[Albion] We are the idiots, not Hughton

[Triggaaar]

Won't shout you down Shooting Star, but I have a question.

Do you think Hughton changed the formation due to fan pressure?

I like to think that he thought 'right, this is going well, we've got some breathing space to try and make some changes and develop as a team'.

Sadly not as much breathing space as we needed. I've read elsewhere here that we should have changed formation in pre-season, but we already will have practiced different formations, it's only when you try in the league you're in that you find out whether you can make a success of it.

 

[Triggaaar]

I agree to an extent, but the time to have recognised 433/451 was not working for us passed by months ago.

Months ago we were doing great.

 

[Commander]

No, the players have 5 more games to realise they are. Cardiff have always been in it, we've only just woken up to it.

We understand now why manager's don't want to commit to the FA Cup. We felt safe in January by doing no business, we've enjoyed our cup run distraction, we have literally just dumped ourselves in this spot.

Anyone could see we were in a relegation fight. We played 3 Championship teams in the FA cup, we hardly went all out for it. There should be an 'us vs the world' mentality at the moment. Just like Warnock has at Cardiff. We need just one win, one. We should be going out there to get it. It doesn't matter who we are playing, we should be having a go at them. We'll get one win in five if we do that. Instead it is all just so uninspiring. Some managers are great when things are going well, because they keep people grounded and keep everyone's feet on the ground. Hughton is one of them. He is not the kind of manager you want in a relegation dogfight. In my opinion, of course.

Have a look at the league table at the point he got sacked by Norwich. But forget Norwich, and look at Sunderland. Then look at the final table, and the results they got. That is how you get out of a relegation scrap.

 

[PoG]

I agree with a lot of the post but I actually think 4-3-3 was borne out of necessity rather than anything. When Gross went down injured we had become too reliant on playing someone in a #10 role, so had to change the system as we had no obvious backup. This could have been addressed in January but wasn't, had it been we would probably have abandoned 4-3-3 months ago.

This. Remember how things went with Solly as our number 10, it didn't work. Formation change had to be made.

 

[Scunner]

Fully expect to be shouted down for this but I really don't care.

We had 25 points by Christmas and were sailing towards Premier League safety but fans weren't happy with the style of football we were playing. We weren't satisfied with gritty, defensive 1-0's here and there. So Chris eventually had us playing 4-3-3, trying to be more open and expansive. Has it worked? No. Why? Because of the constraints of the players he has to work with.

Now, he's rightly calling for us to be more defensive and to stop shipping goals i.e. return to what has made us so successful this season. The approach of trying to be attacking is clearly not working with the bunch of players we have. I think sometimes as fans we sit in our ivory towers and create some mental picture of the players we think AJ, Davy etc. could be, without having the slightest bit of knowledge about the players they actually are because we're not on the training ground with them day in, day out. Naylor, Paul Hayward and other journalists/pundits who are worth their salt can see this, but we're too blinded by where we imagine Albion should be.

Hughton's not a flaming idiot. Do people think he genuinely wants us not to score, to be relegated and to lose his job and the livelihood for his family? He played attacking football in the Championship but we are on a completely different level of play right now. The players we've got aren't going to play the football we want and get the results we need. Look at Fulham.

It's ironic that the attitudes we criticise Palace fans for when they've throw their toys out of the pram about Hodgson is precisely the same reaction many of us are having right now regards to Chris.

I'm as upset that we've sleepwalked to a relegation battle as anyone else. CH going back to what he knows this group of players do best is our best last chance of surviving. If he has at any point this season listened to us, he really needs to stop and have faith in his own ability rather than a bunch of armchair pundits.

The premise of your argument - we switched to 433 - is fundamentally flawed, so the rest of your post flounders in an illogical moraine of its own making. It has never been 433, Hughton wouldn't know how to play 433 if it walked up to him, slapped him about the face and sat him down for 3 hours explaining it, saying 'I am Pep Guardiola mutherphucker'. It has always been played as 451, it started with Gross moving to the left of a Propper, Stephens, Gross axis, which is about as ineffective a 3 in a 433 as you're likely to see because nullifies Gross's main strengths and further inhibits Stephens' weaknesses (perceived or otherwise).

A true 433 relies on two fundamental elements 1) Possession 2) Full Backs providing width high up the pitch. You are in land full of cuckoos flying in the clouds if you think that's what you have been seeing.

The rest of us have been watching uninspired, unadventurous, undynamic horsehit. As one Norwich fan memorably put it on Twitter on Tuesday night 'After Hughton left I enjoyed watching football again'. He needs to leave, soon, so that we can remember him with the fondness he richly deserves.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

Fully expect to be shouted down for this but I really don't care.

We had 25 points by Christmas and were sailing towards Premier League safety but fans weren't happy with the style of football we were playing. We weren't satisfied with gritty, defensive 1-0's here and there. So Chris eventually had us playing 4-3-3, trying to be more open and expansive. Has it worked? No. Why? Because of the constraints of the players he has to work with.

Now, he's rightly calling for us to be more defensive and to stop shipping goals i.e. return to what has made us so successful this season. The approach of trying to be attacking is clearly not working with the bunch of players we have. I think sometimes as fans we sit in our ivory towers and create some mental picture of the players we think AJ, Davy etc. could be, without having the slightest bit of knowledge about the players they actually are because we're not on the training ground with them day in, day out. Naylor, Paul Hayward and other journalists/pundits who are worth their salt can see this, but we're too blinded by where we imagine Albion should be.

Hughton's not a flaming idiot. Do people think he genuinely wants us not to score, to be relegated and to lose his job and the livelihood for his family? He played attacking football in the Championship but we are on a completely different level of play right now. The players we've got aren't going to play the football we want and get the results we need. Look at Fulham.

It's ironic that the attitudes we criticise Palace fans for when they've throw their toys out of the pram about Hodgson is precisely the same reaction many of us are having right now regards to Chris.

I'm as upset that we've sleepwalked to a relegation battle as anyone else. CH going back to what he knows this group of players do best is our best last chance of surviving. If he has at any point this season listened to us, he really needs to stop and have faith in his own ability rather than a bunch of armchair pundits.

I totally agree with you..... except it wasn't fan pressure.
IMO It was the xg rating that drove the change.

We were scoring more goals than expected and conceding less than was expected in almost every game.(where we picked up points). Our defense and attack were both outperforming. long term this was going to even itself out.
There is no way the club didn't know this and so a change of approach was needed.

With the amount of points that we were ahead of the curve, it should have been a calculated gamble that we had enough time to get the team used to the new style.

As it turned out we probably should have waited a bit longer as our players don't seem to be able to bring the attacking intent that their pedigree suggested they should.

 

[Ernest]

#jesuisunidiot

 

[symyjym]

Never had a problem with the formation. It's the players making bad decisions like not passing the ball at the right time to the right player, passing to the opposition and not passing the ball at all when they should that seems to be the problem. 4-3-3 or 4-5-1 shouldn't make us not be able to string a few passes together.

Hughton either lacks creativity for the Prem or he has been given below par turds to polish. He just gets on with the cards he is dealt, but Eddie Howe, as a good example, deals his own hand.

Could a new manager really do better with our squad? Maybe he lacks the charisma of a manager like Warnock who galvanises his teams together in times of crisis.

 

[papajaff]

4-3-3?

Kin ell I must have missed that. Was it in the first half against Fulham?

 

[The Brighton Buzz]

I also don’t buy that the 4-3-3 we play is more attacking that 4-4-1-1

Ignore the fact, for a moment, that 4-3-3 often looks much more like 4-5-1 in practice ….. Under 4-3-3, seven players (the defenders and midfielders) are predominantly there to defend and the other 3 predominantly there to attack.

Under 4-4-1-1, Gross and Murray, plus the two wingers are predominantly attacking players.

The way I see it, there four mostly attacking players in 4-4-1-1 as opposed to three in 4-3-3.

In theory what you say is right, 433 should be more attacking but the wingers still play more as extra defenders or filling in across the midfield. Most crosses, if we have any, come from our full backs effectively still playing 451 leaving Murray or whoever plays up front isolated, as our wingers no longer take on the opposing full backs. The tactics have not changed much from last year we just play 10 yards further back in midfield. The opposition has no choice to attack at home even if they wanted to be more cautious. Any attacking skills any of the players had seem to have been coached out of them. It appears to be set up not to lose and not to win. Strange tactics for any team at home. No-one can defend the fact that we have been less attacking then last year at home and the question is why. Since Christmas we have been awful in midfield yet Propper and Stevens have been picked week in week out. No wonder Kayal threw his bid down on the floor Tuesday night. Hughton must think he is really gash if he feels those two are a better option when we are getting walked over in the middle of the park. Blame the defenders for some things but the real reason we are conceding goals is giving the ball away cheaply in midfield and having no fight in there.

 

[zefarelly]

regardless of how many players are on the field we've been playing like a 1 - 1 - 0 formation this last few months. . .barely 2 players on the pitch worth mentioning in any one game.

The PL is a moving target, we've failed to adapt and are starting to die.

 

[NooBHA]

I like to think that he thought 'right, this is going well, we've got some breathing space to try and make some changes and develop as a team'.

Sadly not as much breathing space as we needed. I've read elsewhere here that we should have changed formation in pre-season, but we already will have practiced different formations, it's only when you try in the league you're in that you find out whether you can make a success of it.

There could be merit in that. Not saying there is. I don't know, but there would also have been pressure to start to integrate the new signings who hadn't featured much by that stage in the season.


And this is not a criticism of the Recruitment Team or Chris in any way.


You can watch as much videos of players before you sign them and you can go watch them many times but until you get them into the club you are never going to know what their capabilities are. I think almost all the new signings are actually upgrades on what was there before; however, none of them had played against the level of defenders they are coming up against now and to date they have struggled barring a few odd cameos of magic. Not consistent enough to win matches


Another point to take on Board - It's the hardest thing in the world to try and overhaul a squad of players in the PL to try and progress. At least 50% of the players who come to the PL from overseas. The ones who are successful are usually the ones who go to Man City, Liverpool, Chelsea Tottenham etc

Liverpool have spent almost 30 years purchasing players throwing Millions at it and its only in the last 3 years that they have got it right in the transfer market.


Chelsea, even when they get it right, cant even spot it when they get it right. Having bought Salah and De Breuyne, saw them at close quarters and still let them go. Only for them to come back to another club and be successful.

When the lesser clubs in this league do find good ones like Kante and Mahrez. They get snapped up by the bigger clubs very quickly and the same will happen to players like Dacoure.

Managers don't get time to build a team in this League. It takes about 2 or 3 good years in the Transfer Market and during that time, you need to get recruitment right. If you don't then usually Managers get sacked and the next manager comes in. Throws that ''Blueprint'' away and starts again and if the next one doesn't get it right, then they are gone too. That's what has happened at Liverpool and as I said above, it took them 30 years to get it right.


Despite everyone thinking CH has been around a long time. He has never been in a PL Job long enough to build a PL squad. This is his squad of players for sure but the new signings haven't performed since they came into the side. These players are good players but the integration has been difficult.


Staying up is still within our own grasp and I still believe we will stay up. The OP is correct. We need to go to back to what it takes to pick up points to survive. Then you take stock of what has gone right and what has gone wrong in the course of the season. None of us are privy to all the facts.


The last few games have been painful to watch but that doesn't mean it cannot be turned around in the remaining fixtures.

 

[London Irish]

This. Remember how things went with Solly as our number 10, it didn't work. Formation change had to be made.

But it left either Murray or Andone fatally isolated. It was another brick in the wall of the fatalistic negativity that has killed our football in the second half of the season, alongside packing the team with one paced players

 

[dejavuatbtn]

4-4-2, 4-3-3, 4,4,1,1, whatever he wants to call it - they always seem to play the same way, so changing what it’s called doesn't really make any difference.

 

[sussex_guy2k2]

Fully expect to be shouted down for this but I really don't care.

We had 25 points by Christmas and were sailing towards Premier League safety but fans weren't happy with the style of football we were playing. We weren't satisfied with gritty, defensive 1-0's here and there. So Chris eventually had us playing 4-3-3, trying to be more open and expansive. Has it worked? No. Why? Because of the constraints of the players he has to work with.

Now, he's rightly calling for us to be more defensive and to stop shipping goals i.e. return to what has made us so successful this season. The approach of trying to be attacking is clearly not working with the bunch of players we have. I think sometimes as fans we sit in our ivory towers and create some mental picture of the players we think AJ, Davy etc. could be, without having the slightest bit of knowledge about the players they actually are because we're not on the training ground with them day in, day out. Naylor, Paul Hayward and other journalists/pundits who are worth their salt can see this, but we're too blinded by where we imagine Albion should be.

Hughton's not a flaming idiot. Do people think he genuinely wants us not to score, to be relegated and to lose his job and the livelihood for his family? He played attacking football in the Championship but we are on a completely different level of play right now. The players we've got aren't going to play the football we want and get the results we need. Look at Fulham.

It's ironic that the attitudes we criticise Palace fans for when they've throw their toys out of the pram about Hodgson is precisely the same reaction many of us are having right now regards to Chris.

I'm as upset that we've sleepwalked to a relegation battle as anyone else. CH going back to what he knows this group of players do best is our best last chance of surviving. If he has at any point this season listened to us, he really needs to stop and have faith in his own ability rather than a bunch of armchair pundits.

Take out the Bournemouth game and the odd spell in other games, and we've not been more expansive and open. What most fans (and I include myself in this) wanted was a more aesthetically pleasing style of football coupled with the results we were getting before Christmas. I never ever saw a comment, tweet or post that said "I want attacking football even if it means we sleep walk to relegation". Now you can blame us for wanting a better product as customers of the club (and we are that in their minds, rather than fans), but wanting better and more isn't a crime.

Unfortunately, Hughton (whatever his motives are), has been unable to produce this. And what's actually scary isn't that he's changed the formation (which did initially reap benefits), it's that he's shown himself to be unable to stem the tide not just of our overall form, but of individual games as they're progressing. His inability to adapt within games in particular is verging on criminal for this level, and time and again we are forced to watch as he brings on a like for like player into a game where we're on the back foot and understandably there's rarely any change in the flow or outcome.

And this leads me to my biggest gripe - he simply doesn't seem to know how to use attacking players. Maybe he needs an attacking coach alongside him who can coach a specific style into the players by showing them the kinds of movement on the pitch that the management team expects. But what is clear is that there is little to no idea of how to attack teams at this stage of our season and we're actually only getting worse (and we have been for months).

Now my loyalty is not to CH, it's to the club and if I see that he's not doing a good enough job to keep us up, then I'm going to support the idea of his sacking - I'm not going to feel sorry for the guy either considering the amount of money he'll earn from it, no matter what he's done for the club.

So no the current issues aren't our fault. They're his.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Anyone who thinks that us fans have pushed CH into changing his tactics is a bit of a nutter

On another board it was mentioned that Talk Sport the other day reported on a meeting between some players and the manager to discuss playing more attacking football (this was at the instigation and wish of these players) and Chris made it clear he was not going to change. So the idea that he has done anything under fan (or player) pressure is indeed silly.

However, this nevertheless suggests that some players are unhappy. I wonder if this might include a central defender who has recently taken it upon himself to go bombing forward, Stevie G stylee, only for the opposition to take advantage......said defender discussed on other threads.

So ultimately when players don't do what they are told do you blame the player or the manager? I guess what is important is what the manager does next. Keeping Hazard, and more recently, Pogba on the bench didn't work well for Maureen. There again....Duffy is no Paul Pogba. I'd be unsurprised, and possibly cheered to see Burn start against the wolves.

 

[peterward]

On another board it was mentioned that Talk Sport the other day reported on a meeting between some players and the manager to discuss playing more attacking football (this was at the instigation and wish of these players) and Chris made it clear he was not going to change. So the idea that he has done anything under fan (or player) pressure is indeed silly.

However, this nevertheless suggests that some players are unhappy. I wonder if this might include a central defender who has recently taken it upon himself to go bombing forward, Stevie G stylee, only for the opposition to take advantage......said defender discussed on other threads.

So ultimately when players don't do what they are told do you blame the player or the manager? I guess what is important is what the manager does next. Keeping Hazard, and more recently, Pogba on the bench didn't work well for Maureen. There again....Duffy is no Paul Pogba. I'd be unsurprised, and possibly cheered to see Burn start against the wolves.

The players want to play more attacking and being told No, is what's reported in today's sun to https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/8886609/brighton-hughton-facing-sack-relegation-premier-league/

 

[BensGrandad]

. There again....Duffy is no Paul Pogba. I'd be unsurprised, and possibly cheered to see Burn start against the wolves.

Is it Duffy that is out of form or the man rated by many on here as worth £50m Dunk who is having a bad spell? Most of the recent goals conceded seem to be down to him missing tackles or headers or losing players.

 

[peterward]

Is it Duffy that is out of form or the man rated by many on here as worth £50m Dunk who is having a bad spell? Most of the recent goals conceded seem to be down to him missing tackles or headers or losing players.

It's rumoured, and nothing more than that, that Duffy is the one throwing his weight around in the dressing room? And you have to ask whether his new found role as a makeshift number 9, is the managers idea or him doing it against managers wish?

 

[Commander]

The players want to play more attacking and being told No, is what's reported in today's sun to https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/8886609/brighton-hughton-facing-sack-relegation-premier-league/

"As a team, a club, a player, there is only one way we can ensure we stay up.It’s by fighting as hard as we can and making sure if we are not able to score, we are not conceding.”“It’s by fighting as hard as we can and making sure if we are not able to score, we are not conceding.”

FFS. When did we last not concede? How about MAKING SURE WE SCORE?