I am extremely disappointed not to have been given the opportunity to see through my plans at the Club. At the beginning of the season I sat down with the owners and it was agreed that a realistic target for the season would be 6th place in the Barclays Premier League, or in the region of 70 points. All of this was communicated to the players and we all knew where we stood. Whilst everyone at the Club would obviously have wanted to see more wins, we were absolutely on target at the time of my dismissal. Only recently we had terrific victories against both Arsenal and Chelsea.This is the key point here. Not only was Hughes not allowed to meet the targets set for him in the first place, but he was on course to meet those targets. This is what makes the decision to sack him in December not just a dumb one but a pretty devious one too.
Sunday, 20 December 2009
Hughes' statement
He's broken his silence via the LMA. And this is the most important bit:
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3 comments:
Hi Jack, I always enjoy your blog, and can see you're not happy with current events. I have a different take on it as I wrote here. I never really bought the '6th place is our target' thing. It just didn't ring true for luring the likes of Tevez and Toure away from sides aiming for the title. They'd be even more mercenary than previously thought if all we were aiming at was the Europa League for next season, and why were the players "at each others throats" if everything was going ok? Hughes is perfectly within his rights to put a positive spin on things, but his body language and post match interviews suggested he knew the draws and soft goals weren't good enough.
I agree about Marwood. Anyway, if you fancy some cross-blog discussion, I'd be interested to know what you thought of my take on it all. Cheers.
it's ironic that hughes actually got a couple of things right in his last game - giving roque the full game (it was good to see a physical presence leading the front line); then bringing on kompany to do a NdJ like protection for the back-line. but it all comes back to the defence, conceding three cheap goals like we did yesterday is just not good enough. yesterday at eastlands i literally screamed when the second went in i was so frustrated.
for what it's worth i think one reason he has been sacked is that the way this season is going, turning just three of those games that we should have won (fulham, burnley, hull) would see us competing in the top 3, not just around 4th-8th. when chelsea, united and arsenal are regularly dropping points, it's that sense of missed opportunity when the squad cost that much.
Excellent article posted by ESPN Man City Columnist Wallace Poulter at the soccernet website. Well worth a read for any City fan
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