Why Mark Hughes is not the manager everybody thinks.

Image via Wikipedia - David Bentley, one of Hughes' signings at the only place he's really done good: Blackburn

January 2011, West Ham United. Avram Grant looks set to be sacked with Martin O’Neill, everyone’s famous Muppet lookalike, ready to replace him. O’Neill reputedly refuses because of the dishonour of the West Ham hierarchy, their lack of professionalism. Months earlier, Martin Jol reportedly refused to take over at Newcastle United because of his friendship with the unjustly sacked Chris Hughton.

Fast-forward to June 2011. Mark Hughes looked set to become manager of Aston Villa – Villa’s hierarchy has reportedly now refused because of Hughes’ lack of professionalism in activating a break clause. Amazingly as well, his agent is reportedly Kia Joorabchian, the agent who presided over the Tevez/Mascherano transfer fiasco which Sheffield United won tens of millions of compensation for because of their illicit impact.

Arsene Whinging -4- Aston Villa 0-3 Arsenal: Indepth tactical analysis

Photograph: Nigel Roddis/Reuters

 Arsenal head to Villa Park

So far then we’ve

1. Identified the weaknesses of Arsenal along with examples.
2. Signed some players to cover those weaknesses
3. Devised some tactical systems to ‘mix it up’ but keep in the Arsenal spirit and philosophy of playing attractive football. I’m not exaggerating when I say that my teams on Football Manager are based around one principle: outscoring the opposition. That doesn’t mean having a shoddy defence and leaking goals in the quest forward, it means knowing when to retreat and when to attack.