Hughton is a good manager, but was a bad fit for Norwich at the time

Paul Lambert had spent the previous three seasons putting together a courageous, swashbuckling, attacking side with incredible success. The squad was full of talented, technical, yet lightweight midfield players, who were far better on the ball than without it. Lambert signed attacking full backs and ball playing centre backs to compliment this. The set up under him worked as the sum of the team was better than its parts. For example; the style of play under Lambert allowed a lower league journeyman like David Fox to look like a superb playmaking talent with freedom given to play his way (statistically the best crosser in Europe in 11/12). As a consequence of this style and type of player, that Norwich team conceded a lot of goals, but also scored plenty too, which meant that league results were very good for three seasons (even throughout 11/12, there's a ridiculous myth on here that results were poor in the second half of that season). Lambert's work with the squad was fantastic and all it really required was some suitable upgrades in key positions which would improve the same set up.

Then Hughton came in and ruined all of that work. He spent the 12/13 pre-season trying to fix the defence at the expense of the entire team and the style of play that made it such a success, changing the set up to a rigid, deep, compact, negative system, denying our creative players the freedom to make fluid off the ball movements and incisive attacking moves. The team kept a couple of clean sheets that summer, but also struggled to score.

Then the season proper began and reality struck as Norwich were hammered by an average Fulham side, where it became obvious that the squad was ill suited to a physical, workmanlike, defensive game, with largely limited athletes and weak defensive technical abilities proving to be major shortcomings. Hughton was forced to make a couple of defensive signings (Bassong, Garrido) in a futile attempt to fix the problem, but it wasn't anywhere near enough as the entire squad required an overhaul to play a defensive style of football. A whopping 120 league goals were conceded over the next two seasons, despite setting up with such a constipated defensive system. I don't need to tell anyone on here how poor the attacking play was, which was down to Hughton's failed defensive tactics, meaning the team relied on pacey counter attacks due to the defence sitting so deep, despite a chronic lack of pace in the squad. Outside of a fluke ten game unbeaten run (which also included terrible negative performances vs dross, such as the 0-0 vs Reading, let's not pretend that was all wonderful, the incredibly lucky win vs a dreadful Arsenal too) where the planets and stars aligned, the first season was largely very bad.

Despite all of those issues, Hughton was given a (for the market at that time) very good budget to fix these problems so that he could mould the team in his style, with the promise that the quality of attacking play would improve. His second season signings were a mixed bag at best (being very kind) and the attacking play somehow became WORSE. Hughton completely failed to address the lack of pace up front, which meant that the team became even more negative and agricultural in possession due to a downgrade in striker quality (despite spending a fortune, hoof to Elmander became the most successful tactic), meaning a greater reliance on keeping clean sheets with a squad that lacked the personnel to succeed in that style. The results could have been forgiven in some circumstances, but they were completely preventable given the success shown with the more suitable style of play under Lambert, which Hughton never even attempted to try. The dreadful style of football certainly couldn't be given a pass either.

Yes, the board were absolutely ridiculous to sack Hughton when they did, but the issue was the timing, not the sacking in general. Let's not mix those two factors up.

Chris Hughton the manager given time to take over failing clubs to build his own solid defensive teams in the lower leagues with a top tier budget? That Chris Hughton is a good manager. In that respect someone like Pants is absolutely correct, so I do feel sympathy with his PoV in that regard. But the Chris Hughton we saw at Norwich did a terrible job, as he wasn't suitable at all, given his stubbornness with his an fitting defensive style. This is without even going into depth with the utter disasters that were the cup games vs Villa and Luton. Let's not use biased hindsight lacking in any real context to try and 'prove' that Norwich fans were wrong to want him out, in some ridiculous attempt to patronise them and label them as idiots who should have "been careful for what they wished for." That is just revisionist history. I say that as someone who thinks Hughton is a better manager than Lambert, but as Lambert has failed to replicate his success at Norwich since leaving (partly his fault for taking on horror jobs or not sticking around long enough), the opposite can be said for Hughton, who has been a success everywhere apart from Norwich due to the circumstances that I've already gone into. There are grey areas, although I suppose they're easy to gloss over when you're attempting to score points:

... And even if you are the type of person who thinks that a failing manager should be given the chance to relegate a previously successful team due to his own tunnel vision and poor recruitment, only to allow him more time after a likely relegation, with even more money to spend on fixing his own mistakes, in an attempt to complete the transformation from an exciting successful side to a dull and possibly successful side, then you're not only very naive but also incredibly tone deaf given how fed up Norwich fans (who actually went to games) were with the football under Hughton. Carrow Road became poisonous at the end of Hughton's reign for a very legitimate and understandable reason, even if some of the behaviour was completely out of order.

Not to mention, for anyone who was actually at Wembley on that glorious day in 2015, watching Norwich play an ultra defensive Karanka side (the irony) off the pitch with glorious football, including a classic team goal and an all time Norwich legend controlling the game with a 100% pass completion rate (a quality player whose prime years were wasted under Hughton), absolutely none of us were thinking "s**t, we shouldn't have sacked Hughton." Those are the days that you live for, the days you hang around for as a football fan, praying they might come around during the darker times, the reason many of us stick with a club like Norwich, despite all the drudgery. I'll take that over what "might" have been with Hughton, especially given the warning signs at the time and the style of play he has used at Brighton.

Posted By: Common Sense Police on May 6th 2018 at 11:06:48

Message Thread

Reply to Message

In order to add a post to the WotB Message Board you must be a registered WotB user.

If you are not yet registered then please visit the registration page. You should ensure that their browser is setup to accept cookies.

Log in