[Albion] Paul Hayward Article in Telegraph

[Bozza]

Henry Winter calls us (well, the club) cowardly - https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...an-in-chris-hughton-onto-the-street-t9wdwx8zd

(Pay wall)

 

[BensGrandad]

He is usually right on the mark as regards Brighton so wouldn't just cast his views aside.

 

[the right footed denilson]

Ungrateful, racists, arrogant, cowards. Whatever next?

 

[Mackenzie]

Henry Winter calls us (well, the club) cowardly - https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...an-in-chris-hughton-onto-the-street-t9wdwx8zd

(Pay wall)

Well one mans cowardly is anothers decisive. He's welcome to his opinion.

 

[Monkey Man]

I don't remember any of these journalists, pundits and social media keyboard warriors exactly pouring praise on Brighton in recent months for our stultefying brand of football.

Yet sacking the man responsible for it is somehow a massive mistake.

 

[Bold Seagull]

I don't remember any of these journalists, pundits and social media keyboard warriors exactly pouring praise on Brighton in recent months for our stultefying brand of football.

Yet sacking the man responsible for it is somehow a massive mistake.

Because not everyone believes Hughton is solely responsible.

 

[Deleted member 2719]

I don't remember any of these journalists, pundits and social media keyboard warriors exactly pouring praise on Brighton in recent months for our stultefying brand of football.

Yet sacking the man responsible for it is somehow a massive mistake.

Exactly this so-called Albion fan Hayward has been saying we will take a PR hit.

Well get this Mr Hayward we have been taking a PR hit for months for shite, dire, and lifeless football, that is taking a hit you ****.

 

[Pavilionaire]

These journalists accept the likes of Chelsea binning off a manager every 18 months whilst consistently winning trophies yet criticise when our Chairman sacks a manager after a horror set of results and survival achieved more through the ineptitude and sheer bad luck of others. The truth is Hughton's Albion choked in the run-in but were bailed out by Palace and relegated Fulham.

How they can treat Bloom in the same way as they treat all the other trigger-happy chairman beggars belief. At least we didn't do a Norwich and sack Hughton with 4 games to go.

Clubs in the bottom half of the Prem don't have the luxury of time. Appointing a new manager quickly is important because it give them a chance to meet the players before they all depart for the summer. We don't have the scouting resources of the Top 6 and we have a big summer of business to conduct. The other point is it also gives Chris and his team the best chance of finding a new club and having some sort of pre-season too.

 

[Tooting Gull]

These journalists accept the likes of Chelsea binning off a manager every 18 months whilst consistently winning trophies yet criticise when our Chairman sacks a manager after a horror set of results and survival achieved more through the ineptitude and sheer bad luck of others. The truth is Hughton's Albion choked in the run-in but were bailed out by Palace and relegated Fulham.

How they can treat Bloom in the same way as they treat all the other trigger-happy chairman beggars belief. At least we didn't do a Norwich and sack Hughton with 4 games to go.

Clubs in the bottom half of the Prem don't have the luxury of time. Appointing a new manager quickly is important because it give them a chance to meet the players before they all depart for the summer. We don't have the scouting resources of the Top 6 and we have a big summer of business to conduct. The other point is it also gives Chris and his team the best chance of finding a new club and having some sort of pre-season too.

Correct. What you have to remember is that the 'big name' journalists don't come to Brighton very often. And when they do, it is usually because of who they are playing. And then they either focus on the other team for being brilliant (eg Man City) or being shit (Man Utd).

There has been some real drivel written today. Some of it has been around the absurd conflation of the general lack of BAME managers and Hughton's sacking; and then the likes of Henry Winter, totally unaware of the long series of poor results and performances. For him to call Bloom cowardly is a joke. The decision is many things - brave, bold, brutal - but never cowardly. The bottler option would have been to leave things as they were.

 

[tedebear]

I don't remember any of these journalists, pundits and social media keyboard warriors exactly pouring praise on Brighton in recent months for our stultefying brand of football.

Yet sacking the man responsible for it is somehow a massive mistake.

Well we may have played shit football at times, but the man at the helm was a nice guy. The way its happened has put a sour taste in a lot of peoples mouths...

 

[B-right-on]

Henry Winter calls us (well, the club) cowardly - https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...an-in-chris-hughton-onto-the-street-t9wdwx8zd

(Pay wall)

Can't get past the paywall but Read enough in teh first few lines to know that he is taking out of his @rse. I bet that 'Journo' has not attended many of the games this year and spouts his rubbish from some office in Fleet Street miles away from the Amex. I repect Wrighty's opinion much more and he laid out the facts in the podcast yesterday.

 

[Captain Sensible]

Hayward knows his stuff. Winter clearly doesn’t.

 

[whosthedaddy]

What annoys me about all that is being spouted by a good many journo's and the like is the fact they hardly ever saw the Albion team play, I strongly expect they presume the Match of the Day highlights are the defining thing that happened that day on the pitch.

Well, having been to every home game and fifteen away games this season, I can report back with a great deal of certainty about why Chris, our honourable, modest and most gentlemanly manager, got the sack.

Tony Bloom wants to stay in the Premier League (of course he does), he saw what I and many others saw which was players that were potentially very good suffer because they spent most of the game tracking back into positions they should hardly have ever been in. Dunk, Duffy and Ryan were absolute heroes but so were others who must have been absolutely knackered because of the amount of defending they had to do in nearly every game.

Ultimately this comes down to the manager who didn't let the team grow once they got promoted. Players like March, Knockaert, Barnardo and a few others were stunted in their growth, Hughton's ultimate aim every match was not to concede, this was his mantra to every player before they entered whatever arena they were playing at.

Bloom knew Chris' shortcomings were causing issues with players and fans alike. The sacking was not about Hughton's persona, which is impeccable and I can only assume Tony loved that side of him, but it's on the pitch where the problem lied and sadly he had to go, there was no other option, Chris wasn't going to change, we all knew that if we're honest with ourselves.

Hopefully Bloom makes the correct appointment and the new manager proves Tony was absolutely right to make the change.

 

[Pavilionaire]

Correct. What you have to remember is that the 'big name' journalists don't come to Brighton very often. And when they do, it is usually because of who they are playing. And then they either focus on the other team for being brilliant (eg Man City) or being shit (Man Utd).

There has been some real drivel written today. Some of it has been around the absurd conflation of the general lack of BAME managers and Hughton's sacking; and then the likes of Henry Winter, totally unaware of the long series of poor results and performances. For him to call Bloom cowardly is a joke. The decision is many things - brave, bold, brutal - but never cowardly. The bottler option would have been to leave things as they were.

Arguably these journalists should applaud Bloom for what he has done here, which is to try and take Brighton on from being bottom six fodder to something more formidable.

In many ways the Premier League of 2017/18 was the nadir with Burnley finishing 'best of the rest' in 7th, the Top 6 on another planet and Man City on another planet to everyone else. The Premier League needs a strong middle core of clubs that will take points off the Top 6 and make the title race / Top 4 / breaking into the Top 6 less predictable.

Leicester have shown the way, Wolves deserve enormous credit too, as do Watford, and there's no reason why Brighton shouldn't try and emulate them. The Prem needs more bold chairmen who aren't in it just for the money and to make up the numbers but who want to try and play a brand of football that appeals to all fans alike.

The cynic in me wonders whether some of these journalists hope the likes of us, Burnley, Bournemouth, Watford f*ck off out of it back down to the Championship so the "giants" that are Leeds, Villa, Sunderland, Forest can assume their rightful seats back at the top table.

 

[Captain Sensible]

Hayward’s coming up on BBC Sussex shortly.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Henry Winter calls us (well, the club) cowardly - https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...an-in-chris-hughton-onto-the-street-t9wdwx8zd

(Pay wall)

Tell Henry Winter his cigars are shit.

 

[sagaman]

Very balanced article by Paul Hayward who is a senior sports journalist that knows the Albion well.

Couple of thoughts. Dreadful PR for the club the way it was handled days after the way they were praised for the Bruno farewell

Also how did the recruiting team not get moved out first?

Whatever Chris did well or not am certain he was not the leading figure to squander millions on forwards who seem really dud.

 

[cunning fergus]

Arguably these journalists should applaud Bloom for what he has done here, which is to try and take Brighton on from being bottom six fodder to something more formidable.

In many ways the Premier League of 2017/18 was the nadir with Burnley finishing 'best of the rest' in 7th, the Top 6 on another planet and Man City on another planet to everyone else. The Premier League needs a strong middle core of clubs that will take points off the Top 6 and make the title race / Top 4 / breaking into the Top 6 less predictable.

Leicester have shown the way, Wolves deserve enormous credit too, as do Watford, and there's no reason why Brighton shouldn't try and emulate them. The Prem needs more bold chairmen who aren't in it just for the money and to make up the numbers but who want to try and play a brand of football that appeals to all fans alike.

The cynic in me wonders whether some of these journalists hope the likes of us, Burnley, Bournemouth, Watford f*ck off out of it back down to the Championship so the "giants" that are Leeds, Villa, Sunderland, Forest can assume their rightful seats back at the top table.

Interesting point re the make up of the prem and the also rans, I have long held that view too about the media’s bias very evident to the bigger clubs outside the prem, the amount of times Leeds are on tv being a very obvious example.

I have a slightly different point on that though, and it concerns the longevity of clubs the size of the Albion in prem. in short the longer we remain, the harder I think it is to manage relegation and sustain an immediate promotion challenge the following season. This is because the income base of a club like BHA will never materially change, and yet the pay structure etc. will naturally come under greater and greater pressure the longer that we stay in the prem.

Palace are a good example of a club that is spending well beyond its income and whilst it could be offset by selling Zaha having lots of players on ever greater and longer contracts are an economic death sentence had they been relegated.

That is not to say I want BHA to be relegated, however I think the basis of the club has to be that relegation is likely and therefore our playing staff have to have a core that would give us the best chance of getting back up; I think Cardiff have done exactly that this season. Key to that strategy is also keeping a manager who you trust to get you back up.

Time will tell if this is the right decision, I hope this is not symptomatic of raising the stakes, we are not Villa or Leeds and we never will be.

 

[Seasider78]

Very balanced article by Paul Hayward who is a senior sports journalist that knows the Albion well.

Couple of thoughts. Dreadful PR for the club the way it was handled days after the way they were praised for the Bruno farewell

Also how did the recruiting team not get moved out first?

Whatever Chris did well or not am certain he was not the leading figure to squander millions on forwards who seem really dud.

You really think the PR would have been any different if bloom had waited a week? Let’s be honest whatever the timing we would be getting the ‘little Brighton getting ideas above their station’ rhetoric

 

[Uh_huh_him]

Very balanced article by Paul Hayward who is a senior sports journalist that knows the Albion well.

Couple of thoughts. Dreadful PR for the club the way it was handled days after the way they were praised for the Bruno farewell

Also how did the recruiting team not get moved out first?

Whatever Chris did well or not am certain he was not the leading figure to squander millions on forwards who seem really dud.

I think we have to assume that Tony buys into the argument that it's the tactics not the players ability that has seen the performances drop.

This indicates to me that Tony will be expecting the new guy to get results from what we have ( + a couple of key signings), rather than backing the new manager in the transfer window.
Hence why Potter is the front runner and not an established Prem manager.