Source: Daily_Mail
HATCHET MAN: Doomed Magpies are hanging stooge Hughton out to dry - Ashley should be ashamed
If Newcastle weren't in such serious danger of getting relegated stand-in manager Chris Hughton would deserve some sympathy.
He shouldn't have to put up with the whispering campaign against him among his players or the regular humiliation that his lack of managerial ability brings.
When Hughton claimed: 'I still have the dressing room behind me 100 per cent,' and 'morale is good on the training ground and I'm comfortable with the mood in the camp,' he was just making even more of a fool of himself.
Things are clearly going from bad to worse at Newcastle and Hughton is going to end up being the man who takes the blame. The club are hanging him out to dry and need to put him out of his managerial misery.
This column argued some time ago they needed to appoint an experienced figure or face the drop but it looks like owner Mike Ashley would rather see them go down than make a change and save them.
That the club talk feverishly about the impending return of Joe Kinnear when it seems so soon after his most recent heart problems tells its own story.
They will follow medical advice, of course, but he is hardly a sure bet to turn things around.
And in the meantime they will force Hughton, who was in charge for four games last September and had a perfectly awful record of four defeats, to suffer.
