Re: The Football Chat Thread : Fri Oct 29, 2010 9:13 am  

http://www.weaintgotnohistory.com/2010/ ... journalism A good read for anyone who likes laughing at the English media. Something Mark might actually enjoy reading about Liverpool, for once.

http://www.weaintgotnohistory.com/2010/ ... journalism A good read for anyone who likes laughing at the English media. Something Mark might actually enjoy reading about Liverpool, for once.

Re: The Football Chat Thread : Fri Oct 29, 2010 10:17 am  

Lord God Jose Mourinho wrote:

What stupid nonsense that Hughes made a pigs ear of it. He was on course to achieve the same finish that Mancini did. Citeh were in a poor run when he was fired, but they'd have probably got out of that run and finished the same with Hughes as they did with Mancini.

Mancini is a better, more experienced manager than Hughes. Citeh have probably been justified in replacing Hughes with Mancini. But to say Hughes was making a pigs ear of the job is just ridiculous.

I know a sight more about City than you, and about what went on behind the scenes, especially with regard to his treatment of individual players, of which I'd probably better not post stuff on here.

But let's look at the bleeding obvious shall we? How much money was Mark Hughes given to spend? Out of the players that he bought, how many players would have made a top four team?

He squandered vast amounts of money on, the following average players; and we'll start by the players he will try and wriggle out of responsibility for; ie Jo and Robinho, then there was Zabaleta, Lescott, Bridge, Barry, Adebayor, De Jong, Wright-Phillips, Given (vastly over-rated in my opinion, awful control of his defenders). That's by my account, just off the top of my head, £175 million to transform a 9th placed team into a 10th placed team, and one that was sat in 8th, leaking soft goals like there was no tomorrow, when he left in the December, having won 1 out of 11 in a run when we only played one single decent side.

The only two signings that he made that would get anywhere near the first team of Chelsea or United were Tevez and Kompany. The rest, he utterly squandered.

Mancini has had no more money thrown at him but hasn't made a duff buy yet. Granted, Kolarov, Boateng and Balotelli have hardly been seen because of injury but they can't fail to be a site better than their positional rivals which are Bridge, Zabaleta and Adebayor.

Mancini has also managed to salvage players who were completely lost and going nowhere under Hughes; i.e K.Toure and Richards.

Mark Hughes made a pigs ear of the job.

Re: The Football Chat Thread : Fri Oct 29, 2010 11:00 am  

Did I not read a stat where Sparky had gained more points in the first 19 games of last season as Mancini managed in the 2nd?

Interesting view on some of your signings D.D. You really can't apportion any blame of the Robinho signing on Hughes. That was purely the owner showing he had the money to do what he wanted. Shay Given is a top drawer keeper and De Jong seems to be highly rated when he isn't trying to snap legs and kick peoples heads off.

Re: The Football Chat Thread : Fri Oct 29, 2010 11:51 am  

D.D. wrote:

I know a sight more about City than you, and about what went on behind the scenes, especially with regard to his treatment of individual players, of which I'd probably better not post stuff on here.

Really? My brother was in City's youth team and on the fringes of the first team during Hughes tenure and he has nothing but praise for Hughes and says all of the playing staff of the senior squad to a man, felt the same and were absolutely gutted when he went.

Re: The Football Chat Thread : Fri Oct 29, 2010 12:12 pm  

D.D. wrote:

That's by my account, just off the top of my head, £175 million to transform a 9th placed team into a 10th placed team, and one that was sat in 8th,

Citeh were in 6th place when Hughes was sacked. If you have to lie about basic facts to make a point then perhaps you shouldn't try and make a point at all.

Re: The Football Chat Thread : Fri Oct 29, 2010 12:57 pm  

Lord God Jose Mourinho wrote:

Citeh were in 6th place when Hughes was sacked. If you have to lie about basic facts to make a point then perhaps you shouldn't try and make a point at all.

We were in 8th place when the decision was made in the midweek after the Spurs game, we were in 6th place after the Sunderland game when it was officially announced.

If that's the best comeback you have got, then you haven't got any decent comeback at all have you?

Re: The Football Chat Thread : Fri Oct 29, 2010 1:05 pm  

El Pac Carnegie wrote:

Did I not read a stat where Sparky had gained more points in the first 19 games of last season as Mancini managed in the 2nd?

Interesting view on some of your signings D.D. You really can't apportion any blame of the Robinho signing on Hughes. That was purely the owner showing he had the money to do what he wanted. Shay Given is a top drawer keeper and De Jong seems to be highly rated when he isn't trying to snap legs and kick peoples heads off.

Not sure on the first one. It is possible as our bottle clearly went over the closing stages. What is certain is that Mark Hughes, with all that money spent, won FOUR away league games in all of his eighteen month tenure. Mancini won that in the next three or four months.

Shay Given flatters to deceive. One of the best shot stoppers I have ever seen but his command of the box and communication with defenders often left them all at sea. Joe Hart is a significntly better all round package.

Nigel De Jong is excpetionally highly rated by those at City who don't study his game enough to notice that he goes completely missing away from home and his impulsive tackling and his exceedingly slow brain can often put us under unnecessary pressure and his slow release of the football often stops a possible attacking move from materialising.

Re: The Football Chat Thread : Fri Oct 29, 2010 1:08 pm  

MacBlondie wrote:

Really? My brother was in City's youth team and on the fringes of the first team during Hughes tenure and he has nothing but praise for Hughes and says all of the playing staff of the senior squad to a man, felt the same and were absolutely gutted when he went.

I would imagine a lot of his favoured players would have been very upset to see him go as that would have been the end to the picnic of a life they had been having for eighteen months.

Re: The Football Chat Thread : Fri Oct 29, 2010 1:08 pm  

El Pac Carnegie wrote:

Did I not read a stat where Sparky had gained more points in the first 19 games of last season as Mancini managed in the 2nd?

Interesting view on some of your signings D.D. You really can't apportion any blame of the Robinho signing on Hughes. That was purely the owner showing he had the money to do what he wanted. Shay Given is a top drawer keeper and De Jong seems to be highly rated when he isn't trying to snap legs and kick peoples heads off.

We won our first four matches last season. Then opponents got wise to our weaknesses, particularly in defense, and our performances and results declined. We went on a terrible run of draws against teams that mainly finished in the bottom half of the division.

We didnt start this season as well as last year, partly due to injuries. The World Cup affected all teams' preparations for the season but it probably affected us more than most because we were bringing in new players and adapting to a switch from 4-4-2 to 4-2-3-1. Hence we started slowly.

At this stage of last season we were starting to go downhill. Despite last week's result I think we have steadily improved this season, look to be well placed to embark on a strong run and really should finish this season with at least 10 more points than last season.

I dont share DD's low opinion of Hughes. I think he's a decent manager and I was appalled by the manner of his sacking. But he did seem to be powerless to stop our bad run last year and didnt seem to be capable of addressing the fundamental weaknesses in our defense. By contrast Mancini seems to be much more in control, more tactically aware. I've never been a great one for advocating that a manager should be sacked, but I do think that Mancini is a better manager than Hughes.

Re: The Football Chat Thread : Fri Oct 29, 2010 2:50 pm  

aaaaand its back. The TV programme where the "special one" on here gets all his material from http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/special1/201 ... oming.html

aaaaand its back. The TV programme where the "special one" on here gets all his material from http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/special1/201 ... oming.html