Win or lose, they're on the boos

  • by Staff Writer
  • Thursday, 27th March 2014

Norwich City manager Chris Hughton believes that the boo-boys who criticised Sam Allardyce and his team last night - despite them beating Hull City 2-1 - are here to stay.

Allardyce and his team were jeered by a vocal minority of last night's 31,003 crowd at the final whistle despite securing the three points that almost certainly takes them to within one more win of Premier League safety.

And Forest Gate-born Hughton, who played for West Ham between 1990 and 1992 told reporters earlier this afternoon that whilst disappointing, criticism of that nature is something that Premier League managers and players have to put up with now.

It's always disappointing and surprising to see but I think that's the modern game now," he said.

"There are more expectations from supporters and as a manager, it's something that you have to accept is part and parcel of the game and not let it disrupt anything that you want to do with your football club.

"But it's one of many factors in the game that's changed a little bit. Supporters will spend more money now to watch a football match than they have ever done and with that, expectation levels rise.

"You're always going to get circumstances where a supporter or a section of supporters will make that known. If we're speaking about last night, that's not the only time you've heard it and certainly not the only ground at which you would have heard it."

Meanwhile one of Allardyce's predecessors at the Boleyn Ground, Alan Pardew, claimed that he too had been the victim of naysayers during his tenure at West Ham.

"It’s not a nice feeling to be booed when you’re standing on the sideline after a game you have won," he told the Telegraph. "I vaguely recall having it a couple of times at West Ham myself.

"When the game is ugly, it’s an ugly game. It’s not tactics, it just is. It’s just ugly and he had one of them against Hull. Always at West Ham, as with Newcastle, you have to win pretty.

"I don’t think any West Ham fans would deny they are demanding. Most of them would say, yeah, we’re hard bastards to please. In a nice way."

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