TRon

Managers will get critics wherever they go. If anything Newcastle fans are more forgiving and loyal than most. Howe won't get hounded out, I think Baldwards has still got a chip on his shoulder against fans who gave him shit after his support of the Ashley regime during the takeover process.

Wtf is he playing at?

Crazy. But he can claim Howe is Walt Disney's long lost grandson for all I care, just get some sponsorship deals signed and get us to a position where we can pay top wages for the best players.

He's American isn't he? Probably doesn't understand that Brits don't really go for hyperbole and big statements. I don't mind it personally because I've seen enough of it that it doesn't really register for me anyway. Eveyrthing's about selling these days, he probably thinks that's his job.

I thought it was right to go with Wissa just because Wissa suits the way Howe likes to set up better, i.e, pace in behind and get on the end of crosses. That it hasn't worked out is down to Wissa himself performing poorly, and not looking very sharp, and the supply lines being woeful.

Agree with all of that except the bit about him being given the wrong players this summer. He got the players he wanted mostly, or at least the ones which we could persuade to come here. There's no way anyone was signed over his head.

Depends on how much trust the owners have in Wilson's pedigree I suppose.

I agree with this, and I guess at the end of the season the board will have a tough decision to make. The safe option would be to allow Eddie another crack at the transfer market with Wilson in charge. But another bad summer's trading would be disastrous, and at the end of the day the owners of the club will get the blame so I guess they have to put their big boys pants on and decide which way they want to go.

The ownership backed Howe in his stand off with Mitchell. But now that Wilson is there, I suppose they have to follow that through. But if that goes wrong I guess they'll get the blame for that too, so maybe whoever is making these decisions needs to understand football a bit better.

I think his failure to protest the penalty decision spoke volumes about him. He ended up looking guilty instead of charging to the ref to demand it be overturned. He made up VAR's mind for them. He's just not a top level competitor, and while he can swing in a lovely cross given the chance, the rest of his game is levels below.

I loved the first line. The second not so much.

His pace going forward did play a big part in the penalty we scored.

All of that is true, but it also suggests we were caught off guard by our main striker wanting to be away, and that we led up the garden path by our preferred replacements. It doesn't reek of good management.

What makes you think he's been asking for back up there though? From his actual words it seems he himself didn't want to bring in players who might upset the balance of his squad, unless they were long term targets.

I've got my doubts on Howe tbh, I don't think he's handled the squad rotation well, I think he's took too long to adapt to a different PL where teams are wiser to how we set up, and I think he might have took us as far as he can to be brutally honest. But I think it would be a disastrous move to get rid of him unless there's real unrest behind the scenes. Fans would never forgive the board, he's loved by too many, and as a manager you are onto a hiding to nothing following that. Give him another season and a chance to put things right with a DOF he can work with in place. I still think it will go tits up tbh, but you have to follow it through.

It's strange because he looked like he had more mobility after his first couple of games when he actually scored. I swear there was a couple of games where he actually pressed really fast and showed a burst of acceleration. But now he looks paggered so I think there might be merit in what Joeyt's saying, maybe it's the lack of pre-season catching up with him.

Agree. The only way to break through the ceiling is sponsorship deals on steroids, similar to how City did it.

This is my fear as well tbh. But I think the club have to basically go with Howe and Wilson and hope they will deliver. The credit in the bank argument gets tiresome, but it's got merit. Unless we have a great structure in place, with the really top guys in recruitment, there's no guarantees any manager will bring success. I have no idea whether Hopkinson or Wilson are the top guys tbh, I just assumed they are...but really who the fuck knows?

That's because of PSR. The club has supported him and given him just about everything he's asked for, even to the extent we signed players on the basis we hoped we could sell some in the future to get us in line with PSR. Remember why we had to have a firesale of Anderson and Minteh when no buyers for Bruno came in? Staveley left on the back of that. We don't make the rules, but we have to abide by them. Maybe selling the womens team to ourselves would kick the can down the road for another year, but ultimately the only way to progress is make more money. That's how football is designed these days.

The league's gone man. We need to go to Villa on a mission to bring back victory at all costs. Fuck the PL.

Murphy was atrocious. He should have been in the ref's face furious about the penalty decision, but instead he made VAR's mind up for them by looking like he agreed with it. On the ball he was even worse. Elanga looked far better when he came on.

I think that's our remaining chance of saving the season tbh. We could easily go there and win.

Partly the story. We've managed to take the lead plenty of times this season and still lost.

I think the players are aware of the weaknesses up front, so if we don't have confidence we are going to create chances and put them away, it makes them fearful about tearing forward. We are a weird side this season, don't seem to attack wholeheartedly or defend with any conviction.

I think that was partly down to the position we were in and the type of players who came in. We were great defensively, because players like Burn and Targett might not have silky skills on the ball but they got their foot in. We played quite defensively. We did have a spell after signing Isak where we seemed to have gone up a couple of levels where we became a fantastic attacking side because we pressed relentlessly and teams had no answer. But now they do have an answer, they either sit in a low block, or counter press us which we can't cope with. Howe's not dumb, he might come up with a solution, but really the only solution is better players. And we bought worse in the summer.