Saturday 20 December 2008
Must read in the Indy
Genuinely fascinating article by The Independent's City expert Ian Herbert here. It's mainly about Hughes' relationship with the players, but has interesting insights into transfer policy and so forth. It's so good and so new that I won't summarise it or quote from it, just link to it. Read it all, read it now. HERE.
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2 comments:
i read it as fairly damning indictment on Hughes people skills, i spoke to one of the young fringe lads at blackburn, he commented Hughes as being very unapproachable and strict, doesnt always rub well with foreign player especially.
all that was good last season seems to have disapated and dissolved so much that even one of the countrys greatest prospect looks a shadow of his former self.
there is a huge problem, i belivie stems from a clash of personalities and a dissaproving air from the player who are playing for a man they probably wouldnt of hoped for.
I have it on sound authority that Hughes is pretty much universally disliked among the majority of staff (his own staff excluded) and remains very aloof from pressing matters at the club. People naturally don't like change especially people who have been doing things their own way successfully for a long peiod before a new manager's arrival.
But perhaps change is needed, and even successful parts of the club can be better and must constantly strive to improve. But at what cost? Alienating the core of what Manchester City Football Club has depended on and become over the last decade? If part of the club is not broke should you risk breaking it by trying to change it? Maybe it doesn't matter in the long run with people finding new ways of working together more harmoniously, and we all know that if success is delivered on the pitch then that is the best silencer of disquiet among the ranks.
However a question I ask is can somebody who has no track record or pedigree in terms of trophies come in and be such a hard task master in the modern game? If he is trying to emulate the bacon face approach he may find he will not be given sufficient time to put in place the foundations. Bacon face already had considerable managerial pedigree from Aberdeen and was afforded 4 whole seasons until he won a trophy in an infinitely more patient less media obsessed age at OT.
Management isn't all about running a military style training regime to get players in the best condition. It is also as much about tactical nous, man management skills and having both presence/aura and respect in the dressing room. Hughes appears very uncomfortable talking to the media also and very often his spoken interviews don't make the greatest sense if you actually think about what he has just said. I just hope this is a natural shyness of an unassuming man that doesn't particularly like the spotlight and is not indicative of his dressing room communication skills, particularly with players from a league of nations.
Sadly I think if Sven was the manager and Hughes was his coach/number 2 we may have the perfect management team, with experience and youth, pedigree and new ideas, an ambassador and gentleman and with Hughes the diligent quite man.
Robinho this week commented that if Hughes was a manager in Brazil then he would no longer be in his job and although the article was spun to read as a backing of Hughes, I for one am certainly not convinced.
When I looked at the fixture list before the rags game I said to people that after we play this game we have a run of over 10 games in which we could feasibly win them all or go unbeaten on paper until the next "big four" game in February. However we have contrived to only pick up one point from the ensuing 2 league games following the derby surrender and we appear to be getting worse rather than tangibly improving.
The next 3 games are vital, West Brom, Hull City and Blackburn, and it is not inconceivable we could pick up maximum points from those which would probably have us situated in the top 7 at the turn of the year. Things can change quickly in football and I can only hope for everyones sake that we really start to put a solid unbeaten run together now. That is the only way to answer the critics and have everybody, supporters and staff included, pulling in the same direction.
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