Hughton sets sights on bouncing straight back

SOCCER NEWS:WITH THE identity of Birmingham City's new manager having been resolved swiftly enough, the city's media had moved on to speculating at yesterday's official unveiling as to who Chris Hughton might bring to St Andrew's as his assistant.

Colin Calderwood, the former Tottenham player who worked alongside him so successfully at Newcastle, featured pretty prominently on the list despite the 46- year-old currently holding the top job at Hibernian, but Hughton, who has signed a one-year rolling contract with the club, insists that’s all a matter for another day with the issue of who will be available to play for him in the Championship next year taking precedence over who is sitting beside him in the dugout.

“Getting straight back up has to be the priority,” said the former Republic of Ireland international, “and the main thing for me now over the next few weeks is to work on the squad. These are all discussions that will have to take place because this has all happened very quickly but the number one priority is the playing staff.

“It’s been well documented the times that we are in. We’ve been relegated and some of the players want to stay in the Premier League. What I have to make sure of now is that we have a squad that’s capable of competing in what will be a very tough Championship campaign.”

Hughton hopes to have immediate talks with the likes of Scott Dann, Roger Johnson and Ben Foster with a view to seeing who might be persuaded to stick around but he acknowledges that several players are likely to go and his fall-back position will be to secure the best possible deals for those who do so that there might be funds to reinvest in replacements.

Asked about the club’s prospects of bouncing straight back from the drop, Hughton said: “It has to be the priority. There are similarities between my job here and at my previous club. A lot of people have suggested that they felt I did a good job there and I’m very grateful for some of the nice things that have been said but it wouldn’t count for an awful lot if I wasn’t able to go and show the same qualities again. I have a real hunger to succeed, though, and I’ll be giving everything I can to ensure that we do well during the coming season.”

Hughton’s appointment appears to have been very well received by the club’s fans with the reaction on message boards supporters’ forums overwhelmingly positive. The 52-year-old’s reputation for favouring a positive brand of football is said to have played a significant part in getting him onto Birmingham’s shortlist and he is said to have made a very positive impression in this regard when talking to the club’s acting Chairman Peter Pannu on Friday and Tuesday.

The Everton manager David Moyes, meanwhile, has said that he intends to give Seamus Coleman the opportunity to play in his preferred right-back role when the new campaign gets under way although he admits he is not entirely sure whether the Donegal man will be able to cope there quite yet despite all the progress he has made during a whirlwind start to his senior professional career in England.

“There will be a little bit of a change over next season as we will look to move him a bit further back and maybe he can develop into a right-back,” said the Everton boss, whose decision to use him as cover on the right side of midfield during an injury crisis paid pretty remarkable dividends last season. “We have still got to see whether he can cope as a full-back in the Premier League but what we can say is that he can play as a winger if we need him,” he said.

“In the first six or seven months of last season he gave us great impetus, he was the one we were looking to in spells. That fresh, real honest, just-glad-to-be-on-the-pitch approach was something the supporters recognised and appreciated.”

The Scot feels that Coleman ran out of steam slightly towards the end of what was a tough campaign for him and he admits that that the 22-year-old is still learning his trade despite having become a regular at the Premier league outfit.

“I think in the last few months he went off a little bit,” he says. “I think after the last time he came back from international duty he did not come back firing like he was before.

“Sometimes there are things about Seamus when you can see why he was a £60,000 player and then there are other times you will look at him and say that is great business. Overall, his progress for us – from his loan move to Blackpool to coming back to us – you can see the strides he has made. He really has stepped up massive levels in a short space of time and we are hoping for him to keep that going over the coming seasons.”

Elsewhere, West Brom were being mentioned yesterday in connection with a possible move for Shay Given. Roy Hodgson’s current number one goalkeeper, Scott Carson, is on the verge of joining Bursaspor in Turkey and Given is reportedly one of the possible replacements that the manager has set his sights on.