Steven Reid is going to fill in at Forest for now, it'll be interesting to see how it develops.
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Hughton has had a mixed career, but what he did with Birmingham was decent, did very well to get Newcastle promoted in record fashion and was harshly sacked, and he had success keeping clubs in the EPL (clubs for whom EPL survival is a good season).
He did poorly with Forest, but in terms of the kind of manager we can hope to attract (somebody with decent achievements in the past but currently with a drop in form), he's at the upper end of the scale I'd say.
He still represents a serious upgrade on Kenny in my eyes.
....and Brighton don't forget where they lost out in one play-off (ahem) and then got promoted and kept them up there. His management successes far outweigh the failures. His job at Forest was a very difficult one trying to keep up an ailing team with no investment. If Kenny were to go, I'd be more than happy with him as a replacement.
The underlying premise of that article, which is that Stephen Kenny and Graham Potter are of a similar level in terms of management ability, renders the rest of what he says largely irrelevant to be honest. If you choose to start your analysis from that position, it's easy to come to all kinds of conclusions that have no basis in reality.
While checking something else, I happened to notice that since Chris Hughton was dismissed, there is now only one ROI manager still working in the entire 92 x PL and EFL clubs, the 62 y.o. Mick McCarthy. (Technically speaking, there's also Steven Reid, though he's said just to be keeping the seat warm for Steve Cooper.)
As it happens, there are currently 8 x Scots, 5 x NI and 4 x Welsh (though Cooper would make it 5):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...eague_managers
Forget the bookies - they're always more influenced by weight of punters' bets than an objective appraisal of a team's chances, and Forest have a lot more fans following them - and betting on them - than most other teams in the division.
Nor do I set much strore by Hughton's "failure" at Forest - with 14(?) permanent managers in 10 years, it's clear that this was "a snowball which was already much nearer the bottom of the hill than the top", meaning that by the time CH got there, it was already huge and had gathered enormous speed.
Much more pertinent imo was why he took the job in the first place, since he must have known the scale of the task and the owner's impatience.
It suggests to me that he wasn't being offered anything better, just lesser clubs in the lower leagues. And while many individual club owners are dipsticks, collectively they must know a bit, including whether a given manager is still up to the job at a given level.
While at the same time, and even with so many managers out of work, Forest were probably struggling to attract a younger, up-and-coming manager than Hughton.
None of which is to say he wouldn't make a good ROI manager: maybe being less intense and 24/7 than the club scene, international football mighr suit him now he's in his 60's?
Sure. Odds are not fixed and are moved by “opinions”.
As for Ireland manager, our struggles are in the creative – not the structural, defensive aspects. Hughton’s strength is in the structural – (with a jaded feel mirroring his age?) Kenny’s contract has another year to run. Might as well see if Kenny can turn positive aspects into results between now and then with WC qualification gone. CH will still be available in a year’s time.
If Michael O’Neill became available and wanted the job I’d be happy for him to get the job.
Yes. Thats true
I agree. Yet incredibly, Stephen Kenny retains 82% fan support, say the polls. If sacked he'll become a martyr to legions of dreamers. Any subsequent success will owe it all to Stephen's trailblazing, vision, courage and stoicism. Failure, of course, will be the wages of giving our Stephen the boot.
even though MO'N had a very similar record (1 win in 15) in the NI job at the same stage SK is at now?
most fans are realistic. We know the FAI cant afford another high profile manager and are willing to give SK a chance, for this campaign at least, to see if some of our promising young players come good internationally.
it cant always be the managers fault that our record over the last 4 years is poor. we have had three different managers in that time and yet we have had poor results most of the time in that period
Don't know enough about SK's games to comment on him, but be assured, NI's early performances under Michael were, with one or two exceptions, MUCH better than the results indicated eg:
“There was no question of us making a change after the first campaign because we could see Michael was generating potentially good results,” says [IFA CEO Patrick] Nelson, a former chief executive at Notts County and Macclesfield Town. “We were never really out of games in that first campaign and there is an interesting statistic to back that up. If the games had finished after 75 minutes we would have got double the points we ended up with. One of the things Michael needed to do before the [2016] European Championship qualifying campaign was instil belief in the players and he told them: ‘You can do it until the 75th minute of a game, so why not do it for 90?’ That made a difference. That is the sort of thinking and analysis we knew Michael had on his first day."
https://www.theguardian.com/football...ff-switzerland
And as well as the 'Blazers' at the IFA, the fans generally stuck by him and not from any particular sentiment of wanting to see a "local" lad get on, as may be the case with some of SK's (LOI) supporters.
Most importantly, the senior players in the squad - Davis, McAuley, Brunt etc - could see where he was going and stuck by him.
As for Michael managing the ROI, that simply won't happen, even if they were to come up with some more MONROY money from Denis O'Brien etc.
If he is to return to international football (a possibility imo), it will only be after he's given club football a right good go, with my suspicion/guess that it will be in a CEO position, ideally with the IFA - tellingly, he's already gained a qualification in Football Directorship.
NI finished on 7 points. The 75 mins reference is arbitrarily chosen to put generated potential results in the best light.
If games finished on 75 mins, the points tally would have been 12.
70 mins = 11 points.
80 mins = 7 points.
(Need for games to finish on 55 mins to knock off home and away defeats to Azerbaijan.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_F...3_UEFA_Group_F
Anyhow, don’t see Michael O’Neill as offering more than Chris Hughton/ Martin O’Neill/ Mick McCarthy tbh.