[Archived] Hughes Opinion Thread

[DavidMailsTightPerm]

Amazing that anyone can question the job that MH has done. One thing that people forget - in the time that he has been at Rovers other clubs have progressed - the fact that we have improved overall is of great credit to MH.

As pointed out by other people - nobody should under-estimate the impact that MGP and McCarthy's poor form has had on our season. Also - youth team players like Tracey, Derbs, Peter have had start/stop seasons due to injuries.

For me - the one thing that MH has failed to do is replace the pace that Bellamy brought to the team - which brought a different dimension to our play - and prevented teams pushing up too high a line - which they current can do as we have no genuine pace (Santa and Roberts are both reasonably quick - but not Bellamy's pace).

The only times that MH has paid serious money - Bellamy, McCarthy, Santa - they have been great successes. I wish that the Rovers boards would give him some serious money to take us up a level - but I do understand why they are reticent to do so.

Anyone comparing us to Everton - just remember that Johnson and Yakubu cost over £20m between them - what could MH do with a budget like that ?

[LeChuck]

Anyone comparing us to Everton - just remember that Johnson and Yakubu cost over £20m between them - what could MH do with a budget like that ?

That's £10 million less than what they received for Rooney though. Everton have invested an average of £4.5 million (net spend) per season since Moyes took over, which is not a huge amount, certainly not for a club with ambitions of Europe. We should be able to find around a £3 million transfer fund each year to invest in a talented manager like Hughes (I remember the purse strings at Goodison were extremely restricted until Moyes worked wonders with Bent as a lone striker), so I think comparisons with Everton are justifiable.

[Bazzanotsogreat]

That's £10 million less than what they received for Rooney though. Everton have invested an average of £4.5 million (net spend) per season since Moyes took over, which is not a huge amount, certainly not for a club with ambitions of Europe. We should be able to find around a £3 million transfer fund each year to invest in a talented manager like Hughes (I remember the purse strings at Goodison were extremely restricted until Moyes worked wonders with Bent as a lone striker), so I think comparisons with Everton are justifiable.

I really don’t know where this fallacy regarding Everton’s spending comes from. Our budget is around a quarter of Everton’s, therefore no comparison can be made. They sold Rooney for 20 million cash + add extras over the next four seasons, making the deal worth potentially worth 30 million, since then they have brought in:

Mikeal Arteta 2.5 m

Van dey meyde 2.5m

Simon Davies 4m

Tim Cahill 2m

Joseph Yobo 4.5m

Phil Neville 4.5 m

James Beattie 8 m

James Mcfadden 1.5 m

Andy Johnson 8.5 m

Da silva 1.5

Per koldrup 5m

Joleon Lescott 4 m

Yakubu 11m

Nuno Valente 1.5m

Tim Howard 2.5m

Phil Jageilka 4m

Leighton Baines 6 m

Dan Gosling 2m

+ Whatever they have spent on loans

There only major outs have been

Beattie 4m

Davies 1.5

Mcfadden 5m

Per Koldrup 2.5m

Which means they have spent close on 75 million since Rooney left, recouping perhaps 10-13 million. Which means at a lowest estimate they have net spent around 35-40 million, since Rooney left

[LeChuck]

...

Which means they have spent close on 75 million since Rooney left, recouping perhaps 10-13 million. Which means at a lowest estimate they have net spent around 35-40 million, since Rooney left

I never researched the figures, I read them somewhere and quoted (I completely forget where now). I'm positive that Man Utd confirmed at some point that the fee for Rooney had risen to £30 million (actually £29 point something).

Your £75 million figure seems a relatively decent estimate for outgoings. Add the £12.5m ish from the sales you listed to the Rooney fee, and another £6 million ish for Kilbane, Radzinski, Naysmith and Bent (all left for decent fees) and you get an income of around £48 million, so that's a net spend of £27 million. Now, Moyes has been there six years...so divide that figure by 6 and you get £4.5 million. Unless I've stuffed up somewhere, I don't see where the fallacy is.

I really don't see the problem with comparing us with Everton, we should be able to compete with a team who invests that amount each year. What we can't compete against is teams spending in excess of £10-15m per year.

I thought about this a bit, there are some uncanny parallels between Moyes and Hughes. Moyes had his original success spending little, using a rigid 4-5-1 formation with Marcus Bent playing as the lone striker. After that success on a tiny budget, he was allowed to spend a bit of money and invested in the likes of Cahill, Arteta etc. After those signings brought bigger success, and he'd shown he was generally wise with money (most of his signings increase in value), the board have since allowed him to spend bigger amounts because he's earned their trust.

If you compare that to Hughes (going from the 4-5-1 Dickov side, then the signings of Bellamy/McCarthy etc.) it's quite similar, up until the last sentence. Would anyone disagree that if the board gave Sparky £5 million to invest on players those same players would be worth more than £5 million a few years down the line? Hughes really should have earned the right to have funds made available to him by now.

[S15]

The main differences with us and Everton are;-

They were in serious financial trouble when Moyes took over. This way ended by the Rooney sale combine with the league success (Both on scales we are yet to achieve)

They must generate more than double Rovers income when you take into account they pretty much double our gates.

So to strictly suggest that our board should act in a similar way with Hughes as Evertons' did with Moyes is a tad unfair.

[Paul Mellelieu]

Spot on Philip.

[ihateburnley]

I think that Hughes has been fantastic for Rovers in pretty much every way over the last few years. He has performed miracles in the transfer market when having to scrape the barrel for a few quid to improve a rapidly ageing nucleus of a team.

However, I've said it before and I'll say it again. IMO we have not been signing enough players in the last two or three years. I believe that you need to constantly look to the future when trying to build a long-term squad and with the exception of David Bentley (who is still young but also highly valued by the rest of the football world) and perhaps Chris Samba and Steven Warnock, we have been signing players in the latter stages of their career who on the face of it merely provide a 'quick fix'.

As a result, this summer we need an overhaul of epic proportions in my opinion.

*Friedel* - I think can be relied upon for another couple of years but we don't want to be panic buying when he retires

Ooijer - Needs replacing. He will be 34 at the start of next season

*Nelson* - A 30yr old defender that is no longer the rock he was

Mokoena - I have yet to meet a Rovers fan that doesn't want rid of him. Simply not good enough

*Pedersen* - We could probably get a few quid for him

Berner - Doesn't seem upto the job even as a squad player

Tugay - Turns 38 soon. A legend but a season too far already

Henchoz - Will be 34 next season and is already way out of his depth

Rigters - If we can get a return on our outlay I think everyone will be happy

Enckelman - Do we really need three goalkeepers? I think Friedel and Brown plus youngsters will suffice

Gallagher - Do we want him or not? We shouldn't be hanging onto players if they will never make it at our level

OK. Summary time. In my opinion that it is eleven players that need replacing in addition to beefing up the pathetic weaknesses in midfield. The * signify players that could do with improving on but it will not be the end of the world if we can't find the right replacement.

Now before I enter cloud cuckoo land, I think we should all accept the fact that we aren't going to go out and spend £3m each on 8/9 players that we potentially need. But your not telling me that the likes of Quinton Fortune and Johan Vogel will not improve us on the likes of Mokoena and Tugay? In fact I'm sure they would. So maybe freebies and loans are going to help us move forward in the 'transition period'.

My point is that we have become a stale, boring, unimaginative side. And that's not me being a spoilt brat as thenodrog would put it - that's me being realistic and looking at our squad from a potential new fan's perspective. How can we even attempt to market a product effectively, when even the existing customers/fans can see the faults so blatantly?

[krislu]

Hughes have done a really good job since he came. Just look at the team we have now versus the @#/? we had when he first took over. Having said that, I feel there is a lack of strategy at Rovers. It seems like we pick up players which are decent and available without having a clear view of how these players are going to complement each other.

Having seen a lot of games lately, it is clear that we really lack a solid gameplan and strategy. I for one cant see a pattern in our attacking play. Our strikers are a good example of this. Both Benni and Roque are quality players but they do not complement each other well.

If we need to sell Benni to raise cash in order to bring in a player who will fit Roque better, then I'm all for it. We are also in desperate need of a midfield hard-man who also can pass the ball around, and last but not least a player with pace!

[thenodrog]

My point is that we have become a stale, boring, unimaginative side. And that's not me being a spoilt brat as thenodrog would put it - that's me being realistic and looking at our squad from a potential new fan's perspective. How can we even attempt to market a product effectively, when even the existing customers/fans can see the faults so blatantly?

'Thenodrog' would like to hear you whinge when we have some proper faults ihb! PhilipL's post is pretty much spot on.

btw...... I think the term I'd choose is 'spoilt brat suffering memory loss with blinkers on'.

[thenodrog]

I was a season ticket holder between 1985 - 1997. Since then I've just gone as and when due to family committments. I now don't think I'll watch Rovers again this season ..............

.............. Will the club attract new fans or retain those gained from the price cuts this year? - based on the football at Ewood very unlikely.

I think the sentence that fits best is 'based on rubbish, half arsed, bit part supporters'

[Fife Rover]

Hello guys, I didn't set a yardstick- I simply responded to that comment.

As it happens, I think a lot of the posts on here are absolutely stupid. However, I have no right to comment as will be pointed out I am 1,000 miles away and havce not seen a game at Ewood for five years.

However, I have seen many 100s of games when Rovers were in the old second and third divisions and quite frankly, I am extremely happy with the quality of football Rovers are playing and ecstatic about being 7th in the top division and not having had a relegation fright since Mark Hughes pulled us out of Souey poo.

I can see what the owners, board and management are doing for and with the club and whilst it is not a strategy to repeat 94/5 it is a strategy which should ameleorate the problem of being located in the smallest and poorest place by far to be the home of a Premiership club.

I think we are fortunate to have Mark Hughes as our manager and whilst things are not perfect, there are certainly 15 other Premiership Managers I would rather not have in his place at Rovers given a choice in the matter.

I wish the home entertainment were better and we had gone a lot better in the Cups this season. But I'd ask you all to consider the following:

- when bellyaching about not beating "inferior" Premiership clubs, just remember that the worst of them ranks in the 50 wealthiest clubs in the world and that Bolton in the relegation places drew at Bayern and knocked out Atletico Madrid. Derby aside, there are no "easy" games in the Premiership.

- Rovers are not on their own struggling at home. In fact, home results of all the clubs in 5th place and below read won 89 lost 70. Thankfully, we have a better record away from Ewood than we do at home so far this season (as do Portsmouth and West Ham).

- one aspect which concerns me is that when there is a fast open end-to-end game in the Premiership, both Managers say "It was great for the fans but terrible for the management." With massive staffs and video and computer analyses and players monitored to the nth degree, all creativity and risk-taking is being stifled and strangled as Premiership games become chess rather than the blood and thunder stuff I was brought up on. This is not a problem unique to Rovers or Mark Hughes.

- Finally, we have suffered devastating injuries to the most important players we had (other than Friedel)- Savage and Nelsen who literally were the team's backbone whilst two star players, McCarthy and MGP have seriously lost form for most of the season. Yet we are still in mid March and sitting in 7th with ambitions to rise higher.

I still look at the Premiership table sometimes and pinch myself to see Blackburn Rovers there. Those 26 years in the wilderness (age 10 to 36 for me) was a very long time.

I agree in essence with what you are saying Philipl. I am in a similar position as yourself except for the distance and am in a self-imposed exile as a protest against what I see as the exploitation of the ordinary football fan by the EPL and the SPL.

However I must add my voice to yours in the protest against the people who are so quick to criticise and in some cases apparantly turn against Mark Hughes and his team. I find this unbelievable and frankly childish and stupid.

[JAL]

I agree in essence with what you are saying Philipl. I am in a similar position as yourself except for the distance and am in a self-imposed exile as a protest against what I see as the exploitation of the ordinary football fan by the EPL and the SPL.

However I must add my voice to yours in the protest against the people who are so quick to criticise and in some cases apparantly turn against Mark Hughes and his team. I find this unbelievable and frankly childish and stupid.

The crticisms are far from childish or stupid as they are genuine major concerns from supporters who do back Mark Hughes and i'm sure all will give him their loyalty yet they raise a lot of valid points into how they view Rovers current seasons performances.

Plast Head asked for opinions on Mark Hughes as he wonderered if Hughes is disillusioned himself whilst seeing the need to bring in players.Eddie said he thought Rovers are currently boring to watch and saw some underlying problems ahead and thought that going out of the cups this season undermined the advancements made over the past few seasons - i've got to agree with him there.

Allancd questioned why Hughes panders to MaCarthy and thinks hes losing the impact to raise the players, a good point.

Shillito15, thinks the squad is ordinary apart from a couple of players and questioned wether Hughes has the drive to push Rovers on, very valid, he also thought the football on show was poor. Hes a fan you cant dismiss his thoughts.

Biggusladdus thought that it was a season of missed opportunities, hes right, so who should really take the flak from it.

Wing wizard wind feels Rovers are uninspiring and predictable to watch with only one decent crosser and one creative player. He states that Rovers pass sideways and backwards for five minutes which then results in hoofing it high and long, that does seem to happen quite a lot for me. I hate burnley echoed wing wizard winds words by saying Rovers had become stale, boring and unimaginative to watch, these fans feelings cannot be ignored or dismissed they are genuine concerns regardless of how high a league position Rovers currently occupy.

Even Krislu questions Hughes gameplan and strategy, so when it comes to next season, improvements have to made or things could end up like Souey ended up.

[waggy]

i for one can see hughes leaving in the summer,i have always said 3 seasons is the average life off a premier manager.sparky has done fantastic for the rovers,his teams are very defensive and lack creative players.i for one will be sorry to see him go but we are not big enough as a club to keep him.i have only seen home games this season and after the 1st month the preformance's have been very average.

foolham sat i thought we were 2nd best

bolton we were on the rack for the opening 20 mins off the 2nd half

everton we were lucky

boro we were hammered

sunderland we won a very poor game

chelsea we lost a decent game

west ham we lost

newcastle we won well

villa we lost embarassingly

liverpoo i missed the game

reading we beat the worst team i have seen at ewood this season

brum we won a 50/50 game

pompey we were mugged

citeh we stuffed em 1-0

arsenal best preformance off the season

[waggy]

In my supporting Rovers time (ie after turning six), I believe we have gone to six semi-finals, three of those with Mark Hughes as the Manager.

I think that is some sort of "real" achievement.

must be a great achievment for barnsley/wba and ardiff

[Fife Rover]

The crticisms are far from childish or stupid as they are genuine major concerns from supporters who do back Mark Hughes and i'm sure all will give him their loyalty yet they raise a lot of valid points into how they view Rovers current seasons performances.

Plast Head asked for opinions on Mark Hughes as he wonderered if Hughes is disillusioned himself whilst seeing the need to bring in players.Eddie said he thought Rovers are currently boring to watch and saw some underlying problems ahead and thought that going out of the cups this season undermined the advancements made over the past few seasons - i've got to agree with him there.

Allancd questioned why Hughes panders to MaCarthy and thinks hes losing the impact to raise the players, a good point.

Shillito15, thinks the squad is ordinary apart from a couple of players and questioned wether Hughes has the drive to push Rovers on, very valid, he also thought the football on show was poor. Hes a fan you cant dismiss his thoughts.

Biggusladdus thought that it was a season of missed opportunities, hes right, so who should really take the flak from it.

Wing wizard wind feels Rovers are uninspiring and predictable to watch with only one decent crosser and one creative player. He states that Rovers pass sideways and backwards for five minutes which then results in hoofing it high and long, that does seem to happen quite a lot for me. I hate burnley echoed wing wizard winds words by saying Rovers had become stale, boring and unimaginative to watch, these fans feelings cannot be ignored or dismissed they are genuine concerns regardless of how high a league position Rovers currently occupy.

Even Krislu questions Hughes gameplan and strategy, so when it comes to next season, improvements have to made or things could end up like Souey ended up.

What you say Jal is also reasonable in parts; my only quibble with what you are SAYING is to point out I never said ALL the posts criticising MH were childish or stupid, just some of them are written in a tone that to me smacks of hysteria rather than reasoned argument. That is my first point.

My second point which I did not have time to deal with in my earlier post is that some people have complained that maybe Hughes is past his sell by date (or words to that effect; cant be bothered trawling through all the previous posts on this thread to give an exact quote). That is absolute nonsense. For a start he is still a young manager, and this is his first club post. He has without question improved Rovers both on the pitch and as a playing squad since he took over from Souness. (And I am not one of those that also thinks Souness was rubbish, even he did a lot of good along with a few major mistakes).No, my point is that MH has improved the playing squad to almost as good as the one that won the PL in '94/'95 season, and not only that he has done it with (in EPL terms) almost zero cash. Is there another manager anywhere that you honestly believe could have done better?

I understand the disappointment felt and expressed by some at the PERFORMANCE levels this season; especially in the home games. But even there, there have been reasons (most of them valid) with the injuries and suspensions it has been virtually impossible to turnout the same team twice together all season. This is a major contributor to players not knowing how or when to play a pass, or to decide who is likely to do what so that they can make a decision. Don't forget they only get a fraction of a second in most cases to make these decisions. I am sure that MH and his coaching staff would just love the chance to have a settled and full squad to pick from for a few weeks, so that they (and we supporters) could see the benefits that would bring.

I am asking ALL of you now. Please give the guy a break and trust him. He DOES know what he is doing, and is far better at it than any of us. In fact better than any except a tiny number of mamagers world-wide!

[LeChuck]

So to strictly suggest that our board should act in a similar way with Hughes as Evertons' did with Moyes is a tad unfair.

You're right it is, I didn't say in that post, but in the another similar post I made I did mention about it being on a smaller scale.

I just think it'd be a crying shame if we never get to see what Hughes could achieve with a little bit of investment. It seems perfectly obvious to me that, without a bit of investment, we've hit a brick wall of what he can achieve by spending pittance. Of course we'll never spend £11 million on a striker like Moyes did, possibly not even half that.

They must generate more than double Rovers income when you take into account they pretty much double our gates.

.

I'd argue that point though, I don't think it will be anywhere near double. We're averaging 23k, they're averaging 36k. Regardless, attendance income alone couldn't get them to anywhere near double our total income.

[tucker]

You're right it is, I didn't say in that post, but in the another similar post I made I did mention about it being on a smaller scale.

I just think it'd be a crying shame if we never get to see what Hughes could achieve with a little bit of investment. It seems perfectly obvious to me that, without a bit of investment, we've hit a brick wall of what he can achieve by spending pittance. Of course we'll never spend £11 million on a striker like Moyes did, possibly not even half that.

.

I'd argue that point though, I don't think it will be anywhere near double. We're averaging 23k, they're averaging 36k. Regardless, attendance income alone couldn't get them to anywhere near double our total income.

And they charge on average how much more per ticket/season ticket, once you take this into account the ratio will be in the region of 2-1 as far as matchday income is concerned.

[tucker]

That's £10 million less than what they received for Rooney though. Everton have invested an average of £4.5 million (net spend) per season since Moyes took over, which is not a huge amount, certainly not for a club with ambitions of Europe. We should be able to find around a £3 million transfer fund each year to invest in a talented manager like Hughes (I remember the purse strings at Goodison were extremely restricted until Moyes worked wonders with Bent as a lone striker), so I think comparisons with Everton are justifiable.

I'd imagine Everton have a far bigger wage bill though.

[LeChuck]

And they charge on average how much more per ticket/season ticket, once you take this into account the ratio will be in the region of 2-1 as far as matchday income is concerned.

Possibly, that wasn't my point though.

I'd imagine Everton have a far bigger wage bill though.

Possibly true, but I think the fact that we've been able to bring in Santa Cruz, McCarthy, Bellamy (weren't Everton after him at the time?) recently shows we can compete around their level in wages.

[tucker]

Possibly, that wasn't my point though.

Possibly true, but I think the fact that we've been able to bring in Santa Cruz, McCarthy, Bellamy (weren't Everton after him at the time?) recently shows we can compete around their level in wages.

On isolated players, consistently paying good wages is where Everton have the advantage.

[LeChuck]

On isolated players, consistently paying good wages is where Everton have the advantage.

Which is why our youth academy is so important for long term success, and why it's letting us down so badly at present.

[tony gale's mic]

Which is why our youth academy is so important for long term success, and why it's letting us down so badly at present.

And how many youth academies are consistently producing excellent players?

Honestly some of you need to accept we're a considerably smaller club in comparison to the likes of Everton and Villa and we can't expect to compete on the same level as some of these clubs. We can hope to, and it's a tribute to our manager and the current set up that we are doing, but to say something is seriously wrong just because these clubs are finishing ahead of us is utter tosh.

[Eddie]

If you look at the premiership you can see several clubs that have produced a relatively good number of players who have made their first team squad over the past few years. We've only really produced one (Derbyshire) since the Duff and Dunn generation, which is poor going.

[waggy]

If you look at the premiership you can see several clubs that have produced a relatively good number of players who have made their first team squad over the past few years. We've only really produced one (Derbyshire) since the Duff and Dunn generation, which is poor going.

derbyshire was in non-league football,rovers were only alerted to his progress when the likes of man utd were watching him

[JAL]

What you say Jal is also reasonable in parts; my only quibble with what you are SAYING is to point out I never said ALL the posts criticising MH were childish or stupid, just some of them are written in a tone that to me smacks of hysteria rather than reasoned argument. That is my first point.

My second point which I did not have time to deal with in my earlier post is that some people have complained that maybe Hughes is past his sell by date (or words to that effect; cant be bothered trawling through all the previous posts on this thread to give an exact quote). That is absolute nonsense. For a start he is still a young manager, and this is his first club post. He has without question improved Rovers both on the pitch and as a playing squad since he took over from Souness. (And I am not one of those that also thinks Souness was rubbish, even he did a lot of good along with a few major mistakes).No, my point is that MH has improved the playing squad to almost as good as the one that won the PL in '94/'95 season, and not only that he has done it with (in EPL terms) almost zero cash. Is there another manager anywhere that you honestly believe could have done better?

I understand the disappointment felt and expressed by some at the PERFORMANCE levels this season; especially in the home games. But even there, there have been reasons (most of them valid) with the injuries and suspensions it has been virtually impossible to turnout the same team twice together all season. This is a major contributor to players not knowing how or when to play a pass, or to decide who is likely to do what so that they can make a decision. Don't forget they only get a fraction of a second in most cases to make these decisions. I am sure that MH and his coaching staff would just love the chance to have a settled and full squad to pick from for a few weeks, so that they (and we supporters) could see the benefits that would bring.

I am asking ALL of you now. Please give the guy a break and trust him. He DOES know what he is doing, and is far better at it than any of us. In fact better than any except a tiny number of mamagers world-wide!

If Rovers could have pulled off the signing of Diarra who eventually went to Pompey and the loan move of Theo Walcot in the january transfer window the outlook for Rovers would have looked far more positive and you wouldnt have had negativity amongst supporters.

Sure they believe in Mark Hughes but they are right to their opinion on the standard of what they are watching, but to say they arent going again, for me doesnt wash and with attitudes like that they are just limp wristed so and so's who i hope migrate from this area as soon as is possible.

To say the current squad is as good as the 94/95 squad is highly debateable when we are so weak in the centre of midfield and blaming a lack of cohesion on the field down to injuries/suspensions doesnt wash either with me.

Fingers crossed though that come the summer Hughes can pull off a Diarra/ Walcot type of quality player for the club that can take Rovers forward and make up for this seasons stagnation and we can all rejoice again.

I definitely believe Hughes has raised Rovers profile in the footballing world along with Bentleys England international debut, I think Rovers are now firmly cemented amongst the footballing elite of this country but they just cant afford to sit back.