Most liked posts in thread: Mark Hughes your football is...

if Vadaine Oliver, Lee Angol or Jake Young were even close to dislodging him, I'd understand the debate.

As it stands, there isn't one.

Cook all week, every week.

Not a question.

 

Its the one asset Hughes has upfront that is actually contributing regularly. And some want him dropped? I give up....

 

The clamour was starting to build around Harratt right before we sent him packing lol

It's just too tempting for some to assume a non-playing player must be ace, and needs an opportunity.

 

For me, MH is making the same mistake a lot of top players have made as managers, asking players to do things
they can't, then persisting when it's obvious a change of approach is needed.
We are not good enough to football our way out of this division, in L2 you have to win the battle first.
MH, by his own admission, doesn't want the team to get into battles as it's not their strong point, the opposition knows it and gets at us at every opportunity. Think where we would be without Lewis and Cook, who badly needs support.
I don't think I'm alone in thinking midfield is the major problem, ideally, it's the root of attack and defence, protecting the defence, and instigating and supporting the attack.
Let's not kid ourselves, we only play with a midfield 2, Wright, Banks, Chapman, Eisa and Pereira are wingers, they don't contribute to winning the midfield battle.
Gilliead and Smallwood are regularly outnumbered and the midfield is overrun. We need a midfield 3 with at least 1 positive Gary Jones type character.
Smallwood is very good at breaking up play and making an easy pass to a teammate, that's it, his game, we need an extra player, East for starters, to take it positively from there.
Also on Smallwood, his set pieces are woeful, surely we have someone who can do better. GH has been a set-piece coach and should be able to sort it.
Gilliead is a skillfull neat footballer who covers a lot of ground, but he is weak in the tackle and has never produced an end product, he should not be a starter, we need incoming.
So, win the battles, play three in midfield, play positive, and get others (incoming?) apart from Cook to contribute goals and improve set pieces.
All easier said than done, recognising what's needed will be a start.

 

Ok.... I'll do it.

"Oh no you're not"

 

Hughes has been well backed both on the field and with regards fans digging deep once more into their pockets, to be fair it's been average at best, most believing we'd be playing better football than we've seen so far, IMO we have one of the best squads in league two that I don't believe Hughes is getting the best out of, but yes I'll take it if we can get out of this league.

 

Until recently I've been 100% behind Hughes but hearing his post match interview against Stockport and picking players who really shouldn't be starting I'm begining to question if he can get us up this season, I'm not suggesting he's in danger of the sack but I'm getting more and more frustrated with regards his team selections and our resent performances.

 

Maybe he was making sure the “Hollywood” owner was aware of a very local, very experienced at the highest levels manager should the current manager be considered not quite famous enough.

In fact I think young Sparks should make a follow up call and arrange a manager swap with them.

 

Well, he's not going to say what we all think is he... ?

 

Amazing how a few posters can't wait to get a downbeat comment in.
Haven't even got the sense to wait till the end, and rightly end up looking stupid.

 

There is not enough minutes in a game for our managers style of play. Overplaying in areas where we can't damage the opposition, teams just stand back and watch our fantastic well honed skill of passing across the back line. Sad to say it's the main tactic of our play, or his play, they even do it when were chasing the game.

 

I know your losing the game and this style isn’t work so rather than changing it he keeps it going and we simply walk into another defeat I actually want him to succeed he comes across as a great guy but Fook me had that been an Adams team out there yesterday then he would have been torn to shreds over it

 

Well if he keeps it going at Donny and it's not going well i think 4.500 city fans will let him know in no uncertain terms, and it won't be pleasant.

 

Wasn’t a lucky win. Was well deserved and we were far and away the better side yesterday. 2 or 3 nil wouldn’t have flattered us. Donny had a 10 minute spell in the second half as you would expect from the home side, but other than that, was a routine win.

 

It's completely beyond me that MH can't see that we need to start with our most attacking line-up at home. It's not as if his timid approach at home hasn't been shown time and again to be self-defeating and ineffective.

 

I'm all for keeping a successful line up but it's one primarily set up to play away from home, which has been very effective to the point of getting us in the playoffs. At home however.its like having teeth pulled. We've yet again managed to make a below average side struggling near the playoffs look way better than the sum of their parts. To let a team in that position dominate the first half when you are battling for top three is unforgivable. Yet to be fair that first half didn't surprise me, I don't think we've played any different to that in most of the games I've seen this season. We've just been lucky teams haven't taken their chances.

 

The tweaks I think are needed, largely at home:
Drop the goal kick routine. It causes more problems for us than the opposition, prevents us getting up the pitch and maintaining pressure and gives encouragement to the opposition.
A smaller squad with more quality. Get some proper pace into the side.
Play with greater intensity at home.

Tbh, given our home form, our style of play at home needs more than tweaks.

 

Mark Highes is just a name from a bygone era.

 

Think we see things differently (which isn’t a bad thing), I’d say we change tactics and / or formation because they don’t work. They’re not working.
We have a big budget, we’ve lost three on the bounce (I know in isolation that’s not the worst run in the world) - but the run before that was somewhat fortuitous.
We don’t score enough, the midfield and defence don’t contribute, we don’t entertain (it’s neither fast flowing fancy football nor blood and thunder gutsy have a go football).
I want to be entertained, my friends and family want to be entertained.
I’m not being entertained.
And we should be pissing this league now. I agree Gilliead isn’t fit for purpose. Part of me thinks you might be right about Smallwood.
On which note - you’re more about tweaks to personnel whereas I’m more inclined to change tactics.
Clearly Gilliead is one, which other positions would you see we need to improve on or change (it’s hard to argue against any right now from midfield forwards)?

 

I don't want rid. But I do want to see him being humble enough to adapt and recognise that his
preferred style doesn't work at this level.

Simply put, he's being outperformed by several managers, who have no greater length of tenure, and despite being backed well. He needs to up his game.