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Predicatable journalism. Was always going to happen, strikes me as bullshit though.

I'm sure plenty of people will reply saying he has to go.

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/sport/football/622326/UNDER-PRESSURE-MARK-HUGHES-ON-BORROWED-TIME.html?OTC-RSS&ATTR=Football&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Score_ManchesterCity+%28Manchester+City%29

[B]UNDER-PRESSURE HUGHES ON BORROWED TIME[/B]

By Neil Ashton, 28/11/2009
MARK HUGHES is on borrowed time after chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak witnessed yet another dismal Manchester City display.

City's 1-1 draw with Hull - their seventh in a row - has left Hughes on the brink with Guus Hiddink, Roberto Mancini and Jose Mourinho all in the frame to replace him.

Hughes's position has been under threat since the 3-3 draw with Burnley earlier this month.

Al Mubarek flew in from Abu Dhabi yesterday morning and will report back to owner Sheikh Mansour.

Mansour will now make a decision on his manager's future, possibly at the end of a week in which they face Arsenal in the Carling Cup and Chelsea next Saturday.

They may only have lost once in the league this season - to Manchester United at Old Trafford - but City's recent run of results have left Hughes in jeopardy.

Draws against the likes of Fulham, Birmingham, Burnley and now Hull look to have sealed the manager's fate.

Russia's unexpected World Cup play-off exit has put former Chelsea boss, Hiddink, on the market and his presence casts a huge shadow over Hughes.

But chairman Khladoon is also friends with Italian Mancini and sources claim his track record at Inter Milan where he won Serie A three years in a row has left him as a serious contender for the City job.

Former Stamford Bridge boss Mourinho is also keen on a return to the Prem.

Hughes admitted he was under pressure to get results having spent £200million in the transfer market but claimed the club's Arab owners were willing to be patient.

That patience, however, is close to expiring and poor results against Arsenal in midweek and Chelsea next Saturday seem certain to seal his fate.

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A double-bed and a stalwart lover, for sure
These are the riches of the poor

Load of bollocks.

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I raped myself once. My mind was telling me no but my body, my body was telling me yes.

So is his fate sealed, or could be sealed with poor results?

Lazy Journalism.

the news of the world is seldom wrong. stellar journalism imo.

Interesting and SHIT article. That said, we were always going to draw today. Dodgy goal from SWP and nothing else, I find that interesting, £200 worth of players and we cant score against Hull? When I saw we were 1 - nil up I knew we weren't safe. I think we are now a PL record of 7 sraight draws, not funny.

What now? Fucking bollox.

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KYPU

So what man? You never are at that scoreline.

Meh, how much has luck played a part in that run of draws? It isn't that terrible is it? A slice of luck here and there, we'd have won today, we'd have won against Fulham or Burnley or Liverpool, lost against Birmingham or Wigan, and suddenly we're not a statistic.

I'll be more worried if we were losing these games, as it is everything hasn't quite clicked but we're still sixth(?) and there's more to come. Someone said it earlier on, it's not like it was under Sven when we'd overachieved and were pretty much destined for the slump we suffered - we can be fairly confident we'll start winning again soon

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We're only sixth by virtue of the other teams around us being equally rubbish. A run of draws is terrible because it's barely-beating-relegation form. It's completely pointless talking about what the results could have been because it's hypothetical nonsense. Luck has nothing to do with it, it's being shit and not able to defend or put games to bed.

We should be seeing 1 - 0 as a platform to build upon and score more goals or as a lead to hold on to. Not as something which is inevitably going to be cancelled out when our defence decides to fall apart again.

Also all of these draws have been mainly against teams we should have been beating. What happens when we actually play some decent teams for a change? We'll be missing all the points we should have picked up over the past few months.

I dont think luck was the chief cause of our draws. Its our inabilty to be a more efficent and complete side. I like everyone else am hoping it will come with time but while its a relatively small sample size the results and performances to date have not been up to par imo. I understand the view of people who say that we dont know how good we have it etc. but dont really agree with it. I think its fair for fans to expect great things of city especially now because of the position we are in cash wise. To settle for unconvincing performances because we have performed even worse in the past is madness.

So what? if this continues for the rest of the season whereby they basically match us result for result and things stay exactly as they are, do we then not deserve to be sixth? Sometimes you play well and win when you deserve to and sometimes you don't. That's football.



It is bad in terms of results, but what the fuck is form then? There's no evidence to suggest it even exists. We haven't suddenly become a bad team, it's the same personnel that were doing brilliantly at the start of the season, largely the same system, so what's changed? Well probably nothing, but where for example against Wolves, when they had chances, they didn't take them, Burnley happen to take their three chances in the game and end up getting a draw. We're prolly defending to largely the same level and will be until the players get to know each other and become more cohesive as a unit

I might have to come back and try and explain this better tommorow cos I'm a bit frazzled to explain what I'm going on about now.



You don't think luck is a factor? Course it is. Hull prolly wouldn't have scored today without getting that dubious penalty. They did and therefore it's another draw, and we're talking about it being a crisis rather than us being back on the right track. That's lucky for them. You can argue it's poor play for us not running away with the game when we had the opportunity, but at least we're getting on top of these teams even if we're not killing the game off. That'll come with experience

That's the way I'm gonna see it anyway. Things'll get better, not necessarily starting next week.

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I think variance is a better word than luck.

It's not a question of "settling" though. That's ridiculous. I fully expected us to be sixth or higher this season. If it begins to look like we won't achieve that, fair enough, I'll complain. At the moment, it looks like we will.

Form is meaningless, a run of draws against teams we expect to beat might be folllowed by us picking up points against teams we expect to lose to. I certainly expect we'll be stronger as the season goes on, as we were last year, even if it doesn't look that way right this second. It makes me laugh cos of all the people kicking off now, when you look at Gallagheresque's prediction thread and everyone's predicting fifth, sixth, seventh... A few good results at the start of the year and people start to set their sights higher

I'm not settling anyway, we're probably not doing quite as well as we'd hope to, given our start. But were we in a false position? 13 games, like you say, tells you fuck all.

And dragging up the money, god, are we going to take into account having to pay a City-tax on every single one of those players, which inflates the figures involved? Are we going to consider the squad at starting point, the lack of investment over the preceding years? Shall we factor in the fact that is is half of a new team?
I don't think it's necessarily settling, it's a case of being rational and reasonable and accepting that it'll be a rocky road to the top. Seven draws doesn't mean we're no longer on our way there.

Again, I feel like I'm talking rubbish. Someone help me out here

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True, but I don't understand statistics well enough.

There's something else I want to say. Hmmm.

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That's a massive if, we can't be complacent and rely on other teams being inconsistent as well. We need to be in a position where we're not hoping other teams do shit as well for us to still be in with a chance.



We are a bad team. Good teams play well together and grind out the results, ours doesn't. We're a collection of individually good players.




Luck is a factor but 7 fucking draws in a row is not bad luck, it's poor form. We shouldn't have to rely on good fortune to get us to the end of a game without conceding stupid goals. We should be in a position where even if we do concede a stupid goal it doesn't matter because we've already knocked a couple more past them and put the game to bed. "Back on the right track" is not beating fucking Hull of all teams at home, that should be par for the course. Getting on top of teams matters fuck all if we can't hold the lead.

I'm bored to fucking tears of trying to explain away why our results are merely down to misfortune or aren't our fault. We're severely underperforming at the moment and it's a total joke.

why so many words ffs? cliff notes?

So you think we'll continue in this form for the rest of the season then? Do you genuinely think that's what'll happen?



True, and given time, we'll integrate and improve as a team. If we carry on playing this way, fair enough, but I'm fairly confident we won't. The thing that pisses me off is you're a rational fellow are you not? Before the season started, I'm sure you didn't expect things to click immediately. But we do well early doors (and I'd argue we're not playing at a worse level now than we were then) and suddenyl fourth is the target?



What stupid goal did we concede today? A pen that wasn't.
You're definitely right, we shouldn't have to rely on that, but these things take time, and there's signs we're improving, our passing looks better, we didn't defend badly today, and yet Hull still got a largely undeserved point.



Are you retarded? Read what you've written.



True. All these draws are basically the same as if we were looking out of depth every game, aren't they? I'd sooner us not get on top of these teams, actually.



Underperforming relative to what? Our form over the last 30 years? Last season? Relative to your upped expectations following our great start? Relative to the money, which is a fairly unreliable barometer?
They are our fault, there's also an element of luck in my opinion, as there will be across the course of the season. I think the only way to react is to see that there are positives, as well as negatives, try and be phlegmatic when things aren't going our way, as they aren't at the moment. We're so reactionary, as fans, it's constantly boom and bust

I don't know, I'm aware that's prolly hopeful bollocks, but it seems the way it is, to me.

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Sorry, basically, we disagree, and we may as well discuss it at the end of the season, when we'll have a clearer idea of who was right.

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what has to happen for me to be right?:confused:?:confused:

No I don't but by being in this form now we're missing many opportunities to pick up points that would stand us in good stead come the end of the season. You shouldn't be pointing to the fact that we're still in 6th as evidence that we're not doing badly.




Given how much time, exactly? Hughes has already had a year and a half to instil his ethic upon the team. Yes we have a lot of new faces but all of them have come from within the Premiership from teams of established quality and it shouldn't take them this long to adapt. Wasn't that the point of buying from within the league and paying over the odds in the first place?

You've also contradicted yourself by saying you think we shouldn't carry on playing this way but then saying you don't think we're playing any different to when we were doing so well at the start of the season. With the amount of money we've spent and the established quality of the players we've brought in then yes fourth should abso-fucking-lutely be the target especially with Liverpool doing their best to hand it to us on a plate. Instead we're not taking our chances to break away from the chasing pack and are now behind Tottenham and Aston Villa, the first of which has managed to integrate their new players with ease and the second fielding a player we deemed not good enough for us.





Stupid goals generally, the penalty was unfortunate but again it shouldn't be down to luck. Plenty of the goals we have conceded in the previous 6 games have been down to clowncar defending. Hull's point was deserved as we were completely uninspired in attack which looking at our teamsheet is criminal.




Can see how that looks dumb yes but we shouldn't be in a position where we're needing to look to a game against Hull to 'get us back on the right track', we should be on it already.



What matters at the end of a game is the result and it is pointless to be on top of them for only a certain period of the game and not score enough goals during that period to secure the result. Scoring a goal, not converting chances or not creating any and then conceding is not 'being on top' anyway.



Underperforming relative to the high quality of players we have on the pitch and the level we know they can perform at. luck affects games on the micro level, a 7 game streak is largely indicative of shit form rather than poor fortune. It's not like we've used up our allotted dose of bad luck over the past few months and now we're going to get everything our way for the rest of the season. I would be pragmatic but some of our players look like they couldn't give a shit and Hughes looks like he doesn't know what to do to kill a fucking game off.