Anthony Hudson - Technical advisor

Never met a cross he didn't like. 

Of course the playing group like him. No national player in NZ has ever come out and said otherwise as long as they are picked. Nobody with any brains will say anything while the coach is still the ' boss' What I can almost guarantee is that being human, there will be a few that don't like him. You can't please everyone all the time. 

From where I am sitting with what I have read on here and in the press I find him a bit of a plonker.  

What you read on here is far less reliable than what players are saying though non-media channels

Just don't say that everyone loves the coach ,cause that is bollicks.

with apologies to Rowan Atkinson...

"I have a cunning plan Lord Martin"

"On god Hudson  - alright, what plan"

"Yes Lord Martin - a plan so cunning you could pin a tail on it and call it a weasel"

"Well come on man, spit it out?"

"First we play like drunken horse manure shovelers for 3 years, then we don't play Wood in the first leg, and then in the most devious masterstroke of all sub Roy Fallon on late in the second leg to nod home the winner"

"By heavens Hudson that  just might work"

"Thank you Lord Martin - now about that amusingly shaped turnip you promised me........

Ah yes, Reid getting injured, Smith being a wanker and shark Island pitches = Hudson's fault. Brilliant. Oh, and Jeremy "One Goal for the All Whites" Brockie not getting picked was somehow surprising.

Who gives a shark if he's self serving? Coaching the All Whites is a shark job (also, it's just that, a job) - lets be honest, here - and he's doing pretty well with them so far. The friendlies against Mexico + USA were some of the best football I have ever seen us play, and getting a draw against Peru was fantastic.

People are ridiculously harsh on the bloke considering what he has done. The team all seem to be around him. Of course not everyone loves him like a damn father  - he's a manager - but they are obviously playing for him and that's the toughest job to get right.

"Why hasn't he played like this the whole time" - erm, probably because the last 3 years have been a preparation for this moment. He was admirably trying to build depth in a country that has never had any. Whether that mission was successful is questionable - but he's certainly unearthed some players and given them experience they would've not necessarily had otherwise.

Reckon if we get into the WC a lot of you guys have a hell of a lot of crow to eat - especially the 'YF elite'. Reading this thread makes me feel like I'm in some sort of Twilight Zone where there are apparently a line of talented coaches out the door begging to manage us.

So is believing Hudson's a donkey after what youve read on here.

Truth is a large chunk of the people on this forum know little, but like to think they are the greatest football analysts in the country. Ive said it before the serious dislike for Hudson on this forum is both laughable and pathetic. Beg for NZF to improve its proffesionalism then when the coach sends people home for turning up unfit - something extremely unprofessional - he gets shot down.

He's had a magnificent week. He kept Wood's injury completely silent all week not only from the Peru squad and the media, but us! Don't underestimate how big that was... All week they wouldve been looking at how to combat him - he would have been their biggest problem. Then an hour before kick off and Gareca is panicking that a key part of their game plan was now irrelevant.

He set us up superbly in the first leg.. We were proffessional and well structured. Every player knew their role and what was needed. We were given barely any chance yet many of us left Westpac on Saturday gutted we didn't pinch a win.

Still there is little praise and even one idiot calling him a donkey

Yep. Agree with this 100%. A certain few of the 'elite' would be made to look very stupid. However, if we somehow manage to qualify, I cant wait for the pathetic excuses, or criticisms, they come up with. Haha

I can’t help but notice when we’ve played well, Winnie’s been on the park.  Maybe he’s the real coach/manager ala Nelsen 2010!

Maybe not Hudson "out" but certainly "Martin Out". He's the Donkey in all of this.

Oh stop the bs about Hudson. He struggled through the island teams and lost to Thailand C. This has been a good moment. If Maronovic drops the ball in the goal, very bad and if Thomas scores, very good. If you think the evidence prior to this game was really positive, well.

Leggy is a special breed tbf.

What are all these results prior to the Peru match that we're pointing at as evidence for Hudson's failure here? I'm a bit confused. 

We lost away to Thailand in November 2014, when we should be expecting to do better against them, but aside from that match I don't see any draws/losses where we would have been favourites? I guess the ONC final, we drew that, but that was a high stakes game, and we prevailed on penalties. 

So what were all these bad performances that apparently show he has done a sh*t job?

I think the football we played in the ONC was eyebleedingly bad.

However the measure or brief of Hudson's role is to qualify for Russia 2018. Currently that looks an option. Hence the public bashing of him isn't particulary helpful given NZF were never going to change horses mid-stream. 

Weird team selections consistently - Dyer for example.

Talk about playing high pressing and passing football then doing the complete opposite.

It's revisionist to go back now and say we weren't bad under Hudson. Or to act like it's been obvious he was building to this.

How prickly he got when people pointed out his team played, not just long ball football in the OFC 2016, but BAD long ball football.

Then denying that's what he had done and attacking the media for questioning how the team was playing, when what they were doing was comparing what happened on the pitch with what Hudson had told them was his coaching philosophy.

Then admitting that's what he had done months later. 

Getting the hump when Voerman asked him if he knew his best team yet was funny though.

Hudson's got the team playing well at the moment. Very very well.

Hudson had the team playing sharke at the Nations Cup. I do not feel embarrassed for posting that in here when it happened. 

If you think qualifying now makes people who posted in July 2016 look stupid, good for you.

My comments about Hudson are more about the lying and the deceit. I think he is a bit of a con artist. 

Yeah, I feel I am more supportive of Hudson than many on here, but he had some godawful results, selections and performances, especially early on, and they definitely weren't part of preparation for this.

He's ticked the boxes he needs to so far, but what's come in between hasn't been good, or even acceptable in parts and, while qualification for the World Cup has always been the end goal, I would've liked to have been more convincing against bad teams in our other games.

I'm sure we all would

But like it or not the Hudson gig is qualify for WC. 

Can someone please name me a perfect coach or human being for that matter... just one.

Alright here we go, have at me :)

The ONC was horrible to watch, but obviously Hudson thought that playing physical long ball, on a bad pitch, in humid conditions, was our best chance of winning. It was bloody ugly, basically as ugly as it can get. My eyes bled too and I hated it. But those tactics worked and we won it, when we hadn't won it the previous time. We only conceded one goal in the process (a penalty in a 3-1 win). The only real failure was that we didn't win in normal time in the final. 

I don't see any actual results outside of the Thailand friendly that were bad. And we've had some good results, and some very promising performances against difficult sides, during his tenure so far. I was impressed in particular with the games against Mexico, USA, Japan, N.Ireland, obviously Peru, and the home ties against Island Nations (3 from 3, 10-1 aggregate). Some of the football we have played has literally been better than anything I have ever seen from the All Whites. 

However I'm not exempting him from criticism, just to be clear. His media comments in general, his apparent denial of the style of football that was obviously quite deliberate at the ONC, and the weird wikipedia saga are all totally valid (and frankly bizarre) things he should be (and has been) heavily criticised for. 

But a lot of the other stuff I feel is totally unwarranted. Selecting many many different players was a deliberate ploy that he announced from the outset, in order to build depth, and it has definitely worked in my opinion. Marinovic, Lewis, Patterson and all our fullbacks for example, got their chances through this method of selection. So did many others who won't have careers in this side, but I feel this was a pretty good way to iron out what the squad might be to qualify for the world cup, even if it meant some cheap caps were given away. The continued selection of Caleb Ralph Moses Dyer was not something I agreed with, but every Manager has favourites that they continue to pick. I think the Fallon choice was also a masterstroke for this tie, for what he brings to the dressing room, and also helped contribute to the clever ruse around Wood's selection - having Wood, Fallon, Brockie and Smeltz in the squad but playing no striker, and hiding it until game day, that was very well done. 

Sending players home for not meeting fitness benchmarks that were clearly stated in advance is fantastic, I am baffled as to why that would be criticised. We've been screaming out for more professionalism in the All Whites set-up, and there's your best evidence of it. I also loved the attitude when it came to Boyd, T.Smith, Moss, Gleeson and others. If you don't have a burning desire to play for our country, then don't worry, we won't pick you. Some of them were happy with that, but some of them saw the benefit in this attitude, made amends, met the standards required, and got back in. 

I don't feel this is revisionist history at all. I have felt this way all the way through his tenure as these things unfolded. I've not often felt comfortable to be able to speak my mind on the issue because some people against Hudson are so clearly emotionally invested in their viewpoint, it's 100% tribal now - to the point that they will look for reasons why Hudson shouldn't get any credit, so there's no real point in trying to argue with that. I think now that it's quite obvious how much the All Whites have progressed, people who feel this way are feeling like they can speak up. 

I think Andrew Gourdie for one has had a pretty balanced view on Hudson throughout this period, his articles have been unbiased and good to read. Hyslop the same. Voerman and Hudson obviously don't get on and that has flavoured Voerman's writings for some time now. 

This is the valid criticism of Hudson, for me. The bizarre comments/interviews, the weird wikipedia stuff, etc etc. 

By all means we should jump on him for that, but the rest of it is just emotional piling on, in my opinion. 

This. The Wikipedia stuff shows he is a shifty bastard. He may be the greatest coach on the planet, he may get us to the WC, we may win a game there, and that doesn't make him anything else than a talented, competent, shifty bastard.

Hudson, for all his faults, would probably agree. Once he is no longer working for NZF, I would love to hear him go off on one about the U23 Deklan Wynne debacle which stuffed up a lot of his plants.

Anyway we're not there yet. Let's save the bitching & counter bitching for after Lima. What's Our Huddo gonna do when we're 2 goals down with 10 to play? Or 1 down with 30 to play? Or 0-0 at the end of 90? Or....

Edit. Quite like to see Wood, Brockie, Fallon & Smeltz all together in the Peruvian box. We'd outscore them at head tennis for sure!

Fair call. 

The last week has shown he really is shifty and for the first leg it worked in our favour, eg we still don't know if Wood was fit to start or not but we got a result so have to give him credit for that. Doesn't change the fact that a lot of our football in the last 3 years has been dire, especially considering the talent available.

Paulm makes some good points but we were poor against Northern Ireland. I just hope he's not being too clever for his own good - whatever produced the commitment and desire on Saturday is what we need again on Thursday. Have this strange feeling that Brockie is going to produce something extraordinary - here's hoping!

Sir Bobby Robson.

Hudson's record (before Peru) is P 24 W-9 D-6 L-9, against non OFC teams it is W 1 D 3 L 9

Kate Bush.

Wait, no, she endorsed Theresa May. Never mind.

What were your expectations?

A lot higher given the way Hudson spoke about what he was going to do when he first got here

But to see the change straight away - perhaps if we didn't have the Olympics stuff up, we'd be further down the track etc. Our record against European teams under every coach... Ricki probably has the best stats... and yet was arguably a very poor coach in many respects.

How much higher though? And what did he say exactly? Which teams did you expect to beat? Thailand and Myanmar away perhaps? I wouldn't expect to beat both, but did expect a better performance against Thailand. 

Other than that, cannot see how you would reasonably expect victories against these teams. We beat Oman and drew with the USA, and played well in narrow losses to Mexico, Japan and S.Korea. Don't think we were ever going to beat the likes of Russia, Portugal etc. 

The question was about results. I agree his handling of the media has been poor.