There’s a wide-ranging interview with Mark Hughes in today’s Daily Mail. ‘Sparky,’ now looking forward to a first full season in charge of Bradford City, became known as ‘Mr Ambition’ amongst the Fulham fanbase having walked out on the Whites in June 2011 search of the Chelsea or Aston Villa job after a single season at Craven Cottage. His side started slowly, before going on a fine run to finish eighth. He now admits that was an error:
“They signed a striker for £10million a week after I left,’ he smiles.”
Daily Mail, 23 July 2022
Mark’s command of facts might be as faulty as his decision-making. Bryan Ruiz, who nobody would realistically describe as a striker, did arrive for closer to £11m than the figure he quotes – but not until transfer deadline day at the end of August. Still, it’s nice to hear a hint of contrition for a man who was so preoccupied with his status at Motspur Park that he demanded a bigger desk to work from.
Agreed. His ego did overstate his ability, both with us and all his subsequent clubs.
His ego was his downfall. We had a good team that season but he walked out on us, and I for one am glad he now admits in hindsight it was the wrong decision. Personally I never liked him anyway. He thought he could walk into the Chelsea job and instead ended up taking QPR down along with his ego
Agree with everything said. BUT, we did finish eighth and played superbly at times and he brought in Dembele!
PS And we actually won some away games – almost unheard of then.
Didnt Murphy say that when they stopped listening to Hughes and brought back methods by Roy on the pitch, their performances improved?
Another big ego driven by greed, he let us down and can never be forgiven or remembered. His comments are aimed to catch the attention of the media, as he is already thinking about his next job before his first full season at Bradford City. EFL2 and Bradford City are too good for him. After Hughes left FFC we had a succession of managers that unsettled our great club.
Hughes certainly rubbed me the wrong way – while at Fulham and other clubs. His ego and self regard were always front and center but …
I don’t think he was wrong about Al-Fayed’s ambition when he was leaving Fulham. Not that the fans or “the club” weren’t ambitious, but that the owner at the time wasn’t fully committed, because he was looking to no longer own FFC. Hughes sussed out that the owner was looking to sell, and I’d suggest Al Fayed lessening his spend and then the chaos around new ownership was to blame for our downturn rather than some magical Hughes-caused ennui.
Sparky has definitely lost his spark !
The biggest loss we had was Roy when our team was Roy’s boys not mark who Hughes forgotten already now let’s see who Marco Silva really is fingers crossed we stay up and goodbye everton
Tony V Sparky, who’s ego would be dented first? Mark Hughes to his credit did resign and was not sacked, which is the norm.