Mark Hughes appointed new Stoke City manager

RayCon

Looks like I can continue my dislike of Stoke for the foreseeable future.

earlytobed

thebaz wrote: »

apart from his record at QPR his record is top notch - did real well at Blackburn. Fulham and Wales - and good at City - i think he will do a great job at Stoke - transfering them slowlly from the anti football of the previous regime - I'd expect Stoke to be mid table , playing a more atractive brand of football (thats the easy bit

Yes, but he likes to splash the cash. Walked out on Fulham when they wouldn't give him funds. According to him Fulham didn't "match his ambition". Spent a lot of money on poor players at QPR
Ironically Stoke want to move away from spending loads.
I wouldn't like to be a Stokie now

Xavi6

dubrov

thebaz wrote: »

apart from his record at QPR his record is top notch - did real well at Blackburn. Fulham and Wales - and good at City - i think he will do a great job at Stoke - transfering them slowlly from the anti football of the previous regime - I'd expect Stoke to be mid table , playing a more atractive brand of football (thats the easy bit

Have to disagree. I think he did averagely at Blackburn and Fulham, poorly with City and blew Wales' big chance to make a major competition. As for QPR, he spent so much money there I'd be very surprised if the club isn't bust when the parachute payment runs out.

JPA

The draw specialists appoint the draw master.
Should be, um, dull.

One-dimensional ugly team appoints abrasive dislikeable manager.

Stoke are now my 'second' team :pac:

thebaz

dubrov wrote: »

Have to disagree. I think he did averagely at Blackburn and Fulham, poorly with City and blew Wales' big chance to make a major competition. As for QPR, he spent so much money there I'd be very surprised if the club isn't bust when the parachute payment runs out.

have to disagree with you too - his record at both fulham and blackburn was top notch - these are both small clubs , and survival in the EPL is a great achievement - City is now one of those clubs where unless you win Champions league , you a re deemed a failure - agree , about QPR , though - he is a good manger , and I for one , wish him well , and I have long time critic here on Stoke, and ther anti football philosophy.

Kiwi_knock

Not really a massive change in direction, not sure they will be anything other than mid table finishers under Hughes.

A2LUE42

Kiwi_knock wrote: »

Not really a massive change in direction, not sure they will be anything other than mid table finishers under Hughes.

Mid to low in year one and relegated the following year would be more likely.

dd972

If they're getting the Blackburn / Man City Hughes, they should be OK, if it's the QPR Hughes they're in trouble.

I think he's got enough credit from his Blackburn / City stints to merit another bite of the cherry.

eagle eye

dubrov wrote: »

Have to disagree. I think he did averagely at Blackburn and Fulham, poorly with City and blew Wales' big chance to make a major competition. As for QPR, he spent so much money there I'd be very surprised if the club isn't bust when the parachute payment runs out.

Average at Blackburn? I'm a Blackburn fan and he did fantastic with us. We had three top ten finishes in his three full seasons as manager of the club including a season where we finished sixth just 4 points off the champions league places.
He bought fantastically well at bargain prices with players like Ryan Nelsen, Chris Samba, Roque Santa Cruz, David Bentley, Benni McCarthy and Robbie Savage who all came in for combined total of around £10 million.

At Fulham his first buy was Mousa Dembele for a bargain £5 million and he got Kacaniklic as part of the deal for Konchesky moving to Liverpool.

Mr Alan

eagle eye wrote: »

he got Kacaniklic as part of the deal for Konchesky moving to Liverpool.

*Shudder*
Hodgson :mad:

Chancer3001

its a terrible squad of players.

Hughes has his work cut out big time.

I hope hes up to the task. As a Blackburn fan I still rate Hughes highly. Did a great job for us and bought fairly well.

MagicIRL

Few decent signings and he should stand a chance. It's a horrible team, but meh.

Anyone

Hughes has said he is going to prove people wrong.

I'm guessing he means the Stoke Board.

bradlente

The squad is really poor now.It's a massive challenge to even consider taking on but likely one of the only job's in the Premiership he'd stand a chance of getting.

I think he's an ok manager but the side there now need's a good bit of investment to press on.They had their time getting to Europe and being competitive over the last few year's.Either way I can't see them getting back to that level and it's probably more likely they'll go the other way.

Paully D

retalivity wrote: »

is he still represented by joorbachian?
He should never be allowed near a club again for that reason alone.

To be fair to Joorabchian, he's only represented three players that Hughes has signed over the last few years, Dembele, Salcido and Cesar. I don't think anyone associated with Stoke will be too bothered who represents him if it gives them an opportunity to get a player like Dembele to the club.

yohan the great

How does Hughes keep getting jobs

grenache

Stoke & Hughes, two horrible footballing entities. A match made in heaven.

Can't see anything but relegation on the horizon.

gnfnrhead

yohan the great wrote: »

How does Hughes keep getting jobs

Bar his time at QPR he has done quite well in his jobs. He'll never be a top manager but he is more than good enough for a club looking to be midtable.

inmyday

gnfnrhead wrote: »

Bar his time at QPR he has done quite well in his jobs. He'll never be a top manager but he is more than good enough for a club looking to be midtable.

How do you know he'll never be a top manager?
Sure who is a top manager????

O'Neill, Hughes, Redknapp, Martinez, Rodgers, Lambert. Even Wenger gets abused on boards.ie. And I remember the days when fergie got it bad, every week off his own fans.
Are theyre any good managers around? Seems like every manager of a football team is rubbish.

Good aul rant!!!!

eagle eye

yohan the great wrote: »

How does Hughes keep getting jobs

3 full seasons as manager of Blackburn and 3 top ten finishes, 1 full seasons in charge of Man City and a top ten finish, one full season at Fulham and a top ten finish.

Yes he done badly at QPR but its quite clear there was a lot of problems there before he arrived. People like to criticise the players he bought at Man City and pick out Roque Santa Cruz and Robinho to show that but forget to mention Kompany, Zabaleta, Barry and Tevez who have all been very important players for City.

Paully D

Cracking first season for Hughes at Stoke.

AFAIK, they're guaranteed a top half finish now and their highest ever Premier League finish. He's also made them a far better side to watch who have played some excellent stuff at times.

In addition to that he spent a grand total of £5m with his three main signings, Pieters, Arnautovic and Odemwingie all making significant contributions.

His managerial career to date would suggest he does his best work at "smaller" sides where he doesn't have huge transfer budgets, and that looks to be happening again.

Looks to be a very good appointment by Stoke.

LuckyLloyd

I'm shocked at how well he has got on tbh. Had a super season, no arguments to be made to the contrary.

mike65

Interesting example of taking a squad tweaking it only modestly (as Peter Coates computer now says no) and yet changing its approach considerably to their best finish so far.

Meanwhile "head it, chuck it and hoof it" goes to Palace and does something very similar.

Al Capwned

It's impossible to say he's done anything other than a really good job so far.

Augmerson

Surely Sparky deserves a shot at the Utd job?

The_Kew_Tour

This thread gave me a laugh.

Augmerson

#Hughes 4 Utd is trending very heavily on Twitter right now Kew.

The_Kew_Tour

Augmerson wrote: »

#Hughes 4 Utd is trending very heavily on Twitter right now Kew.

Bit old now, but he could replace Celeverley in CM all same I say.

More balls and all that

Paully D

I think Hughes' record has shown he doesn't do well at sides when he has a lot of money to spend. United need to spend about at least £100m to challenge for the top four next season as their squad is currently so poor.

Hughes does his best work at middle of the road teams that have smaller budgets. That's not a knock on him at all, some managers just don't fit some clubs or situations and that's fine, but I wouldn't be looking at him for the United job if I were a decision-maker at Old Trafford.

Richard Hillman

The big difference with Hughes is that he stopped buying Kia Joorabchian players (who is also his own agent). I am shocked he got a job in the EPL after his recent spells and even Harry Redknapp was insinuating wrong doings.

He has seemed to cop himself on this year. I still wouldn't trust him though.

Paully D

Richard Hillman wrote: »

The big difference with Hughes is that he stopped buying Kia Joorabchian players (who is also his own agent). I am shocked he got a job in the EPL after his recent spells and even Harry Redknapp was insinuating wrong doings.

He has seemed to cop himself on this year. I still wouldn't trust him though.

His connection with signing Joorabchian players is overstated. He only signed three such players in recent years, Dembele, Salcido and Cesar. Dembele was a fantastic signing for Fulham and Cesar was easily QPR's best player in the Premier League last year.

Harry Redknapp insinuating wrong things about any football manager and their dealings is laughable coming from him.

Paully D

Another cracking season for Hughes at Stoke.

They're virtually guaranteed a second consecutive top 10 finish now and only need a point to beat the 50 point club record in the Premier League which he set last season. Amazingly, they only spent £3.4m this season which is less than any other club in the top flight.

A combined total of £8.4m spent in transfer fees with two consecutive top 10 finishes and quite possibly two consecutive club record points totals is some going for Hughes so far.

eagle eye

Nice job done again. He really is a very underrated manager. People saying he isn't up to a big club are wrong imo.

I think he will get a shot at one of the bigger clubs again or a club that gets some money.

My mind is just now rambling back to the Allardyce saying he could manage Real Madrid thing. That comment was made as a joke in a pre-match interview while he was at Blackburn and Sparky was at Fulham.

The question that was asked and more or less stated was 'Mark Hughes seems to have settled in well at Fulham, do you think he has found his level?'

So Allarydce laughed and made a smart alec response about Real Madrid and AC Milan I think it was. The guy who asked the question was obviously annoyed at having the p taken out of him and ran with the story as Allardyce being serious.

Paully D

A second consecutive 9th place finish coupled with a second consecutive Premier League points club record, this time of 54 points, topped off with a 6-1 home win over Liverpool today.

Hughes, with a limited budget, really is a superb manager.

dubrov

I wouldn't rave about him too much. He has had a couple of solid years but his record was pretty poor before that.

His budget is fairly middling for the premiership and there were much better performers this season.
Swansea finished 2 points ahead of Stoke on about three quarters of their wage bill.

Still much to prove for me.

eagle eye

dubrov wrote: »

I wouldn't rave about him too much. He has had a couple of solid years but his record was pretty poor before that.

His budget is fairly middling for the premiership and there were much better performers this season.
Swansea finished 2 points ahead of Stoke on about three quarters of their wage bill.

Still much to prove for me.

Clearly you have not read the thread because if you had you would not come out with that nonsense.

dubrov

eagle eye wrote: »

Clearly you have not read the thread because if you had you would not come out with that nonsense.

Always this sanctimonious?

He choked as Wales manager and blew their only real chance of Euro qualification.
Man City was a disaster.
I still can't work out how he was offered another job after that
He broke the bank at QPR to deliver a team of dross.

Only Blackburn really stands out as a success.

eagle eye

dubrov wrote: »

Always this sanctimonious?

He choked as Wales manager and blew their only real chance of Euro qualification.
Man City was a disaster.
I still can't work out how he was offered another job after that
He broke the bank at QPR to deliver a team of dross.

Only Blackburn really stands out as a success.

He has never finished outside the top ten with any club when he has spent a full season in charge.
At City he signed a lot of players who have done well there. He finished top ten in the league and might have made the Champion's league the season he was sacked and who knows what would have happened from there. It certainly wasn't a 'disaster' as you state.

If you haven't seen the video about QPR before he got there I think you should watch that and you'll understand the mess he inherited at that club.

At Fulham he had a good season too and brought in Moussa Dembele for £5 million and he did very well there before moving on to Spurs for triple that fee.

Tomagotchye

dubrov wrote: »

Always this sanctimonious?
Man City was a disaster.

Wouldn't say that. He brought in some quality talent and they played some great football. I still remember Elano and Petrov running riot for them one season. Plus, he helped introduce some of their younger players.

I'd imagine a lot of Fulham fans felt he was doing a grand job with them too before he dumped them for lack of ambition.

Personally, I'd love him as a manager at my team. QPR asides, he's been fine. Even then I could point a lot of the blame on some of QPR's higher "earners"

dubrov

I agree on the Fulham stint. It was short but he did a good job.
You've got to remember at Man City, the spending increased significantly and the results did not match (10th place 2008.


I've extracted the transfers from Wiki below. They may not look that big now but these were very expensive transfers at the time.

I am not saying he is a bad manager but still has much to prove to be considered a top manager.

Transfers in[edit]
First team[edit]
Date Pos. Player From club Transfer fee
2 July 2008 FW Brazil Jô Russia CSKA Moscow £18m[11][12]
30 July 2008 DF Israel Tal Ben Haim England Chelsea £5m[13][14]
21 Aug. 2008 DF Belgium Vincent Kompany Germany Hamburg £6m[15][16]
28 Aug. 2008 MF England Shaun Wright-Phillips England Chelsea £8.5m[17][18][19]
31 Aug. 2008 DF Argentina Pablo Zabaleta Spain Espanyol £6.45m[20][21]
31 Aug. 2008 DF Brazil Gláuber Germany Nuremberg Undisc.[20][22]
1 Sep. 2008 FW Brazil Robinho Spain Real Madrid £32.5m[23][24]
3 Jan. 2009 DF England Wayne Bridge England Chelsea £10m[25][26]
19 Jan. 2009 FW Wales Craig Bellamy England West Ham £14m[27][28]
21 Jan. 2009 MF Netherlands Nigel de Jong Germany Hamburg £16m[29][30]
1 Feb. 2009 GK Republic of Ireland Shay Given England Newcastle Utd. £5.9m[31][32][33]


Transfers out[edit]
First team[edit]
Exit Date Pos. Player To club Transfer fee
2 July 2008 GK Sweden Andreas Isaksson Netherlands PSV Eindhoven Undisc.[38][39]
2 July 2008 DF China Sun Jihai England Sheffield United Free[40][41]
4 July 2008 MF Brazil Geovanni England Hull City Free[40][42]
14 July 2008 FW Greece Georgios Samaras Scotland Celtic Undisc.[43][44]
30 July 2008 FW Italy Bernardo Corradi Italy Reggina Free[45][46]
7 Aug. 2008 FW Scotland Paul Dickov England Leicester City Free[40][47]
23 Aug. 2008 FW Italy Rolando Bianchi Italy Torino Undisc.[48][49]
1 Sep. 2008 DF Croatia Vedran Ćorluka England Tottenham Hotspur £8.5m[50][51]
2 Sep. 2008 FW Belgium Emile Mpenza England Plymouth Argyle Released[40][52]



Date Pos. Player From club Transfer fee
1 July 2009 MF England Gareth Barry England Aston Villa £12m[29][30]
1 July 2009 FW Paraguay Roque Santa Cruz England Blackburn Rovers £18m[31][32]
1 July 2009 GK England Stuart Taylor England Aston Villa Free[33][34]
13 July 2009 FW Argentina Carlos Tévez United Kingdom MSI £25.5m[35][36]
18 July 2009 FW Togo Emmanuel Adebayor England Arsenal £25m[37][38]
29 July 2009 DF Ivory Coast Kolo Touré England Arsenal £16m[39][40]
24 Aug 2009 DF Brazil Sylvinho Spain Barcelona Free[41][42]
25 Aug 2009 DF England Joleon Lescott England Everton £22m[43][44]

Transfers out[edit]
First team[edit]
Exit Date Pos. Player To club Transfer fee
1 July 2009 DF England Danny Mills Retired[54][55]
1 July 2009 FW England Daniel Sturridge England Chelsea Tribunal[54][56][57]
1 July 2009 FW England Darius Vassell Turkey Ankaragücü Released[54][55][58]
1 July 2009 MF Germany Dietmar Hamann England MK Dons Released[54][55][59]
1 July 2009 DF England Michael Ball Released[54][55]
1 July 2009 DF Brazil Gláuber Brazil São Caetano Released[54][55]
10 July 2009 MF Switzerland Gelson Fernandes France Saint-Étienne Undisc.[60][61]
24 July 2009 FW Wales Ched Evans England Sheffield United £3m[62][63]
30 July 2009 MF Brazil Elano Turkey Galatasaray £8m[64][65]
14 Aug 2009 GK Denmark Kasper Schmeichel England Notts County Undisc.[66][67]
1 Sep 2009 DF Israel Tal Ben Haim England Portsmouth Free[68][69]
2 Sep 2009 DF Republic of Ireland Richard Dunne England Aston Villa £6m[70][71]