New Manager

3 losses after this is what I meant!

 

Dont get me wrong, i am hacked off as much as everyone, but I think we are being a shade harsh on sparks because of the benefit of hindsight.

yes, his appointments have been bad, but I have been happy with most when they were made, bar giving mccall an extension on his last deal (and that may have been JR’s call??).

trueman and sellars led to better results and impressed during their caretaker period, so they deserved perm deals.

adams was a good appointment on paper. Had just taken morecambe up and dropped back to l2 to manage us.

hughes was a coup. Dont care what anyone says. We were buzzing when it happened, even though he’d been out of the game.

i want hughes out now and, yes, id class all as failed appointments - but i’m only able to say that with the benefit of hindsight.

 

I agree with this, as much as i'm no fan of Sparks i'm not sure what more he can do in this situation. Although there was an element of luck in the appointment of Hughes it was and still is a big deal bringing in such a big name in the football world. What happens on the field is largely out of Sparks hands, its up to Hughes and Gent to give us a team worth paying the entrance fee to watch.

 

sparks had no prior experience when he came in - remember when he was in the T&A banging on about how the player analysis and recruitment was massively in-depth like he had never seen before - and that team had us almost relegated. He’s a social media account handler who for some bizarre reason landed a CEO job. Whether it’s nepotism or just a sock puppet deal the guy is window salesman at best. We need someone in who knows how to run a football club - and can ensure all the workings behind the scenes are for the betterment of the club and not their own wallet - which our pre season tour definitely was - Sparks mate made a few Bob.

 

my view with Hughes AND Hodges changed with the play off game with Carlisle,put up with alarmingly shocking tactics all season and I would've been quite happy if another club came in for him and his mate to go. Take t#@t ,Gent with them ..,after 45 years ........I don't really care anymore .
I'm not throwing the toys out of the pram....I don't give a s#@t .....more important things to worry about .
I'm in Spain sat with Nott's c ,Carlisle and Stoke fans....and they can't believe Bradford fail with managers.

 

What more could/can he do with a self sustainable budget?

 

I totally don't have a clue anymore what the right decision is? Are we supposed to stick with a manager who appears to be failing despite having good resources? And all because we haven't stuck with anyone before? I'd love us to find a manager we can stick with but my opinion is MH is not that guy, don't get me wrong hopefully i'm way wrong and he crushes it, but my guess is he's not the guy.

 

I understand why we appointed Hughes. No doubt his appointment helped the increase in commercial revenue. After last season I sat back and thought maybe we give him a chance to build on the playoffs and finally build a squad that will get promoted. However, from what we have seen recruitment wise and performance wise so far, I don’t see any improvement and fear that we will only regress. I think now is the time to change. Move swiftly to bring someone in with the experience and know how of getting out of this division. I know we tried with Adams and failed but we really need a proven winner to drag us out of this division. I don’t think it really matters if they get us playing unattractive football. Simply get us into league one and then let’s start worrying about style of play.

 

Ok so 4 games isn't enough at all but today sucked and we need to win a couple now - what are you saying if next couple don't go well? Remove Hughes or stick with him? Or will you then go with Park that we need to give it 10 games (league or league and cup?)? Or will you link up with superfan alex who says we have to give Hughes all season? Muddled thinking!
Meanwhile Hughes says after each botched up performance we will learn (we don't), we'll get better (we don't), you won't see that again (we do) etc etc
I would love us to get a resounding win v Crewe but we won't because if we do get in front after 30 minutes it will be 60 minutes of torture as we sink deeper and deeper to hold what we've got - and this is life under Hughes. I'm fed up of some City fans saying they'll take any scraped win, even in bloody league 2 you can achieve more than this!
We are nowhere near being the fluent, entertaining team we could be because we haven't a clue what formation to play and the players jump in and out of round hole/square hole. They are far from excused and some of them did not resemble 'professional' footballers yesterday - but is Hughes draining the life and enjoyment out of them?

Maybe I am overreacting but I want to see some total clarity on what is being done to rectify this shambles and not just 'we need to give a little longer' whether thats 2 games or the whole season before we address things!

How do I now feel? As the Ad goes 'better?', 'better

Anyway time for bed

 

To be clear, I’m not saying the first 4 games have been good. I totally agree that the performances have been dire and if we were on the back of a dreadful previous season I could understand the calls for his head. However, we were within a few points of automatics last season and 2 games away from winning the playoffs. All ifs, buts and maybes but the point is Hughes got us pretty close last season and should be given the chance to build on that. 4 games isn’t much of a chance.

 

How many city points do you get if you win?

 

Hughes hasn't been here two weeks. He's been here 18 months. By now, we should've created a clear identity with regards to style and system but the truth is we have neither. Everything is muddled and constantly changing because he still doesn't know what works and what doesn't. Ironically, I'd say our most consistent run of performances came at the back end of his first season but since then, style and intent have deteriorated.

 

He won't be go8ng anywhere unless another club picks him up..........as for folk blaming Sparkes sorry bit this ain't his doing it's down to Hughes ..........I will be decked if any person didn't want him especially the way we ended 21/22 season ............. I remember the Tranmere game down to 10 men and still going after them............ that's what we thought we would be getting a side that goes after teams not this fooking shower of shite ............. it's time that Hughes just calls the whole squad together and let them voice there opinions on what's going wrong the best in the world have done this so why can't we ????? Folk on here have started pulling certain players to bits but not for me I believe this season like last season there is a team in there but one man is sadly stopping that from happening

 

Mark Hughes and Glynn Hodges have over eighty years experience of professional football between them, forty in managerial and coaching positions. Along with Gent, at the moment they are failing.

We appear to have recruited and trained to play a system that the players are struggling with. Recruited to a system that excludes two solid L2 footballers (Ridehalgh and Halliday) which appears to leave us defensively exposed. They've got a huge job to turn this around now. By turn it around I mean be challenging for promotion.

 

I like Ryan, and he has been successful for the club, so no moans from me. Yes hindsight is a wonderful thing. I want to try with splitting the CEO role and having a Football Director responsible for all things football related and who is responsible for hiring and firing managers and recruitment etc.,

 

If you take out the first 2 games he had in charge when he arrived, the points per game average for the remainder of that season and last, are identical. We qualified for the playoffs in spite of Hughes, not because of him. It was down to the individual excellence of Cook. I've had a quick look, and over the last 5 years the top scorer in this league has always been promoted, and has generally won the league. Its because they're usually succeeding within a framework that's succeeding too. Hughes had the gift of the best goalscorer in the league but we failed because Hughes couldn't put the other pieces of the jigsaw into place. Whispers that the players think he's arrogant and I've heard the same from elsewhere too, and there's a touch of it in his interviews. I'm done with him.

 

Halliday and Ridehalgh were never the problem last season although some take aim at the full backs as it's the unfashionable position on the pitch. The problem for me during Hughes tenure has been the failure of the central midfield. He's never really got the formula working where we dominate that area of the park and yet again this season I've seen team walk through the middle part of the pitch.

 

Should have got Evans in when we were looking last time. For all his misdemeanours in the past, its fish n chip paper now, it's old news, and I guarantee itd all be quickly be forgotten if he got us out of this league! He's a winner at this level, McAnthony knows it, told us we should have got him at the beginning of last season. Look what happened.

Simply, this!

Hughes has had more than enough time to establish and implement clear ideas, over 3 seasons now, yet we're further back now than we were when he first took the reigns. Let's look at that too, employed by chance as his agent (son) had touted him and his mail ended up in Sparkes spam box! Fan boy Sparkes was clearly in awe of the prospect of employing a manager who is clearly a playing legend, and has had the top jobs in the Premier League. He obviously assumed that would equate to success at L2 level! All the while, Darragh McAnthony was saying on a podcast, having watched his side pushing for the Championship, with far more recent success than us, that we should be looking at L2 winners, the likes of Wellens, Evans. In hindsight, both of these managers have lead teams to promotion since, with the exact styles needed to be successful at this level. Honestly fed up watching the smaller teams with a better plan in the first instance, pass us by....

 

Steve Evans or Richie Wellens. I think both would come, Evans certainly would. He wants the job and I think he'd do brilliantly.

 

Should have got Evans in when we were looking last time. For all his misdemeanours in the past, its fish n chip paper now, it's old news, and I guarantee itd all be quickly be forgotten if he got us out of this league! He's a winner at this level, McAnthony knows it, told us we should have got him at the beginning of last season. Look what happened.

Simply, this!

Hughes has had more than enough time to establish and implement clear ideas, over 3 seasons now, yet we're further back now than we were when he first took the reigns. Let's look at that too, employed by chance as his agent (son) had touted him and his mail ended up in Sparkes spam box! Fan boy Sparkes was clearly in awe of the prospect of employing a manager who is clearly a playing legend, and has had the top jobs in the Premier League. He obviously assumed that would equate to success at L2 level! All the while, Darragh McAnthony was saying on a podcast, having watched his side pushing for the Championship, with far more recent success than us, that we should be looking at L2 winners, the likes of Wellens, Evans. In hindsight, both of these managers have lead teams to promotion since, with the exact styles needed to be successful at this level. Honestly fed up watching the smaller teams with a better plan in the first instance, pass us by....

No chance now mate. He's got Stevenage promoted out of this dogshit league and singing in L1 now! Why would he drop down to take the poisoned chalice here?!