Having him in the same category as Neil Lennon is a bit mad!!
He won the championship with Newcastle and in 2016 got automatic qualification with Brighton
Hes not perfect but the perfect candidate for us just doesn't exist anymore
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Didnt Lennon get Celtic into the Champions League knockout stages beating Barcelona along the way in the group? Still doesnt mean I'd want him anywhere near the Ireland job.
Roy Keane won the Championship with Sunderland, and again I wouldnt be calling for him to take over either.
And I answered all the points that you made - Ghana had been in freefall before Hughton took over and he managed to qualify for the AFCON
He is a nice man and an exceptional coach - and I notice that you didn't comment on the reason why the Ghanaian FA are planning on sacking him - because he wants to make major changes to the squad for AFCON to bring in younger players rather than rely on the dinosaurs that the bureaucrats want in the squad. That reason alone should elevate his standing.
You came out with this nonsense a couple of weeks ago -
He took over Newcastle in the Championship and won the championship with 102points. In the PL Newcastle played a broad expansive passing game - and despite Newcastle doing very welll in the PL Ashley sacked Hughton because his gambling buddy ran up big debts and Ashley was bailing him out by giving him a big contract.
Hughton took over at Brimingham in the Championship - they played in Europe and came fourth, losing in the play-offs.
He was poached by Norwich to replace Paul Lambert - but Delia Smith did her usual of tightening the purse strings and while it was a tough season, they finished 11th. In the second season he had even less money and a poorer squad - They battled relegation all season - but in April, and with Norwich five points above relegation with four games to play - the Norwich board panicked, sacked Hughton and got the club relegated.
Hughton then took over at Brighton who were a shambles after Sami Hyppia - he saved them from relegation - got them to the play-offs the following season - and then won automatic promotion with 93 points playing an exciting, passing game. In the PL Hughton was operating with a bottom 3 budget and finished 15th in the first season with what was effectively a Championship standard squad (and finished two spots above Southampton - where the entire first eleven were earning more money than the highest paid player at Brighton). In the second season he was still operating with a bottom three budget and like all clubs in the PL with that kind of a budget, they struggled to bring in quality players - most came in on free transfers. Once again - he kept Brighton in the PL. The fact that he managed to keep Brighton up those two seasons is quite remarkable - and he laid the foundations for Potter - Hughton was responsible for signing of Gross, Propper, Gyokeres, Bissouma, Burn, Steele, MacAllister, and he gave Liam Rosenior his start in coaching.
The less said about Forest the better - Hughton was sold a pig-in-a-poke by the owners - I think he made a mistake taking the Forest job and should have gone to WBA who were a much better run club at the time. At the start of the season when they lost all those games Hughton had 7 first team regulars out with injuries and was still trying to get Garner back in on loan. The team that Cooper had the last game of that season only had two players that started the first game for Hughton. Three months after sacking Hughton Forest were still stuck in 17th place (after another run of seven games without a win). The Championship is the type of division where if you string together 5-6 wins you can go from fighting relegation to the play-offs - and that is exactly what happened Forest (after they brought in more players in January).
But the Ghana job is another remarkable achievement for Hughton - the Ghanaian FA is riddled and rampant with corruption and he has made great strides sorting out a team that was in freefall for three years before he started working there. They had begun to turn a corner and doing a clearout of the squad was needed to continue the progress. Unfortunately it is clear that the Ghanaian FA bureaucrats as more interested in exercising their own power than in the team doing well - and Hughton would probably be well off out of it.
1. Hughton is still doing well today - he has just qualified an international team for a major tournament.
2. David O'Leary had a sh*tload of money to spend and he started with a squad at Leeds that had finished 5th in the PL the previous season. He didn't have to clean up a mess at the bottom of the Championship. In fact O'Leary spent more money on both Rio Ferdinand and Robbie Keane than Hughton spent on any player at Brighton 20 years later.
Hughton knows how to organise a defence - and by hell we need that - and he knows how to coach players (he is still one of the most highly regarded coaches in English football and would walk into practically any assistant managers job in the PL even today) - and that is just the type of manager Ireland need.
Would Chris Hughton be the best manager out there - probably not - the problem is that the FAI are going to be fishing in a very small pond - and Hughton ranks way above practically any other potential candidate who has been mentioned. The likes of Neil Lennon isn't fit to polish his boots.
Hughton has already been involved with FAI as player and as part of a management team
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Should it not be "not fit to lace his boots"? though I think it lessens the value of one's opinions when you belittle other manager's achievements and boost your own choices with a selective copy and paste from a wikipedia type cv.
His club career has had its ups and downs, yet the down parts always have a reasoned excuse offered to explain it away.
Norwich for sure he was prematurely sacked and the Newcastle sacking was bonkers., Brighton improved solidly after he departed, it was a decision which was well vindicated.
Regardless, I think Chris would be a very good choice to coach of the national team, he has the coaching and management credentials, possibly he could thrive in an environment where he just has to work with eligible players and be relatively independent - not having to deal with the complex vagaries of club management.
Yeah, its a fine post but if you are capable of walking into practically any EPL assistant role I don't think you end up in Ghana, simply put.
He is ( give or take ) twenty years younger than Trap, ten than MON and the same age as MickMack so he is in that bracket age wise we have seen several times where the game / life / whatever, moves beyond these guys while in the Ireland job, he represents a very real risk of that happening again. He stunk the place out at Forest to an extent he ended up where he now is, if it was only a few injuries and everything was about to be ok, he would have had those UK options and he would have chosen them. He didn't have them. Just because JRG shouts loudly and to be fair convincingly, there isn't any balance to his post, its not remotely objective.
Would he make things better than they now are, yes.
Is he the guy who can make us greater than the sum of our parts to the extent we need, no I don't think so.
Is he potentially a compromise candidate which the fanbase could unite behind as is badly needed, to be fair I think he could be, for a bit at least.
https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2023...inal-fixtures/
You have to wonder about Stephen Kenny's " Thinking " ? !
Does he any way possible think, that the Results or Performances were in any way good enough over the entire-ity of his run as Irish Manager ? !
He has been darned lucky to have kept the job for so long, and leaving with a bit of dignity would obviously be the best way to go ! !
Let’s not forget that Hughton was assistant to Kerr. He had Kerr’s ear, he had influence on how we played.
And to add balance to the praise of Hughton here’s some criticism:
Quote:
Chris Hughton’s style of play is reliant on a sturdy defence. He opts to sit back, soaking up pressure and winning the game by a slim margin. Unfortunately for Hughton this defensive mentality didn’t work and as Forest became leaky at the back, they became even worse up top.
Attacking creativity was nonexistent and there was no emphasis on creating scoring opportunities. Each game Forest would look poor going forward, hardly testing opposing keepers. So even in games when Forest were level they rarely looked like taking the lead.
His game management was also questionable. Substitutions would often be used too late in the game to have an impact, or he would use like-for-like substitutes that couldn’t change the game. For example, in the 2-1 defeat against Cardiff, Phillip Zinckernagel, one of Forest’s better players, was replaced by the inconsistent Joe Lolley while the game was level. Forest later went behind and Johnson was taken off for Alex Mighten, a like-for-like change when a defensive player could have been taken off for a more attacking threat.
His stubbornness to change his style never waived. Forest would fall behind and the system would remain the same: two holding midfielders and a defensive set up – which impeded all chances of getting back into the game. If Hughton was open to changing his game plan, Forest might have more than a point to their name.
https://thefamousclub.co.uk/2021/09/...ingham-forest/
Sounds familiar, no? Haven’t we seen enough of this style of play?Quote:
Hughton had insisted on playing his new 4-3-3 formation when it was obvious it wasn’t working. The changing room looked lost to him when Plucky Little Bournemouth inflicted a heaviest home defeat on Brighton since 1973 and Cardiff City then won 2-0 at the Amex three days later.
The football itself had turned from dull-yet-effective to downright boring. At times, you wanted to scratch your eyes out. …..
One of the major criticisms of Hughton was his style of football. Supporters had become bored of grinding out 1-0 victories, the atmosphere at the Amex was dissipating with each passing home game and if you were brave enough to go away, you knew that you’d be lucky to see a shot on target, let alone a goal. …..
Watching Hughton pick the same players and same formation every week in the second half of last season became something of a soul destroying experience.
From the moment that the Albion threw away a 2-0 lead to lose 4-2 in the snow at Fulham as January came to a close, it became obvious that Hughton’s decision to move to 4-3-3 wasn’t working. Even Stevie Wonder could see it.
And yet Hughton persevered until the end of the April with the new formation. Either he was blind to the problems it was causing – exposed full backs, Dale Stephens not suited as a single holding player, Pascal Gross’ effectiveness blunted by not being in the number 10 role, no options good enough to play as the two wide strikers alongside Glenn Murray – or he was too stubborn to return to 4-4-1-1…..
With Hughton, you knew that he wouldn’t change anything until at least 70 minutes had elapsed unless something was going seriously awry…..
Bloom has invested a significant amount of money into Brighton’s academy. Under Chris Hughton, it never really looked like Brighton would get a return on that investment, another factor which played a part in his sacking.
In his four-and-a-half years in charge, Hughton gave academy graduates just 18 minutes of league football…..
https://www.wearebrighton.com/newsop...n-one-year-on/
Kenny’s time is up but should we give up on the vision with a young and capable team coming through? Personally, my preference is for progression, not regression
If Gus Poyet was genuinely interested and we could afford him, then he would certainly be worth consideration.
There'll be plenty of championship jobs coming up over the next few months. Surprised Millwall didn't move for him or a couple of other lads like Mick Beale and Nathan Jones. Instead they appointed a 37yr old with no managerial experience except club underage and England U20s.
Though that hasn't affected Portsmouth who are top of League One and haven't lost a league game since March 14th. Their manager was still playing with Oxford United last season and retired mid season to take the job back in January.
For all we know a completely left field option could end up getting the Ireland job rather than some of the names being floated about. Canham supposedly being tasked with drawing up a shortlist and he'd know a few coaches from his time working with the Premier League.
Fair enough he was bad at Everton, the fans were on his back before the season started, but there's no way he was a disaster at the other two
Lost three games of the 25 games he was in charge at Real, topped their group in the champions league, winning five and drawing one. was third in the league when he was sacked, Real eventually finished second.
Newcastle were sinking fast when he took over in March 2016, and were relegated by a point. Got them promoted at the first attempt, and finished tenth in the PL the next season and thirteenth the following. Left because he couldn't work with Ashley, not the only manager to have that problem