Next manager

Amazing what a difference one performance makes. Including cup games we’d won 2 out of 10 games (excluding penalty shootouts) and played well in less than 2. Hughes get’s credit for finally going for it yesterday and we can only pray that he kicks on from here but the reality is it’s taken him 10 games and virtually no entertaining football to arrive at yesterday. The bar has been raised by him and we live in hope but after watching 70 plus games under his stewardship, yesterday was not the norm. Hope he banishes my doubts.

 

Absolutely
He's now seen as some kind of hero for doing what most on here said he should have done months ago and taken the handbrake off imagine that performance in the play offs last season we could now be a L1 side
Am not convinced he will continue yesterday's strategy (I think he got the hard word)!! and still want him out but only time will tell
No ones asking the question why he did it yesterday and not before some are saying it's because Cook was back, what happened in earlier games/last season when he was playing it's all down to Mr Negative his way or the highway approach
Hope am wrong and more than prepared to eat humble pie but fear yesterday against a below par Newport side won't be the norm
Enjoy it while you can

 

I've been having a giggle at this thread and laughed even louder when you wrote "I think he got the hard word".

His 2023 record, is just seven defeats in thirty-six matches. Unless we're suddenly following the Watford approach to managers, what "word" to you think of CEO had? .

While you're at it. Point out the last season that changing the L2 manager, after the start of the season, worked. I've gone back as far as the 2015/16 and found a single occurrence.

 

So pleased I managed to give you a chuckle

 

The difference yesterday was Newports approach if all teams came at us like that we would look a different side. It will be back to grinding it out next weekend

 

But if you listen to Hughes post match interviews the team practiced what they were suppose to do against both Grimsby and Harrogate all week yet failed to execute it in the game.

 

Away from home I think (as Hughes himself pointed out) the home team has to take it to the opposition hence why our away record was excellent last season, unfortunately he is going to get teams coming to Valley Parade and park the bus, both Parky and Stuart when he continued that good home record Parky had started so you have to find away of getting around it, and if it means shaking it up as we did yesterday then so be it.

 

In both those matches, Smallwood started and in both those matches, he was constantly passing backwards or sideways or telling the players to slow things down. I imagine as a player in those circumstances it's difficult to execute instructions to be more creative in the final third when the ball is rarely making it's way into that area of the pitch. If Smallwood gets back into the starting 11, I imagine we will see a return of laboured performances with very little end product.

 

Spot on Dave.

It's highly amusing that fans think that they make any change to a managers football philosophy.

I found the Harrogate performance, one of our better ones. Just very frustrating because we had no end product.

 

That last line should say "...NOT found a single occurrence".

 

A fair set of questions Onside. In response, a manager loses his job if he is clearly out of his depth and his team isn't at a competitive level with little sign of improvement. Off the back of this, results are what everyone is ultimately judged by. Consistently losing and looking nowhere near the level required then a managers dismissal is understandable. For me, Hughes is not in this situation.

With regards to Parky not having the same budget. Well yes true, he had physically less to spend however it's also not true. His budget was still top end League 2 at the time and therefore as competitive as Hughes' budget is today - you don't get players like Nathan Doyle and Davies on the cheap. The money available 10 years on has increased across the division and Bradford maintain a budget at the top end of that and that's kudos to Sparks, Rupp and team.

As for your final point. Hughes made huge progress last season. A play-off finish was definitely a step in the right direction. This season, it's been a stodgy start - to coin a term used by WoAP - and the entertainment value has hit a new low. People's frustrations - particular following off the back of play-off disappointment - is very much understandable. Patience is evidently in short supply, but if I take you back to my first response, is it really a disaster and unrecoverable?

Yes performances need to improve, but I maintain the mantra that you hold your nerve and work through the tough spell, especially when your manager has a solid record for the club. Hopefully this can happen and yesterday's performance and result was a step in the right direction. Obviously one win and good performance does not instantly dismiss certain people's concerns, so we will just have to hope this standard can be maintained throughout for much longer - preferable throughout the entire season.

 

You made a good point earlier, last week we had the ball with talented young players who lacked the experience and a bit of physicality to break them down. But usually we play not to lose and not enough intensity

 

I've never believed that Hughes sends them out with a 'not to lose' philosophy.

The way we play, is not too dissimilar to how Leyton Orient played last season, i.e. Wellens also likes possession based footie. The difference was, they made it work better than us, but note they didn't score any more goals.

I think this complaints about 'safe play' is a constant moan of fans who are going for L2 promotion and has been for years. The problem is, if you make attacking your priority - then you end up like Mansfield last season, Swindon always and what Wrexham are discovering, a tendency to leak goals and no promotion.

 

I was prepared to give him until October so the team could settle down. However, like you I want to see improvement which normally is visible to fans on a weekly basis. Up until yesterday I hadn’t seen any and if anything we had dropped back.
I am really not a sack the manager type of fan. Although I was very pleased to see Adams go, but then I didn’t want him appointed in the first place. I fully supported the Board in appointing MH I actually thought he is the manager we have been waiting for. Last week I was wondering whether he would make October. Yesterday was a great game and I loved it. Hopefully, we can build on this result but as the saying goes 1 swallow doesn’t make a summer.

 

Adams simply had to go. Like you say, yesterday was a start and a sign of promise. We move on to the next game with that little more optimism.

 

Yes but there is a happy medium unfortunately at times we finish the wrong side of that

 

It will certainly be interesting with regards Smallwood, just keep getting results and performances and it will be difficult for Hughes to change a lot, maybe as I posted Smallwood may get a run Tuesday night, but anyone who saw yesterday game could see we were much quicker trying to get the ball forward, and loved Cooks second from the long ball bullying the Newports Declan Drysdale.

 

I half thought that the ref might pull it back for a free kick when Cookie was getting his shirt pulled...

 

Yes I thought overall Mr Davies had a good game, from what I've seen so far this season it looks like the lower league teams are learning faster than certainly the Premier League players with their rolling about trying to make out their badly injured the referee ignores them the ball goes to the other end of the pitch and their quickly on their feet again.

 

I hope you're right about Tuesday, we need to keep McDonald fit and fresh for the league games.