What metric are you using there?
Bournemouth have spent heavily in the transfer market. They have had a Net spend of £115m this season and £75m last season.
Hughes was appointed Technical Director in 2016. That season they finished 9th. That was then followed by 12th, 14th and then relegation in 19/20. They then finished 6th in the Championship. They were promoted as runners-up in 21/22 then finished 15th after O'Neill turned things around last season and it looks like they will finish around 10th this season.
I think it is fair to say he has done okay and nothing more.
The really worry though is his record in the transfer market. You would expect a DoF at that level with the amount of money he has had to spend to have unearthed rough diamonds and then sold them on for big money. It hasn't happened. Over the last two seasons, their player sales have totaled £1m which was the sale of Ben Pearson to Stoke.
In 8 years at Bournemouth Hughes has only really made decent money once when they got relegated and presumably had to offload players. That summer they sold Ake for £40m and Wilson and Ramsdale for £20m each. That is pretty much it for players sales unless you include Danjuma who they sold for Just over £20m after paying a similar fee for him.
I mean compare that to the kind of job Brighton have done over a similar period. For me it is pretty clear that Hughes isn't here because they ran the numbers on DoF's and he came back as the outstanding candidate.
It's doesn't add up that's for sure, and clearly a worry. Allied to a new "head coach" like Slot who has almost certainly ceded full control in the transfer/recruitment department to Hughes (overseen by Edwards), and it's even more of a concern.
For me, if you bring in a "mate" into a job reporting into you, you have to absolutely prove beyond question he's by far the best candidate out there. Otherwise it's cronyism/nepotism. The fact Hughes was appointed immediately AFTER Edwards' return was announced, suggests it was a condition (not the only one you'd imagine but still) of the latter accepting the Football CEO role.
Recent Posts