[Smellybelly]

I'm struggling to see why this guy gets so much admiration. 
I remember the News running an article on all the players he signed for Forrest Green and despite their best efforts, there was hardly anyone on it to get you excited. 
Having signed over 30 players, the law of avarage says some will be good. 
Shocks, Norris, Kamara and Robertson granted, where really good signings. But how many of the other signings actually turned out to be better than expected? Maybe Yengi and Sparks and 
How many of his signings actually seem like we will turn a profit on? Amaybe Delvin in a few years.

Then compare those last 30 signings to the last 30 signings by a club like say, Peterborough. 
They seem to sell players for millions every year.

The core of last season team (Pack, Bishop, Raggert, Ogerville, Raffety ect)  were here before Hughes.

[Roybatty]

You got to admire the grift of a lot of these sporting directors,it's job creation,what roles does he do,that wasn't done by someone else before?handle players contracts,that use to be done by the chief exec, scouting teams report to him instead of the manager

Take his laptop and analytics away and he is nothing,but he probably once got Carlisle to win the champions league on football manager,so he must be good

[Prickles]

I would say his hit and miss record is about even now

[D'Alessandro dreaming]

I think it's easy to be revisionist about Hughes but what made his reputation was his role in getting Forest Green; a club who had never played in the football league before as high as league one. They hit a hard hard ceiling there and have gone right back down since Hughes left but them being there at all was unbelievable.

Now he can't be absolved of all blame for this season of course. Clearly this isn't looking like a championship ready squad by any means and it doesn't seem like enough players gave been signed for the here and now. The signing of Sorensen has to be called into question particularly because that's a permanent signing who we won't be able to sell on easily and looks a complete dud. The loanees will all go back of course and the youngsters may come good but Sorensen instantly looks baffling when a striker with Championship experience was needed.

There has been bad luck with injuries but also a tendency to sign players with checkered injury histories so some of that is self inflicted. We are also clearly operating under a quite repressive budget so for all we know he may well have identified the kindnof players to keep us in the Championship without breaking the bank but found the purse strings too tight to land his men.

[Rocketman]

I think it's easy to be revisionist about Hughes but what made his reputation was his role in getting Forest Green; a club who had never played in the football league before as high as league one. They hit a hard hard ceiling there and have gone right back down since Hughes left but them being there at all was unbelievable.

Now he can't be absolved of all blame for this season of course. Clearly this isn't looking like a championship ready squad by any means and it doesn't seem like enough players gave been signed for the here and now. The signing of Sorensen has to be called into question particularly because that's a permanent signing who we won't be able to sell on easily and looks a complete dud. The loanees will all go back of course and the youngsters may come good but Sorensen instantly looks baffling when a striker with Championship experience was needed.

There has been bad luck with injuries but also a tendency to sign players with checkered injury histories so some of that is self inflicted. We are also clearly operating under a quite repressive budget so for all we know he may well have identified the kindnof players to keep us in the Championship without breaking the bank but found the purse strings too tight to land his men.

A good sensible assessment.

[D'Alessandro dreaming]

The difficulty in judging Hughes is shown by the Gavin Whyte and Anthony Scully signings from last year. Both have proven terrible signings for different reasons. I don't think though that Whyte being bad is the fault of Hughes. His personal issues were unforseen even with by a manager who played with him at Oxford. He looked like a quality signing. Sculky had played very little football the previous few seasons and while clearly very good at league one level when he last played there looked a gamble.

What salvaged the failures of Whyte and Scully were Paddy Lane (who I think was the first permanent signing of the Hughes era or second after Towler) and Abu Kamara on loan. But was Kamara a genius signing from Hughes or did he get a bit lucky? I can't imagine anybody expected Kamara to start so many games for us and he certainly wouldn't have done had it not been for Whyte and Scully flopping. The line between genius and imbecile is a mile wide and an inch thick.

[Smellybelly]

I think it's easy to be revisionist about Hughes but what made his reputation was his role in getting Forest Green; a club who had never played in the football league before as high as league one. They hit a hard hard ceiling there and have gone right back down since Hughes left but them being there at all was unbelievable.

Now he can't be absolved of all blame for this season of course. Clearly this isn't looking like a championship ready squad by any means and it doesn't seem like enough players gave been signed for the here and now. The signing of Sorensen has to be called into question particularly because that's a permanent signing who we won't be able to sell on easily and looks a complete dud. The loanees will all go back of course and the youngsters may come good but Sorensen instantly looks baffling when a striker with Championship experience was needed.

There has been bad luck with injuries but also a tendency to sign players with checkered injury histories so some of that is self inflicted. We are also clearly operating under a quite repressive budget so for all we know he may well have identified the kindnof players to keep us in the Championship without breaking the bank but found the purse strings too tight to land his men.

Forest Greens rise and fall also correlates to Rob Edwards time at the club. 

Could Hughes reputation be from holding onto his coat tails?

[D'Alessandro dreaming]

I think it's easy to be revisionist about Hughes but what made his reputation was his role in getting Forest Green; a club who had never played in the football league before as high as league one. They hit a hard hard ceiling there and have gone right back down since Hughes left but them being there at all was unbelievable.

Now he can't be absolved of all blame for this season of course. Clearly this isn't looking like a championship ready squad by any means and it doesn't seem like enough players gave been signed for the here and now. The signing of Sorensen has to be called into question particularly because that's a permanent signing who we won't be able to sell on easily and looks a complete dud. The loanees will all go back of course and the youngsters may come good but Sorensen instantly looks baffling when a striker with Championship experience was needed.

There has been bad luck with injuries but also a tendency to sign players with checkered injury histories so some of that is self inflicted. We are also clearly operating under a quite repressive budget so for all we know he may well have identified the kindnof players to keep us in the Championship without breaking the bank but found the purse strings too tight to land his men.

Forest Greens rise and fall also correlates to Rob Edwards time at the club. 

Could Hughes reputation be from holding onto his coat tails?

But it was Hughes who was instrumental in appointing Rob Edwards. I think the anger the Forest Green owner had about us nabbing Hughes suggests they valued him very highly. It doesn't mean he isn't out of his depth now of course but I think he comes out of his Forest Green stint well.

[mikey393]

I think it's easy to be revisionist about Hughes but what made his reputation was his role in getting Forest Green; a club who had never played in the football league before as high as league one. They hit a hard hard ceiling there and have gone right back down since Hughes left but them being there at all was unbelievable.

Now he can't be absolved of all blame for this season of course. Clearly this isn't looking like a championship ready squad by any means and it doesn't seem like enough players gave been signed for the here and now. The signing of Sorensen has to be called into question particularly because that's a permanent signing who we won't be able to sell on easily and looks a complete dud. The loanees will all go back of course and the youngsters may come good but Sorensen instantly looks baffling when a striker with Championship experience was needed.

There has been bad luck with injuries but also a tendency to sign players with checkered injury histories so some of that is self inflicted. We are also clearly operating under a quite repressive budget so for all we know he may well have identified the kindnof players to keep us in the Championship without breaking the bank but found the purse strings too tight to land his men.

He did well at Forest Green who sounded like a pub team before they entered Div 2. When they got into Div 1 they needed investment which they didn't get so went on free fall back down.
In the Summer he had lined up his major targets but we missed out on all of them including keeping Robertson & Kamara. Most of this was due to lack of budget to get over the deals over the line. That wasn't his fault he identified the players & it was then down to Cullen to sort out the deals. He failed to do this so we ended up scrambling about at Lastminute.com. Hence Sorenson who looks truly dreadful at Championship level.
We need to be made to be harder to beat if that means playing unattractive football so be it as long as we're regularly picking up points.
Then the owners need to be prepared to spend in the January Window & go for identified affordable targets.

[Cunninglinguist]

I think it's easy to be revisionist about Hughes but what made his reputation was his role in getting Forest Green; a club who had never played in the football league before as high as league one. They hit a hard hard ceiling there and have gone right back down since Hughes left but them being there at all was unbelievable.

Now he can't be absolved of all blame for this season of course. Clearly this isn't looking like a championship ready squad by any means and it doesn't seem like enough players gave been signed for the here and now. The signing of Sorensen has to be called into question particularly because that's a permanent signing who we won't be able to sell on easily and looks a complete dud. The loanees will all go back of course and the youngsters may come good but Sorensen instantly looks baffling when a striker with Championship experience was needed.

There has been bad luck with injuries but also a tendency to sign players with checkered injury histories so some of that is self inflicted. We are also clearly operating under a quite repressive budget so for all we know he may well have identified the kindnof players to keep us in the Championship without breaking the bank but found the purse strings too tight to land his men.

He did well at Forest Green who sounded like a pub team before they entered Div 2. When they got into Div 1 they needed investment which they didn't get so went on free fall back down.
In the Summer he had lined up his major targets but we missed out on all of them including keeping Robertson & Kamara. Most of this was due to lack of budget to get over the deals over the line. That wasn't his fault he identified the players & it was then down to Cullen to sort out the deals. He failed to do this so we ended up scrambling about at Lastminute.com. Hence Sorenson who looks truly dreadful at Championship level.
We need to be made to be harder to beat if that means playing unattractive football so be it as long as we're regularly picking up points.
Then the owners need to be prepared to spend in the January Window & go for identified affordable targets.

I’m going to stick my neck out and suggest that Sorensen might be better employed as an out and out striker, a poacher. Totally wasted at the moment because we can’t get an accurate ball into the box often enough.   

I certainly don’t have the slightest bit of confidence in him when he’s out of the box. I felt the same about a certain Micky Quinn.