nice one Stoke

hi there

it has always baffled me as to why Mark Hughes decided to press a button marked "ruin your name forever". after years as an admired striker and a respected manager, he bewilderingly quit doing a fine job at Fulham, insulting them by saying he wanted a club that "matched [my] ambitions". that in itself moved him from being a popular guy to being in the league of "widely regarded as a dickhead", a league which John Terry must have been rather glad to get some company in.

the icing on the cake, of course, was his ambtion taking him as far as filling a QPR team up with expensive mercenaries. he just slightly failed with his ambitous plan to make them the most expensive team to get relegated since Middlesbrough 1997, but made damned sure that the groundwork was there for it the next season, even if he did get fired.

everyone kind of assumed that was Mr Hughes finished in football management. i, and i suspect many others, were looking forward to seeing him as a TV pundit, as he is well spoken and has a lot of intelligent things to say about the game, even if he has failed as a manager. it is quite a surprise, then, to learn that Stoke City are ready to offer him the vacant manager post they have.

slightly less surprising is the reaction of the Stoke fans, or at least one of the fans.

you would have thought they would wait at least until he was actually appointed as manager, but then again why not try and get rid of him as soon as possible? if this appointment happens, no good can come of it, unless Stoke have a rather elaborate if not eccentric profit increase / tax dodge plan that relies on them being relegated.

bravo to the fan who did this one, it is much more impressive than, say, waving A4 paper around expressing your displeasure with a world class manager.

part of me doesn't really care what happens to Stoke, but i don't see why any club would unleash Hughes on their fans. not even, mindful of the last paragraph, was Mr Abramovich prepared to show his contempt for what the "fans" wanted by unleashing Sparky on them. hopefully all goes well for Stoke, then, but if not and this appointment goes ahead, well, there's one class train wreck we can all watch next season.

many thanks to the mate who alerted me to the picture!


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!