After taking Fulham to 8th place in the Premier League, and qualifying for the Europa League via Fair Play, the question of why Mark Hughes left his role as Fulham manager goes deeper than his ‘wish to move on to further [his] experiences’. The motives of his departure from the West London club will be called into question, considering the success he enjoyed in his first and last season as manager.
After being ruled out of the running for the vacant Aston Villa position following the departure of Gerard Houllier, because of his well-documented health problems, the former Manchester United and Barcelona forward could end up unemployed at the start of the next Premier League season.
The early rumours coming from club ‘insiders’ is that he was unhappy about his lack of support in the transfer market in his pursuit of new blood. Although this particular excuse seems to have no legs given the club sanctioned a £10 million bid for the highly rated Espanyol striker Pablo Osvaldo, which was in due course rejected. So if these ‘insiders’ are to be believed and he wasn’t being supported by the hierarchy at Fulham in the transfer market, then it would come as no surprise that he has decided to call it a day at Craven Cottage.
However, if the club felt they were being held to ransom over this La Liga journeyman, who has only really appeared on the big stage of football this season at 25 years old, surely it is at the discretion of Mohamed Al-Fayed and his board of directors whether or not they believe Osvaldo is really worth in excess of £10 million. It would appear from an outsider’s perspective looking in, that the hierarchy of Fulham, and Mark Hughes had very different transfer targets and budgets in mind.
The more popular and widely believed reason for Hughes’ departure is of course he had his eye on another vacancy. But with Villa seemingly having reservations over Mark Hughes commitment, following his unorthodox departure from the Fulham hot seat, Hughes appears to be left in limbo. It is also worth mentioning that his agent is the controversial Kia Joorabchian, the man behind the Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano ownership debacle, amongst other things, and he has moved to dismiss speculation that Mark Hughes’ surprise departure from Fulham was influenced by other potential opportunities and insisted that the ‘timing may have influenced the press and the public to believe that he was heading towards a direction but that was not the case whatsoever’.
Yesterday, Hughes was heavily linked with the empty manager’s office at Chelsea, and Joorabchian did little to dismiss the speculation linking Hughes to the job stating ‘I’m sure that if they approach Mark, then Mark would be more than happy to speak with them, it would probably be an honour for him’. John Terry has also suggested he would be more than happy to play under Mark Hughes, who is an ex-Chelsea player himself.
Speaking ahead of England’s crunch qualifying game with Switzerland Terry said ‘Mark Hughes would have the qualities, I think he has shown that for sure, he is someone the club will hopefully be talking to’. Terry though insisted he had no preference with who the club hired, but the current Turkey national team coach Guus Hiddink appears to be the early favourite for the Chelsea job, considering the revelation that he is still on the Chelsea payroll, and his FA Cup winning stint as interim manager.
Hughes now must decide if he is ready to step back into the firing line at a club which has so much pressure to succeed domestically and in Europe, an area which he has not really been tested. We mustn’t forget that Hughes was unable to handle the pressure of being Manchester City manager, and whether people think he was fairly or unfairly dismissed is open to speculation, but the fact remains that he was sacked by Manchester City, who at the time were not as ambitious as Chelsea.
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