[Archived] Hughes Out

[John]

savage wants to go. if his cash allows hughes to buy sidwell - will you 'agree' with his decision?

roberts is not good enough for a club challenging europe as first choice striker. he's clearly not happy at being 3rd option & we're not competting in enough games to keep 4 strikers happy. but i guess you would rather see roberts running around like an idiot but never scoring.

Benni plays a totally different game, but he gets goals - FACT.

retention of fringe players? it's called a football squad and with our lack of money, hughes does not have a choice.

Spot on Andy.

[Eddie]

That's a straw man argument. Never a good position to argue from by beginning sentences with "if you".

You said Hughes wasn't and hasn't been producing the "goods" this year. You said you would judge that on the league. Well...we are in the top half, have no concerns regarding relegation and not that far off the European places. How is that not producing the "goods" this year? Where should we be? How many points should we have? If you can define what producing the goods would mean to you then we can ascertain whether those "goods" have been produced or not and, fujrthermore, if your expectations are realistic. You said base it on the league...being almost clear of relegation by January

The team is going through a rough patch and has had some shocking results and performances. However I remember the last time we crashed and burned out of the FA Cup against Birmingham. Compared to then our squad is far superior and we are much better placed in the league. That is down to Hughes.

Nobody is happy losing 4-1 at home to Coventry. Yet we should keep calm heads. Hughes is far more likely to turn it around than Souness was who imploded in his own self-satisfaction. Depending on what happens in the transfer window we could well have a good second half to the league campaign as well.

Producing the goods for me means getting the side to play well. As I said, nothing to do with the Coventry game really, I've never judged a player or a manager based on one game. Why is Hughes more likely to turn it around than Souness? Souness had more managerial experience and more money to spend (it seems). Hughes was fantastic at Wales for a while, then things went stale, so you could say that based on his record he is sticking true to form.

I don't look at the team we have now and think it's an achievement to be clear of relegation. When I look at the team we have now I see a side that should be in the top 6-7, we aren't. We're close, but if you want me to specifically define what doing well is rather than simply judging it on performances (which I feel is the far more valid way to do it), then we are 2-3 spots below where we should be.

We could still have a good year, we could still finish in the top 4 (won't happen), or the top 6 (good chance), but that doesn't change the fact that as things stand they aren't looking that great.

[Roost]

How about a club sale?

You can only have a club sale if you have a club shop......

[Hasta]

I don't think we have the resources to address all the issues we have. You can only get so many really good freebies/cheap buys. Money has to be found to give Hughes the support he deserves.

We need a central midfielder without question. The fact hughes is letting Sav go tells me he MUST have one lined up with Mokoena being away and Dunn/Reid injury prone.

Everything else thats wrong must be internal because everyone agrees our season start was superb. Whether it's unrest or something else I don't know. Obviously Savage and Roverts are unsettled. Has this been caused by Hughes sticking with out-of-form players in the starting eleven no matter what? Who knows.

However it's Hughes job as 'manager' to 'manage' this problem. I don't feel we need £15 million investing to make us european contenders.

[FourLaneBlue]

Why is Hughes more likely to turn it around than Souness?

Because Souness is a nutjob who seems to regularly start arguments in an empty room. Hughes is still learning as a manager and keeps trying to adapt and do different things.

Besides...Souness going stale meant desperately fighting relegation. Hughes going stale means mid-table placings and not that far away from the European places.

[herbergeehh]

That last sentence is spot on, we've shown this earlier in the season. A solid player in midfield who can play all the time and perhaps another player either in one of the side positions or upfront, and I think we can be found climbing again.

[Hasta]

Benni plays a totally different game, but he gets goals - FACT.

Taking penalties out of it, 3 goals in 19 Premier League games would suggest not this season. Even when we were playing well early season he struggled and didn't look the player of last year. Why?

[Rovers_4_life]

What right have we got to demand finishing in the top 4 or even top 6 or 7 when you compare us with the teams we are competing against?

The top 4 are in a different league for the ovbious reasons we all know. Then take the second league of sides chasing for the places from 5-10 all of which have spent much more money than Rovers have (mainly from new investment), all of which have a much larger fan base to generate more revenue and enable them to spend more money on better and more players.The revenue Rovers has is tiny in comparison and nowhere near enough to compete! The fact that Sparky has us even competing with the likes of City, Pompey, West Ham, Spurs, Everton and probably Newcastle as well is a minor miracle!! Anybody expecting Rovers to compete with the big boys year after year needs to come back down to earth!!

Hughes is doing a fantastic job on the resources he has had/got and im sure if he had the backing that other managers have he would be doing a better job than them but the simple fact is without another Jack Wlaker Rovers simply cannot expect to compete on such a level. Such blame should not be put at the managers door. Obviosuly this doesn't explain nor justify the shocking result/performance against Coventry but i think people need to lower their expectations to a more realistic level.

[John]

And Eddie, Mark Hughes is the reason why you have high expectations, which is great!

Edited January 6, 2008 by John

[joey_big_nose]

Put this in the intetoto thread which I think is the wrong one...

Why I think we are getting pasted:

The fact that Coventry felt capable of playing three up front yesterday suggests that how to hurt us is now widely understood to anyone who studies the tapes of our previous ten or so games. Our defence is very exposed, we play two very attacking full backs and our central midifeld provides little protection due to players being injured (Reid) lack pace (Tugay and Dunn) or just average (Axe). Plus our key man and captain has lost two yards of pace and we play a very high defensive line when in possession. So the answer is plain that to hurt us you need to hit us on the counter with bags of speed and width. We cannot cope.

I guess the way to sort it out is:

1) Buy a fast striker so we can play deeper and hit teams on the counterattack. Currently we don't stretch defences, our strikers come deep and our wide players lack the raw pace to get behind full backs, so we play a high line and try to pass through other teams. Someone who has that Bellamy ability to get into the channels would be ideal.

2) Get a good defensive minded midfielder who can protect the central defence. Currently we can't close down or cut our the ball enough.

3) Buy a right back with pace whose main priorities lie with covering the centrebacks as opposed to getting forward. We need someone who can help out and give us the solidarity we need. Warnock can continue to get well forward.

4) Get another central defender who is solid and has pace> Ver difficult but if we can it would make such a difference.

And really we are sort of doing that. 1) Domi (if he is any good, which Mr E doesn't think he is) 2) Sidwell. 3) Not sure....4) Not sure either- ideally somehow getting the old Nelsen back.

Signing a player like Huddlestone - who is undoubtably good and an entertainer - might not help us deal with these fundamental problems as he is not really much of a tackler nor quick.

I think we have reached a tactical watershed though. Hughes will start adjusting the way we play.

If we adjust our system the bg losers could be Emerton, McCarthy, Axe, Dunn, Tugay all of whom would struggle to meet the requirements

[Hasta]

What right have we got to demand finishing in the top 4 or even top 6 or 7 when you compare us with the teams we are competing against?

We haven't any right and in the future we may well not do. That's why Rovers need to make the most of it now whilst we do have a very good team and squad. We can't afford to let seasons slip by and 'wait till next year'.

Edited January 6, 2008 by Hasta

[tcj_jones]

Joey, what you say makes sense, except that I don't think Huddlestone is anywhere near good enough.

[joey_big_nose]

Joey, what you say makes sense, except that I don't think Huddlestone is anywhere near good enough.

Well I think he is a high qulaity player, but my point was he is exactly the sort of player we dont need at the moment.

[Anti Euro Smiths Fan]

Furious Hughes cancels days off

Some harsh words needed to be said in the dressing room after the shambles on Saturday. Mark Hughes was right to have a pop at the players - but he also needs to question some of his own decisions, because his team selection and substitutions during the match were bizarre.

Why dont those who are calling for Mark Hughes to go......###### off to Turf moor you brainless shytes!

Very few people on here are actually calling for Hughes to go. What a number of people have said - myself included - is that Hughes should not be immune from criticism where it is due. He's made some tactical blunders and team selection mistakes this season which have cost us badly. As well as the FA Cup debacle on Saturday, in the Carling Cup against Arsenal, Hughes's decision to play Steven Reid at right-back was clearly a mistake.

If Graeme Souness had played Gamst at left-back and Samba as a striker against Coventry, Souey would have been slaughtered on here, so it's only fair that Hughes doesn't get let off scott free when he makes mistakes.

A blind man on a galloping horse can see that the midfield partnership of Tugay and Mokoena doesn't work. Mark Hughes's failure to address the central midfield situation in the summer was a big mistake. One could argue that he didn't have much money to spend, but I still feel that Hughes should have tried to wheel and deal in order to get another central midfield player into the club.

People sometimes feel that the media is critical of Blackburn Rovers - but I actually think, in terms of the national media, we have escaped quite lightly after Saturday's truly horrendous performance. On Match Of The Day, Gavin Peacock gave a wonderful understatement when he said: "Blackburn didn't play all that well."

Few pundits have reminded the public what a shambolic performance we gave against Larissa in the UEFA Cup, while after the 5-3 humiliation against Wigan, the criticism that the Rovers defenders got seemed to be fairly mild. Even Mark Lawrenson - not traditionally Rovers' biggest fan - has actually been quite complimentary about us this season.

I suspect that because Rovers are not a big city club, a lot of pundits don't actually watch us play that many games and therefore they just assume, because Rovers are in the top half of the table, that the team is playing well. In reality we have hardly played well for 90 minutes since the start of November, and even during the month of October when we were getting good results, there were periods when we didn't play well, but got quite lucky: for example scoring in the last minute in the 2-1 win over Spurs at White Hart Lane.

If Gavin Peacock, Mark Lawrenson, Lee Dixon and others, actually had to endure for 90 minutes what thousands of Rovers fans have often seen this season - an inability to keep the ball, an inability to attack with sufficient pace, particularly down the left-hand side, shambolic defending and some woeful free-kicks and corners, I suspect that those pundits might be a bit more critical of our team.

This is now becoming a very big managerial test for Mark Hughes. Our Premiership position in the top half of the table shouldn't blind people to how poor we have often been. The quality of teams in the bottom half of the Premiership is poor. The likes of Wigan, Birmingham, Sunderland and Fulham are poor teams who would come unstuck against European opposition - as indeed we did when coming up against Larissa. We couldn't keep the ball against a mediocre Greek team who are currently bottom of their UEFA Cup group.

There's an awful lot of work for Mark Hughes to do.

Edited January 7, 2008 by Anti Euro Smiths Fan

[thenodrog]

Plenty of criticism for Hughes and calls to get rid of x y and z. But can any of our armchair managers inform us all of exactly how to motivate the players when most of whom will prob have had their agents on the blower during the last month or two saying that if they can get out of their Blackburn contract in Jan they can do a Lucas and earn far more at other more desperate Prem clubs? I've said it before and imo financial unrest will be at the root of it all.

[Iceman]

erm,problem is our fans want big name players signed where as Hughes knows we dont have the money to go out there and purchase those players.So he has to make to with trialist,loans and freebies and hope that they are any good.Of course Hughes aint going to get off lightly and needs to be criticised,but he has done more good than bad since taking over at Ewood Park.

Its not about him making tactical errors,its more about him reacting too slowly to the tactics he has put forward.In one of the games,Zurab was being ripped apart and Hughes kept him on until half time.about 30 mins too late imo.its that sort of delayed reaction from Sparky,not the tactics he uses.

Neither Mokoena nor Savage is any good,Savage maybe a little better than the axe but both offer nothing going forward.I know they defensive midfielders,but ive seen many defensive midfielders being able to pass a ball and being able to split defenses with killer passes.

[den]

erm,problem is our fans want big name players signed where as Hughes knows we dont have the money to go out there and purchase those players.So he has to make to with trialist,loans and freebies and hope that they are any good.

McCarthy, Santa Cruz? - to name just two.

That's an argument that Souness used to put forward in his last months - we can only get youngsters or players past their best.

[Iceman]

McCarthy, Santa Cruz? - to name just two.

That's an argument that Souness used to put forward in his last months - we can only get youngsters or players past their best.

Imo Benni is past his best,he was past his best when we signed him..Hughes took a gamble on him,and fortunately it paid off.

[den]

Imo Benni is past his best,he was past his best when we signed him..Hughes took a gamble on him,and fortunately it paid off.

He wasn't past his best when we signed him - and that was your point. and Rocky?

Edited January 8, 2008 by den

[modes98]

Imo Benni is past his best,he was past his best when we signed him..Hughes took a gamble on him,and fortunately it paid off.

How can it have paid off if he was/is past his best?

Benni is 30, hardly old for a striker. Chelsea wouldn't have been looking to splash the cash on him if he was that bad.

I'd hate to hear what your going to say about Tugay or Brad if you think Benni is past it.

[tcj_jones]

Plenty of criticism for Hughes and calls to get rid of x y and z. But can any of our armchair managers inform us all of exactly how to motivate the players when most of whom will prob have had their agents on the blower during the last month or two saying that if they can get out of their Blackburn contract in Jan they can do a Lucas and earn far more at other more desperate Prem clubs? I've said it before and imo financial unrest will be at the root of it all.

On the basis of that argument, more than half the teams in the Premiership would be hugely underperforming and would be showing cracks in the dressing room! By your logic, every Christmas period for however many years, Rovers players would become disatisfied and performances would decline, but seemingly forget the money as soon as the window closed? Last season we had a good run of results toward the end of the season that enabled us to finish in 10th, which reflected more a determined squad than one suffering from financial unrest, so what I write must be correct?

Players aren't quite as stupid and as easily manipulated as you suggest and don't suddenly become disillusioned on the basis of the January transfer window opening. I'd suggest that the vast, vast majority are happy at Rovers, while many of the better players have recently signed extended contracts on higher wages.

[Iceman]

He wasn't past his best when we signed him - and that was your point. and Rocky?

Lmao,Rocky? I can tell u now Benni was heading downhill before we signed him.You watched his games for South Africa and u can see he has lost the plot.

[Ronin]

If Benni is showing disinterest, considering his age and how far he's into his contract, selling him now or in summer could be worth doing as we would at least get a decent valuation for him.

[den]

Lmao,Rocky? I can tell u now Benni was heading downhill before we signed him.You watched his games for South Africa and u can see he has lost the plot.

Your point was this "So he has to make to with trialist,loans and freebies and hope that they are any good."

You put McCarthy and Rocky into that catageory then, fair enough. Why did you laugh at Rocky?

[modes98]

I can tell u now Benni was heading downhill before we signed him.You watched his games for South Africa and u can see he has lost the plot.

Benni had been desperate for a transfer away from Porto to the premiership for 2 seasons. His last season at Porto he hardly put the effort in and wasn't rewarded. I don't think that means he is on a downward spiral, just that he needs motivation and his goal record for us proves that even further.

I am over the moon that South Africa don't want him in their squad, we would be a much poorer team without him and his goals.