STM

1 game away from 2 Wembley visits in 2 years and sandwiched between we had a CL qualification. Also, in this year of mediocrity we've beaten Man City, Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal, PSG, not to mention a good away win at Villa and 2 good draws away in the CL. Oh and Sunderland away. Oh and our highest ever away win. We are in a desperately bad patch of form, which was born out of an injury crisis and which morphed into a crisis of confidence. Has Eddie Howe made all the correct decisions? No. He should have switched Burn out sooner, perhaps changed formation in midfield and could have been a bit smarter when it comes to bringing players back from injury but that's a bump in the road in what has been a brilliant procession over the last 2 years. It's time people (some) put their big boy pants on and understand that it was never going to be a straight line to success. We might get beat on Saturday against Wolves and while it will be frustrating, let's not be like Simon Jordan. Let's see the long term picture and back Eddie into the the next season.

He's been a beacon of light, even when the the team has been shite. Really never expected him to be this good. Proper boy into man stuff.

Fucking awful.

Longstaff to miss a pen. 100%

Just let us get knocked out now. We won't be anyone decent anyway.

Longstaff is dead on his feet and he wasn't great when 100%. Everything is laboured. Get Anderson on for 15.

Schar waltzing out of defence and losing the ball epitomised our leaders going missing. Bruno too.

Only one winner here.

Here has cunts that's for sure.

Have you ever got an opinion wrong? Or do you just turn up and act like a smart arse?

Why do you think we were/are poor?

Schar again hoooof. Some cowardly stuff.

Schar has been a joke. Hooooooof

We will dick them now. Defence will look strong.

If Botman is missing, he's not being rested. Which only leaves injury. If he was rested, I'm sure he'd be on the bench.

Totally agree, you can also add Trippier in there (because it the argument wasnt about nationality apparently).... and more over, our domestic signings have been pretty solid too. Gordon is our player of the season. Livramento looks an unbelievable talent. I do take people arguments about saying we could have prioritised other positions, that's a fair one.

That too.

Disagree entirely. Klopp and Guardiola are better. There's zero evidence that Arteta, De Zerbi, Emery or anyone else would have been capable of what Howe has done here and there's plenty of reasons why someone like Arteta is doing so well... when you can cherry pick the likes of Declan Rice. People wax lyrical about Emery (rightly so) but he ain't finishing 4th this year IMO. Howe certainly isn't middle of the pack.

It's like Howe not being absolutely perfect is some sort of "gotcha". Yeah, good luck finding perfect. We've got an amazing manager, who only wants to be better at everything he does. Even if I'm frustrated with current form, in general, I'm in dreamland.

You do realise why 50m for Bournemouth isn't 50m for say Liverpool? Liverpool got Alexis MacAllister for 30 odd million, that's because players like MacAllister, for example, don't want to join Bournemouth. In essence, it's far easier for bigger clubs to spend wisely, when players are throwing themselves at you. For a club like Bournemouth, you can end up paying massive money on average players.

You are missing an important concept... context. This is Bournemouth, they were literally searching the bargain bin and they survived 5 years.

He got Bournemouth from league 2 to 9th in the PL? If ever there was a "took them as far as they could go" moment, that was it. The fact that they got relegated was irrelevant since he was the reason they were there in the first place. His two biggest recruitment mistakes were Ibe and Solanke... Solanke is currently one of the highest scorers in the league.

Botman has been poor since he come back... our defensive felt better when Trippier Lascelles Schar Livramento were the back four..... However Botman is a grade A player, possibly brought back from injury a tad soon and is being chronically exposed by our midfield. Look at Van Dijk, he was "past it". Players can come in and out of form and it tends to happen to centre backs when the team isn't playing so well. That's now Trippier, Burn and Botman who've had terrible spells this season. Its not the individuals, or at least not solely the individuals to blame.

Fucking belter too.