Friday 1 January 2016 12:42, UK
With Mark Hughes impressing at Stoke, are we wrong to rule this British coach out of the top jobs? Adam Bate makes his case...
Stoke's 4-3 win at Everton was one of the stand-out games of the Premier League season so far, but it was also just the latest on a growing list of impressive performances by Mark Hughes' side. Since late September, only joint-leaders Arsenal and Leicester have picked up more Premier League points than the Potters.
In that time, they've beaten Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United among others. Hughes has already managed one of those clubs - axed by City in a move described as "madness" by Sir Alex Ferguson in 2009 - but he's also a former player of the other two as well.
With Chelsea looking for a manager and Manchester United linked with a number of potential replacements for Louis van Gaal, one might have expected Hughes' name to come up. Instead, he's rarely mentioned. Did David Moyes blow the big jobs for all 52-year-old British managers?
In a sense, it's understandable. The Telegraph's Paul Hayward recently wrote of 'the cartel' of managers now regarded glamorous and gifted enough to assume control at the world's biggest clubs. However, it's not just Pep Guardiola and Carlo Ancelotti regarded as superior to Hughes.
Among current Premier League coaches, the likes of Ronald Koeman and Mauricio Pochettino are considered better bets too. Instead, Hughes finds himself more commonly bracketed alongside managers such as Sam Allardyce and Tony Pulis.
Both men are respected up to a point. Safe hands for a relegation battle but little more. So when Allardyce claimed he was "more suited" to life at Real Madrid or Inter, he was mocked with glee. And yet, there's enough evidence to suggest Hughes is capable of much more.
First and foremost, he can point to top-10 finishes at Blackburn, Fulham, Manchester City and Stoke. Pulis is yet to achieve that anywhere. Moreover, Hughes has international experience as a player with Barcelona and Bayern Munich and as a manager with Wales. He's experienced and adaptable.
Hughes' reputation was understandably tarnished by his ordeal at Queens Park Rangers where he oversaw an awful start to the 2012/13 season having only narrowly avoided the drop before that. The spending was astonishing, with Hughes at least partially culpable. But others have erred too.
Pochettino, for example, left Espanyol bottom of La Liga, while Koeman has been sacked on several occasions, notably at Valencia where players spoke of the dressing room being "like a funeral". One former player spoke of the "atmosphere not being so good" as things unravelled under Pochettino too.
Mistakes were made and mistakes were forgotten. Perhaps Hughes' foreign counterparts were fortunate to endure their difficult moments away from the Premier League glare. Events at Loftus Road linger rather longer in the memory. But coaches can progress.
Pochettino, in particular, appears to have learnt from his experiences and the same can be said of Hughes. Crucially, he has not reverted to a safety-first approach - content with solid citizens who guarantee Premier League survival. Hughes continues to embrace talented waifs and strays.
Stoke have been transformed into one of the more exciting sides in the country thanks to the qualities of their front three of Xherdan Shaqiri, Bojan Krkic and Marko Arnautovic. Gifted players but each, in their own way, also in danger of not fulfilling their vast potential.
The signing of Shaqiri took time when it became clear that the player was looking at other options. Bojan demanded patience of another kind, struggling for form before his arrival and fitness soon after in an injury-hit first campaign for Stoke. His relationship with Hughes is a positive one.
"He's a good coach," Bojan told The Independent. "He has changed the story of Stoke which is not easy with this new way of playing. As a coach he doesn't put up barriers where 'I am the manager and you are the player'. He tries to always have a dialogue with his players, which is important."
Arnautovic's success has been arguably the most impressive coaching triumph of them all. Styled as some sort of hybrid between Zlatan Ibrahimovic and his friend Mario Balotelli, some had given up on the Austrian. Hughes saw something different and, somewhat surprisingly, Arnautovic is now being praised for his work rate.
"I had the opportunity to go out and meet Marko," said Hughes. "I sat down with him and I liked the guy. You have to manage Marko but you have to manage lots of players in different ways. He likes a little bit of attention but that's fine. All the guys here love him.
"I think his manner and his personality takes people aback initially but once you get to know him he is very gregarious. It's just having an understanding what they're like as individuals and what they need from you as a manager and a coach. Marko has responded to it."
By integrating players of such ability, Hughes has overseen genuine progress in the Potteries. Even in Pulis's final season at Stoke, the team's passing accuracy remained below 70 per cent and only relegated Reading were making fewer short passes.
In Hughes' first campaign, Stoke's short passes increased by 30 per cent and those numbers are at an all-time Premier League high so far this season. The days of Stoke's small pitch are gone and it's working too. Only four sides have created more clear-cut chances. It's style with substance.
With four ex-Barca players in the squad, the Stokalona tag has stuck. It's a curiosity given that Cesc Fabregas accused Hughes of 'not playing Barcelona football' after one feisty 2007 FA Cup tie, but a welcome one. "Compliments are fine when they're deserved," said Hughes. "So we'll take them.
"It probably doesn't sit too comfortably with us at the moment because we're not used to it. Usually we fly underneath the radar and just get on with our business. If the profile of what we are doing is raised, then we have to deal with that as well - it is part of the challenge we have ahead of us."
That hints at a potential problem for Hughes. One that had been identified by his old boss Ferguson at the outset. "Because he is such a retiring and quiet man, I had always wondered whether he had the personality to pull it off," said Ferguson in his book Leading. "He is at Stoke City and in his element."
Maybe the implication is that Hughes has found his level. But his time at Manchester City was far from a failure. He signed Vincent Kompany for £6m, while Pablo Zabaleta called him "fantastic" even after his exit, but the sense that the job was too big has grown rather than subsided with time.
Certainly, it seems that Ryan Giggs and Gary Neville are the more likely candidates to be the next United boss these days. It's two decades since Neville was afraid to enter the United dressing room without knocking because Hughes was such a "stickler for manners". But now it's Hughes on the outside.
And yet, while he's not even the next Welshman in line let alone the next ex-player, none of Ferguson's former charges have done more than Hughes to make a case for a top job. Others might feel that time has passed. But there are growing signs that this could mean Stoke's time is just beginning.
