Ireland sides with Hughes over Elano

The most interesting thing to come out of the Abu Dhabi tour so far - Stephen Ireland has been talking about the mood in the camp last year, and how Elano failed to get behind Mark Hughes' changes:

"He [Hughes] had it tough," Ireland recalls. "Some players didn't want to be there. Some players just didn't want to buy into it. Elano and Jô, they didn't want to put in the extra effort and it wasn't like it was that hard. It wasn't like you were being run like a dog, just that it was more professional and more based on team spirit, and these players didn't want to get into that stuff."

Elano was subsequently sold to Galatasaray. "Under Sven, Elano got away with anything," Ireland continues. "It was Elano's world, to be honest. The gaffer came in and there were massive changes, and Elano couldn't adjust. He's a great guy, a nice guy, I got on great with him, and he's a very talented player, but he could have added a lot more to his game and been a lot better than what he is."

I appreciate that over the year I've done this subject to death. Just the other week I wrote about Hughes' comments on the issue. Just to recap, I side with Hughes entirely on these issues. The Brazilian clique were disgraceful last season in their attitude, and Hughes was right to rout them as he did. His personal battle with Elano - the embodiment of all that Hughes perceived to be wrong with the Eriksson regime - was one of the key stories of 2008/09. Stephen Ireland, while relatively successful under Eriksson, embodied the key features of the Hughes mentalité (hard work, making the most of your talent, physical fitness, winning attitude) just as Elano did the same for Eriksson (occassional brilliance, lapses of laziness, unworldliness, individuality etc.)

So for Stephen Ireland to be as vocal and as public in support for Hughes over Elano is no real surprise. But this sort of public grievance-airing is unusual, at least in Garry Cook's professionally run MCFC. So it does offer an interesting insight into what things were like last season. And it gives steel reinforcement to my belief that Hughes was right to sell Elano.