[Archived] Hughes Out

[joey_big_nose]

A few weeks ago we played Liverpool, didn't win, but made the whole of Blackburn feel proud. It was a great performance, both technically and passionately, and had pretty much summed up how far we'd come under Hughes and what we had achieved.

In 2004, Hughes came in and inherited a very poor side, and a pretty poor squad overall. In 18 months he had transformed us, and made us in to a top eight side. We then lost the catalyst in Bellamy, and Reid who had arguably been our best midfielder. It made things tough for a while, but other fringe players came good (most notably Bentley) and Hughes again did wonders in the transfer market in January. We started this season with out best squad in around 5 years.

I am completely behind hughes but I think it is well worth pointing out that in 2003 we had an outstanding squad who had finished sixth and run the top four close. Dunn, Duff, Short, Gresko, Thompson, Cole, Berg, Yorke (who had a very good season 2002/2003), Neill, and (of course) Freidal and Tugay. You could actually easily argue that Hughs has not actually achieved anymore than Souness has yet.

By the start of 2004 those same players(with three notable losses in Dunn, Berg and Duff and some less notable additions) were considered absolutely shambolic. Of course poor dealtings in the market were part of it but also a squad that had been largely excellent was now largely poor. Why? It is hard to exactly say. My only point is things change lightning quick in football.

[Eddie]

I am completely behind hughes but I think it is well worth pointing out that in 2003 we had an outstanding squad who had finished sixth and run the top four close. Dunn, Duff, Short, Gresko, Thompson, Cole, Berg, Yorke (who had a very good season 2002/2003), Neill, and (of course) Freidal and Tugay. You could actually easily argue that Hughs has not actually achieved anymore than Souness has yet.

I'm not saying Hughes isn't the better manager, but so far Souness has achieved more as he has a cup to his name.

[Mozzer]

to be honest, i cant even believe their is a thread of "hughes out", its absolutly ridiculous fans would call mark hughes..he has completely turned us around, and without him we would be in championship by now..

okay we will lose a few games we are expected to win..but we will also win or draw games we aint expected to win...a couple of defeats and people are calling hughes..well all i say, is thank god you aint the manager or anything..

[rebelmswar]

I'm not saying Hughes isn't the better manager, but so far Souness has achieved more as he has a cup to his name.

Is there anyone that knows the comparison of transfer funds available to each and how much each has spent? I think we will see that there is a huge difference there and could be cause for the apparent success. I am not arguing and slighting anyone but I remember Souness having copious amounts of money in comparison to Hughes.

[John]

Hughes is still a young manager and he is making mistakes. I just hope he reflects on things.

The key for Hughes is to not make the same mistakes again.

Overall, we are still nicely poised in the league. However, we have got to be careful not to lose much more ground, or we will be leaving ourselves too much to do (for top six position).

Will be interesting to see how he handles the so called unrest (and problem players) within the club.

Edited December 17, 2007 by John

[philipl]

I think it started as a joke Mozzer.

Reasons to be gloomy- Sparky ran out of ideas spectacularly at the end of his time with Wales.

Reasons to be positive- if Sparky wants a stellar career this has to be a very good season because of all the hype and attention he has attracted. If Rovers tail off in the Prem and don't win a cup, I doubt Roy Keane will spend the next £20m transfer money at Sunderland as badly as the first lot and Keane would overtake Hughes as the best up and coming British manager around leaving Hughes in a Coppell-type limboland. I also think the Trustees and the Board will back Sparky 100% if he goes asking for support.

Edited December 16, 2007 by philipl

[thenodrog]

Theno, Jim, Shillitto.

Cut out the insults, then try again.

Right thats it! All I want to do is make posts and not have em continually deleted. My transfer request will be on your desk tomorrow!

[Eddie]

Is there anyone that knows the comparison of transfer funds available to each and how much each has spent? I think we will see that there is a huge difference there and could be cause for the apparent success. I am not arguing and slighting anyone but I remember Souness having copious amounts of money in comparison to Hughes.

Souness certainly had more money, but he also brought in more money through sales. Even with that taken out, he probably had a bit more, but not a huge amount. Also, I know that he was lucky to have Duff and Dunn (first version) in the team to sell anyway.

[philipl]

Right thats it! All I want to do is make posts and not have em continually deleted. My transfer request will be on your desk tomorrow!

Granted

[S15]

Souness took over a team who were in the bottom half of the second tier of English football, got us a high as 6th, won a cup, but fell away and left us just outside the relegation zone of the top tier.

Hughes can now go one of two ways, one which will see history lable him a less successful manager than Souness.

I am confident he'll go t'other, but I still fear for him, he's not proven himself at anything yet.

People say Souness was lucky to have Duff, well, at the end of this season we can evaluate Hughes over 3 full seasons, one of which he had his one outstanding match winner, Bellamy.

For arguments sake would 6th (With Bellamy), 10th and 10th-12th this season be that impressive? You decide, but I'd take 10th (with domestic trophy), 6th and 15th combined with a promotion.

This is perhaps more asking for some perspective on Souness, who I was always behind, as apposed to me trying to turn people on Hughes, who again I stress I totally support.

Edited December 16, 2007 by shillito15

[Mozzer]

well your saying what you prefer, maybe if hughes was given the backing souness had he would of done better..

has hughes ever had 6million to spend on one player?????

with what hughes has had , he has done fantastic....and to be where we are now is brilliant..if you look at everton, portmouth, newcastle , aston villa and newcastle, and how much they have had to spend, us sitting 9th in the league spending what, under 4million is a brilliant achievement....so we are going threw a rough patch..every team does it..we havent even dropped out the top ten..

so for me..saying hughes is running out of idea's etc etc is pretty damn lame(others who have said it, not you)...

[Eddie]

I said he looked like had run out ideas yesterday, whilst in recent weeks he has failed to make any changes to our very one-dimensional play despite the fact that it looks as if teams have figured us out. Now he may not be out of ideas, I hope he isn't, it was just my impression of him during this particular match.

[John]

I think that it is a testament to Hughes and the job that he has done here, that we are ninth in the league (4 points off sixth place), and some are acting like we are rock bottom of the table and in a major crisis.

Admittedly, our recent form has been shocking, but still a long way to go. Mind you, slightly concerned that we have a fully fit squad and we are struggling so badly. Last season, at least we had a major injury crisis to use as an excuse.

Edited December 16, 2007 by John

[Eddie]

What I think some of you aren't getting is that I'm worried not so much because of our league position, but more our current team, form and finances, particularly when compared to those around us. Now I think this is the same for several others who seem to be equally concerned. There's a long way to go, we are still within touching distance of the top 4 and top 6, so this could still be anything from a horrible season to a fantastic (I suspect it will more likely be mediocre to good), so the league position isn't really why I'm worried. What worries me more is the fact that we can't defend, particularly from set-pieces, which is a problem we've had now for a while. I'm also really worried by the lack of options in the centre of midfield. As far as I'm concerned these are the two most important areas on a football picth. Without a top quality striker you can be organised and defend and try and grind out a result and you can do the same thing without quality wide players. Without the ability to get the ball and keep it and without the ability to defend when attacked you can't really do anything, as was shown by the fact that we scored 3 goals away from home in the premiership and came away with nothing.

[DP]

4 points behind Liverpool still as well......

I was always behind Souness, right up until the last season that is.

He first couple of years he managed to get rid of dead wood , nuture our more talented players (Dunn, Duff, Jansen) and bring in some good experienced players for great value (Friedel, Tugay, Berg). He then brought in some good young blood when he signed Neill and Thompson. At the end of 2002/03 season we had a great squad. Then he fell out with Dunn, Yorke, and things started to go wrong. This is when the romance ended.

The thing is we have a much better squad of players now than we had at the start of the 2004/05 season. Souness failed to replace aging players (Berg, Short, Flitcroft), sold our better players (Duff, Dunn, Cole) and although some of the players he brought in had talent, he also failed to nurture that talent. Reid, Emerton and Thompson spring to mind here.

Hughes now has that test upon him where he may have to deal with unrest in the dressing room. But I'm willing to bet that he handles it a lot better than Souness did, and we finish this season a better team than the last one.

[Oklahoma]

I still have full confidence in MH.

We've had some bad results recently but he is still one of the best managers in the PL.

Hope he has the opportunity to get some new players in January (specially for midfield, in my opinion).

[LeChuck]

As anyone else getting tired of Hughes complaining about officials week after week? You can certainly see Alex Ferguson's influence on him on that respect, he would never acknowledge defeat either...I thought Sparky had a bit more class than the drunk Scot though.

We've only kept one clean sheet in thirteen games. One in thirteen! That's abysmal really, and the constant whining about outside factors is just trying to gloss over the fact that we have major problems of our own. Maybe we should have seen the warning signs against Larissa, instead we all chalked that down to a freak result.

[John]

Top managers say things in public for certain reasons on occasions. I am sure they say different things to players internally.

Some call it motivation and some call it mind games.

You will never get Hughes or most managers saying what they really think about their own team in public.

Edited December 17, 2007 by John

[LeChuck]

I'm not saying he should be criticising our players, but there should be a compromise somewhere. It's a little bit embarrassing to read headlines after the game like "Hughes: I couldn't speak to referee" after we've just conceded five against a p*** poor Wigan side.

I suppose you could argue that problem is as much down the headline writers as Hughes, but it's irritating nonetheless.

[John]

He is right though. Our reputation goes before us sometimes, this affects refs when giving us bookings. Plus the fact there was two offisde decisions which went against us (hence his hatred for refs is a combintation of reasons).

Don't find it irritating. He is standing up for our club.

He mentioned that our defending was unacceptable and that we are shipping in goals all over the place.

What more do you want him to do?

Edited December 17, 2007 by John

[LeChuck]

Try a different approach? Obviously the 'being hard done to' approach is getting us nowhere. There are plenty of managers who don't openly criticise officiating, maybe that's the better tactic for not getting on the wrong side of the men in black.

Actually I'm not even sure that applies to the offsides, linesman don't think "that's offside...but sod it, it's against Rovers so I'll let it go". The amount of yellow cards we receive could apply though, we're certainly no dirtier than other teams in the division anymore, and haven't been since Hughes' first season really.

Edited December 17, 2007 by LeChuck

[John]

Different approach would not work in my view. We have gone too far down this road now.

Plus the fact we have k*ob heads like Wenger who keep making negative public comments about our club.

[blue phil]

To be fair we've had plenty of good publicity in recent months to counter the likes of Wenger .

Hopefully Hughes will have something up his sleeve for the window . A quick thinking midfielder to benefit from Santa's holding up of the ball would be nice . It's damn worrying that only Bentley of the midfield is truly worthy of his place at the moment - and even he hasn't scaled the heights to be honest .

With regards to the back four - I'm confident that they can all regain their form , they're all good players . We all know that Reid should never have played right back on Tuesday ; that was a bad error against the Gunners but hopefully the rest is just a bad patch . If we can play decent for one half a game then we're capable of playing well for two ....

[thenodrog]

To be fair we've had plenty of good publicity in recent months to counter the likes of Wenger .

Hopefully Hughes will have something up his sleeve for the window . A quick thinking midfielder to benefit from Santa's holding up of the ball would be nice . It's damn worrying that only Bentley of the midfield is truly worthy of his place at the moment - and even he hasn't scaled the heights to be honest .

well for two ....

In fairness Dunny's been rifling in some decent strikes on goal too.

[John]

Think you are correct BP on the decent publicity we have had over recent months. Many newspaper articles and general talk on how good a team we are, how difficult we are to beat, how good Hughes is etc etc.

People are texting me at the moment saying what has happened to BRFC and what has gone wrong.

Fact is, we have played some ok teams recently, and if we can get another positive run going in the league, then things will be looking rosy in the garden again.

Its just the manner of defeats (or inability to keep clean sheets) which has been most concerning.

Edited December 19, 2007 by John