Mark Hughes has been sacked as manager of Stoke City, just hours after the club’s FA Cup third-round exit at the hands of League Two Coventry City.<\/p>\n
A run of five defeats in seven Premier League games also contributed to Hughes’ departure and he leaves with the club in the relegation zone.<\/p>\n
Hughes, 54, had been in charge of the Potters for four and a half years.<\/p>\n
Stoke, who play Manchester United on 15 January, say they will “look to appoint a new manager as soon as possible”.<\/p>\n
A section of Stoke fans called for him to leave and held up banners throughout\u00a0the 2-1 defeat at the Ricoh Arena.<\/p>\n
After the game – his 200th in all competitions as Stoke manager – Hughes said he did not think the defeat changed the situation regarding his future and said it “might be a blessing” for the rest of the season.<\/p>\n
Hughes, a former Manchester City, Blackburn Rovers, Fulham and QPR boss, succeeded Tony Pulis at Stoke in May 2013 and was the fourth longest-serving manager at a Premier League club.<\/p>\n
The Welshman guided Stoke to three straight ninth-placed finishes, dropping to 13th last season.<\/p>\n
A miserable run of form<\/strong><\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n Hughes rested players as Stoke\u00a0lost 5-0 at Chelsea\u00a0on 30 December, saying they were focusing on the Newcastle game on New Year’s Day.<\/p>\n But a 1-0 defeat by the Magpies, who were a point worse off than their opponents before kick-off, put more pressure on Hughes and saw Stoke fall to 18th in the table on goal difference.<\/p>\n Stoke have conceded five or more in three Premier League games this season and have let in a total of 47 goals – seven more than the second-worst tally held by both West Ham and Watford.<\/p>\n The\u00a05-1 defeat\u00a0by Tottenham at Wembley on 9 December prompted\u00a0angry fans to confront\u00a0the Stoke players at the city’s railway station.<\/p>\n After that game, Hughes said there had been “an undercurrent” through his time at the club from fans who were against his appointment.<\/p>\n On Thursday Hughes said he did\u00a0not need reassurance\u00a0about his position.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Source: BBC Sport<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mark Hughes has been sacked as manager of Stoke City, just hours after the club’s FA Cup third-round exit at the hands of League Two Coventry City. A run of five defeats in seven Premier League games also contributed to Hughes’ departure and he leaves with the club in the relegation zone. Hughes, 54, had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":389458,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[142],"tags":[3686,3688],"class_list":["post-389454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","tag-mark-hughes","tag-stoke-city"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=389454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/389458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=389454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=389454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=389454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}