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Mark Hughes now lectures Newcastle United fans – When will this ever end?

3 years ago
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Mark Hughes has been talking about Newcastle United on Saturday.

The out of work unemployable manager appearing on BBC Sport’s Football Focus (see below) and giving the benefit of his specialist knowledge of Newcastle United, particularly when it comes to the NUFC supporters and the ‘expectations’ they relentlessly carry.

Mark Hughes talking about Steve Bruce and the problems he (Bruce) has when dealing with those expectations of Newcastle United fans…

As it happens, only on Friday, here at The Mag we put this question out on Twitter:

“Just out of interest, as a Newcastle United fan, is there any alternative manager/head coach where you would say ‘No thanks, I’d rather Newcastle United stick with Steve Bruce’?”

A lot of our previous hopeless cases got plenty of mentions, the likes of JFK, Pardew, Carver, McClaren and Allardyce.

However, do you know who got mentioned the most?

Yes, you guessed it, Mark Hughes.

Mark Hughes hated by Newcastle fans when he was a player and that carrying through to his managerial career, the NUFC fanbase universally despising him.

Why are BBC Sport asking Mark Hughes for his expert view on Newcastle United?

He has nothing to do with NUFC and hopefully never will have.

Yet he would be the kind of useless replacement no doubt Mike Ashley would go for, once even he accepts that Steve Bruce is a disaster.

Mark Hughes talking on Saturday (23 January 2021) to Football Focus at BBC Sport:

“I always look at Newcastle and think it is quite a unique club.

“In as much as, the expectation is way above where it needs to be.

“Relative to the amount of success in terms of major trophies, they haven’t won anything for a long long time.

“But that doesn’t lower the expectation of the city and the crowd that go to St James Park.

“Steve knows that, he’s a local lad, it’s a huge job for him because he is delighted to be at his local club and he will want to make a success of it.

“But I think sometimes the expectation at Newcastle overruns maybe their potential.”

As I said above, no love lost between Newcastle fans and Mark Hughes.

Actually quite similar to Steve Bruce…

The connections don’t end there of course, as when Mark Hughes is talking the nonsense above, you also have to recall they are best mates having played for most of a decade together at Man Utd in the 1980s through to 1990s.

Another big connection / coincidence is that Steve Bruce and Mark Hughes both went into management in the late 1990s.

No surprise though that in well over 40 years of management between them, neither have won a single trophy.

Two of those English / British journeymen managers who if they hang around long enough (like a bad smell), eventually another of the poor to average clubs will eventually give them a job (see below). If Steve Bruce sees out this season at Newcastle and Mark Hughes remains out of work, Bruce would overtake Hughes as the manager to take charge of the sixth highest number of PL matches.

Mark Hughes was sacked from his last job at Southampton in December 2018, a disastrous start to the season of one win in fourteen matches saw them in the relegation zone and destined for relegation. However, after sacking Hughes, the Saints brought in Ralph Hasenhuttl, the Austrian boss getting the team playing great football, ensuring safety in 2018/19, then eleventh place last season, now currently ninth and rising to seventh if winning their game in hand. Today (Saturday) seeing Hasenhuttl also guide Southampton into the FA Cup fifth round with a 1-0 win over Arsenal.

The only thing you can say in favour of Mark Hughes is that at least his win ratio in the Premier League of 34% is better than Steve Bruce’s, but there again, every other PL manager listed below has done better than Bruce’s embarrassing 28% win ratio.

These are the 15 managers to have taken charge of the most Premier League matches.

Number of matches, name, win ratio, then which clubs they have managed and how many PL games at each:

828 – Arsene Wenger (57%) – Arsenal (828)

810 – Alex Ferguson (65%) – Manchester United (810)

641 – Harry Redknapp (37%) – West Ham United (269), Portsmouth (158), Tottenham Hotspur (144), Queens Park Rangers (48), Southampton (22)

564 – David Moyes (39%) – Everton (427), West Ham United (65), Sunderland (38), Manchester United (34)

518 – Sam Allardyce (34%) – Bolton Wanderers (226), West Ham United (114), Blackburn Rovers (76), Sunderland (30), Everton (24), Newcastle United (21), Crystal Palace (21), West Bromwich Albion (6)

466 – Mark Hughes (34%) – Stoke City (174), Blackburn Rovers (148), Manchester City (54), Fulham (38), Queens Park Rangers (30), Southampton (22)

448 – Steve Bruce (28%) – Birmingham City (165), Sunderland (89), Hull City (76), Wigan Athletic (62), Newcastle United (56)

359 – Martin O’Neill (36%) – Leicester City (152), Aston Villa (152), Sunderland (55)

349 – Jose Mourinho (61%) – Chelsea (212), Manchester United (93), Tottenham Hotspur (44)

345 – Roy Hodgson (34%) – Crystal Palace (129), Fulham (94), Blackburn Rovers (52), West Bromwich Albion (50), Liverpool (20)

340 – Rafa Benitez (49%) – Liverpool (228), Newcastle United (86), Chelsea (26)

328 – Alan Curbishley (33%) – Charlton Athletic (266), West Ham United (62)

322 – Tony Pulis (30%) – Stoke City (190), West Bromwich Albion (106), Crystal Palace (26)

320 – Alan Pardew (34%) – Newcastle United (155), Crystal Palace (74), West Ham United (55), Charlton Athletic (18), West Bromwich Albion (18)

302 – Joe Kinnear (32%) – Wimbledon (284), Newcastle United (18)

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