1st of all, may i congratulate Forest who came to play football and brought a brilliant crowd with them. They fully deserved the win today and i believe Billy Davies will do a top job for them.
Now today was poor, there is no escaping that. Most of the team didn't look like they wanted to be there, with the only.. kompany, zabaleta (despite errors) and caicedo really showing they had some fight in them. But without Ireland, Swp, Robinho we look devoid of anything. Elano today only played when he was given the ball, he argued with sturridge because their seemed to be no clear indication from the manager who was playing where. The defence again was appalling Dunne, richards, ball and hart have generally have looked poor all season, Mr consistent zabaleta even made a poor error today.
Now Hughes has come out and blamed the team! Now, obviously the team have to take blame for the performance it was pathetic, but the nature of his attack is poorly timed and dangerous. If perhaps one or two player were not performing it would be understandable but it seems this poor form and low morale has affected the whole side, you have to ask why? He basically stated that our team of last season isn't good enough, which i find quite odd. It is clearly of quite high standard and certainly more than good enough to beat a struggling Forest side. Hughes has started pointing fingers, is he too arrogant to see he had a hand in this defeat? The selection today was odd, two holding player at home vs forest. This is hugely negative move. He finally decided to move Sturridge upfront in the second half but then moved gelson out left! This is another odd move, considering gelson is a right footed holding midfielder and isn't in any particular form. The introduction of Hamann did nothing for us, but slow down our midfield and leave Elano out left. No sign of the lad Clayton on the bench, the reserve captain, who has certainly got the ability to get involved! No sign of other promising youngsters like Vlad Wise? At 2-0 down, i expected Hughes not to do a like for like swap with Jo and Caicedo, but to take off a defender or midfielder. Jo actually showed he could handle himself on the ball, yet Hughes had removed the big target Caicedo who had come closest to scoring!
Hughes also has to look at why his team have performed so poorly all season. His time for blaming the old regime is quickly running out. The team looks low on leadership, organisation and morale. Surely Hughes has to take a large stake in the blame for this. The money we have has papered over what has been a poor stint in management for Hughes. I don't find it as easy to accept that Hughes can buy himself out of trouble in a team that isn't as poor as he states. He has failed the get anything out of what he had, but is been given the a pot of gold to repair all that he has broken!
The team were awful today and their efforts were disgraceful and they should be ashamed. But i keep reading in posts on blogs and forums, long lists of our player that are not good enough. I'm pretty sure our team on paper is and was last season far superior to Blackburn's. The likes of Dunne, Richards, Elano (top assist rate in the premier league last season) have suddenly become not good enough. I worry if Hughes feel the only way to deal with it is to point the finger and simply go and and buy replacements. Why Cant Hughes Galvanise a pretty decent squad and and get them playing for him, but instead we have ended up with situations like this.
* Wayne Bridge watched on today after his over-priced move from Chelsea. Would we have been better if he played today, i doubt it. Hughes has the luxury of replacing all the poor performing players now, it will be interesting to see how many he buys. 3,4, 11?
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