

Having said all of that though, I do think he is a top manager at this level, and I think you will do well with him at the helm. Personally, I would not want him at Norwich for round 2, but that is purely based on the baggage that would be attached to that reality, rather than lacking faith in his ability. He had Bham and Newcastle playing lovely stuff. What he did at Newcastle is slightly marred by the fact they were a Premier League squad playing in the Champs, but he worked miracles at Birmingham and you only have to look at their struggles since he left to realise what an excellent job he did there.

I wish Chris nothing but good fortune, although it did not work out with us, he is a really nice bloke and deserves to be successful. I would be concerned if I were you with his ability to change a game if you go behind, but he will certainly make you more solid at the back so hopefully that won't happen too often.

It is absolutely nailed on you will sign Bassong off us by the way - he refers to Hughton as a "father". I suspect you may take Elliot Benno too, seems Adams doesn't like him for whatever reason - I think he's a decent player, but he doesn't seem to get a look in with us at the moment so I think best for all parties if he gets the move that I presume he wants, to BHA.

Good luck to Hughton, and good luck to yourselves for the rest of the season, genuinely hope he can help you put the struggles behind you and pushing on up the table.

Seems his subs were a little quicker to make an impact this time around...

 

[Scoffers]

Thanks for your comments. It's always interesting to get a sensible external view.

i have always said that a manager that does well in one division isn't guaranteed to do well in another. How often do managers that win promotion to the prem go on to be successful in the prem. it happens, but rarely. The skillsets are often different not least being able to figure out how to spend all this TV money that is suddenly burning a hole in the clubs pockets. With that comes the ability to manage players who are earning shed loads of cash a week and have agents who think they are owed the world. It seems to me that nice managers don't cut it in the prem. The more egotistical the better, it seems.

From what you said and what I've seen from others it seems to me that CH is a good fit for now. In the event that we turn things around and heavens above go up, he might struggle again. I guess we will face that challenge it if ever happens.

Thanks for posting

 

[Sheebo]

I remember Norwich taking the defeat in the fa cup in 1983 rather badly and there was certainly some animosity when we played up there a few years ago for some reason.

It will be interesting how he gets on here and I am cautiously optimistic!

Randomly I recall about 10 yrs ago going to Norwich midweek & their fans were all protesting about wanting Nigel Wirthingtom (sp?) out - they were loving us singing 'we want Worthy out' and were all applauding us!!!!