Mark Hughes & Stoke City

[Jockney]

So after all the bitching and moaning from Stoke fans and neutrals alike, the bloke's not done too badly there has he? A lot of talk about Garry Monk, and rightly so, but Hughes joined a club renowned for ugly, negative football and has got them playing exciting, attacking football with most of the same players. They've let themselves down against some of the so-called 'lesser' sides but some of their results against the better sides in the league have been incredible.

 

[Mr.Andrews]

he should be knighted for what he did on "sir stevie day" absolutely no doubt about that.

 

[Super_horns]

Bounced back well from the QPR disaster tbf.

 

[Bottega Don]

I personally think Hughes is a great manager.

He's got Stoke playing some really good football compared to what Pulis had them playing.

 

[G.B]

Their best finish in the PL, I believe. And he didn't need to spend 20 odd million quid in the summer (or play the worst football known to man) like Pulis did, to accomplish it. Their net spend this summer was -£100k. He's done an incredible job. Times like these I wish I could dig up posts from the forum whose name we dare not speak.

Also, this is quite relevant to the Allardyce situation atm. His backers should take note.

 

[Smally]

Be interesting to see how far Hughes believes he can take Stoke. He did sign quite a lot of City's title winning side from 2012 too (Hart, Zabaleta, Kompany, Lescott, Barry, Tevez). He's clearly quite talented and has done really well since the QPR fiasco

 

[Orion]

Sparky has done a great job at Stoke. If they had a little more class in the team they might challenge further up the table. Good results against City, Liverpool, United, Chelsea.

 

[TheWednesday]

Thought the QPR disaster would tarnish his reputation but what a job he's done there over the last 2 years. Got them playing good football, some very good players and all without spending crazy amounts of money. Should be a contender for manager of the season.

 

[ArmchairDiehard]

I too thought what happened at QPR would set him back a bit, but he's gone from strength to strength at Stoke.

It'll be interesting to see if they can go one step further next season and challenge for a place in Europe.