Carrying on from another thread to try and save the sanity of the board.....
FAO BA, re: comparative empirical data:
There IS no comparative empirical data!
Let's try and compare us to everyone else shall we?
Man Utd 26 62
Chelsea 27 55
Liverpool 27 55
"There's a huge difference to spending a fortune at the top of the league to spending a fourtune in the middle of it."
Of course. The main one is that those at the top have been spending that much money for years and are therefore already pretty good at doing it and they're adding something to improve an already successful formula. (It's a lot easier to choose nice rims for a brand new Ferrari than it is to squeeze the same performance from a 1984 Sierra Cosworth.) So let's ignore the big boys shall we?
Aston Villa 27 52
Arsenal 27 46
Everton 27 44
Managers in place for years, so can't compare with us, although like us, a good youth system and regular incremental improvements to the squad. But for argument's sake, let's ignore them too.
Here's the bread and butter:
West Ham Utd 27 36
New manager, couple of new signings, doing well now after a shocking start. Hughes 0-1.
Wigan Athletic 27 35
Fulham 26 34
Bolton 27 33
Relatively new manager (last 12-24 months), putting couple of good signings into a solid midtable side, doing well. Hughes 0-4.
Man City 27 32
Doing OK, but just outside the top half with their second manager in 2 seasons, have spent more than anyone else in the league to purchase a squad that is pretty much unrecognisable from 3 years ago. Hughes 0-5. Oh wait, that's us. So 0-4.
Sunderland 26 31
Hull City 27 29
Less than 2 years in the Prem. Ignore.
Tottenham 26 28
Newcastle 27 28
Portsmouth 26 28
Blackburn 26 26
Brand new/recently sacked manager because of previous poor performance. Ignore.
Middlesbrough 27 26
Their long-serving manager bought a few fairly ordinary players. We're doing much better than them. Hughes 1-4
Stoke City 27 26
WBA 27 22
Newly promoted. Can't compare.
So yes BA, with reasonable selective empirical evidence Hughes has done worse than 4 out of 5 comparable Prem managers. Although if you look at the points totals, were we to have won 2 away games that we lost (Wigan, West Ham), we would have been looking at being better than 4 out of 5 comparable managers. We'd've also been 7th and in UEFA qualification spots. So what you're effectively saying is that you're sacking Hughes for two bad results against teams who know the Prem, the drills, the opposition, and each other.
I'd go so far as to say that we can't even compare ourselves with those teams anyway as they've not had any rape accusations levelled against their best player. Or that they don't play in blue. Or that the refs favour them instead of us.
I'm being facetious, as you can probably tell.
Bottom line is that you're judging our manager before he's had a chance to prove himself (how long does one get? Plenty of "successful" managers were lucky enough to get 3+ years before they got the sack, Moyes is a shining example of how persistence reaps rewards), but above all I think you are choosing to ignore all the positives and compare with uncomparable data. That's your prerogative!