Andy

We need Barnes to play worse, his finishing is shite when his all round game is good.

Pope coming close with that shot

Not worth selling. Based on this forum's discourse around Wissa's age, and taking into account the variance in value between a midfielder and striker, Bruno is probably only worth about £4m now.

Voted no. But really it's a yes

This is roughly where I'm at with it. We've seen in the past that Eddie is capable of turning things around and because of that it would be madness to just write him off, but it's also fair to point out that this is the most difficult task he's had given how bad the performances have been and how disjointed the squad looks, so I can see why people have their doubts. Precedent says that sooner or later most managers go stale at clubs and hit a point where they can no longer turn bad spells around, so berating people for being concerned that we may be seeing that happen with Eddie is almost as daft as outright wanting him out.

@Yorkie has turned into a right nasty piece of work lately

While it isn't sustainable long term, doesn't that just say they have mentality and fitness to keep going in games? Given our penchant for conceding late goals, we really need to be switched on to the death against these in a few weeks.

I don't think people are "blaming" Woltemade though, they're just trying to figure out why we look so disjointed going forward, and obviously playing a completely different type of striker is going to be the go-to explanation, as well the ageing fullbacks. I don't think anyone with a brain is saying his performances have been subpar, rather that the rest of our team seemingly have no idea how to play off him at the moment.

Nah I think we did, but since he deleted his account, his historic posts are now called "Guest That’s total bollocks. I’ve said repeatedly I really like Eddie Howe and I would love dearly for him to succeed. Am just not seeing it though. The top managers are consistent in the league. Eddie Howe has been consistently inconsistent. And I have criticised him before and been made to eat my words when we go on a prolonged run of form, but then we’re right back in a shit spell again. How is that sustainable? This season feels different though. We’ve never played as badly as this under him. And to whoever is saying nobody has the balls to say he should be replaced, i have said this on this thread. I think he should be given the season as am sure we won’t be relegated. But approaching the summer we should look to bring in a top coach and try and kick on as a club from that point. Ross Wilson should be the one picking the players (if any) that we sign in January."

We're asking him to do an impossible task, and it's one that Isak was required to do at times last season and struggled with too. Impossible to judge him until we start controlling games and looking to break teams down with constant pressure. He's got no chance on turnovers when he's having to camp the middle of the pitch hoping for something to break his way.

I think we miss his leadership as much as anything. He is constantly bollocking people and demanding higher standards. We don't have enough of that on the pitch at the moment.

22-23 is definitely the best season in my memory too, even better than Keegan's early seasons tbh. The momentum we had, the way we dominated games, the energy we played with, and that feeling of "we're actually fucking back" after being a shell of a club for so long was unreal. With the added sense that we were going places as a club with the takeover still fresh, it just felt magic and like the start of an era.

It worked three seasons ago. Burn was pretty poor at left back during the last champions league season, the same concerns were being raised then that are being raised now and people were clamouring for Hall to be given a chance (it ended up with Tino playing there). Having two full backs that struggle to overlap is a huge tactical problem for us. It completely kills our left hand side in particular since Barnes and Gordon need that foil to be able to cut inside. Having full backs that can get up and down allows you to control the game much more effectively, we have arguably the least dynamic pair in the league at the moment and it's really no surprise to me that we're suffering at both ends of the pitch as a result.

I get what you're saying, and you're right that if we lost our next 10 games obviously most people would be changing their stance, but I assume the "he's at least got until the end of the season for me" type comments are on the basis that our form remains inconsistent rather than turns absolutely catastrophic.

I think he's been mostly good this season, long term I do worry about his pace and concentration. I'd probably prefer Burn in there at the moment but I don't feel like it's as cut and dry as other posters in here do, and last week I would've said the opposite. There's only really Thiaw who has been completely consistent and switched on for us this season across the entire pitch, so it's hard to single out Sven for a couple of iffy games.

It's always been like this to be honest, even going back to the SBR days and before. It's not an issue restricted to forums or social media, the same criticism (often worse) can be heard in the ground or in the pub. I don't think it's an entitlement thing personally or even a modern football thing, you'll see and hear this sort of stuff on every forum and in every ground, pub and office across the country, and that's been the case since I started following the sport.

I was never a fan of him at Villa to be honest and I always think some attention should be paid to the reaction opposition fans have to a player leaving. Obviously it's not always reliable, but delight at a transfer fee is always concerning, especially for a player who is already based in this league. I think he's looked tidy so far, but that's about the only opinion I can formulate on his performances for us. I'd like to see him be more brave on the ball when he's given an opportunity.

I think "poor targeting" is a fair assesment of Elanga and possibly Ramsey. I understand that they need time, but we just didn't have time to give going into this season, and even if and when they do ultimately improve, I'm still not convinced they're the right players to solve our problems. It doesn't seem like either of these were last resorts, they appear to have been primary targets. Wissa we obviously wanted but only at a certain price, then seemingly ended up paying what Brentford wanted anyway, we might as well have done that to begin with and given the lad a proper pre-season. I can see r0ca's argument about him being a panic buy to an extent, yes he was a target all along, but we definitely didn't seem fully convinced by the value and only gave in once we had no other options and were desperate. Trafford, by all accounts we dawdled and allowed City to jump in. Going purely off the reporting, it seems there is every chance they wouldn't have taken up their option to buy him until Edison was confirmed to be leaving, but we just couldn't get the deal done. The Woltemade search was obviously an understandable mess. I think we tried to target the right strikers but the PSR argument is valid there.

You may be right in the long term, but he's also enjoying the benefit of that success at the moment, so it works both ways. Any other manager at almost any club would be under serious pressure after the league performances this season; they aren't just bad performances by Eddie's standards, they are bad performances by any metric. Eddie deserves that patience of course, but you're right that the credit he has won't last forever. I'm not sure fans will turn on him en masse if we don't get European football, but if we're consistently this poor and showing no signs of improvement by the end of the season then questions will likely be asked.

Areet Yorkie how many of my posts do you want to call lazy this week? Recruitment is a problem. Howe is currently a problem. The players are a problem. I'm not pinning it on one element, but it's the one obvious thing that can and should change. The manager can't be driving recruitment at a top level club. I'm not sure how anyone can look at this summer's recruitment and say it was fit for purpose. Lazy critique and clichéd or not, it's just a reality. We're almost a third of the way through the season, three points above 19th, and only one of our signings looks like they fit into the system that we've been playing for the last four years. With a rough fixture list and an impending CL campaign, we needed a "hit the ground running" type window and just didn't get it. As a result, we look completely stale across the pitch. That Elanga was the first target sums it up for me. At best he was signed to solve a problem that didn't exist, at worst his ineffectiveness and sloppiness on the ball creates a problem of it's own. Ramsey - feels like a nothing signing. He did nowt for Villa for two years and looks the same for us. Their fans on Villa Talk were over the moon at the fee, which never bodes well. Ramsdale - we don't seem to want to give him a go. Jury is out. Woltemade - everything he touched went in to start with which was obviously unsustainable, now we literally can't get the ball to him. Looks a great player, but whether he's a great fit, jury is also out for me. Wissa - bad luck with the injury obviously and could go either way. At the price tag, didn't look an amazing value signing even pre-injury. If the signings we made over the summer end up proving me wrong, fantastic, that's what it's all about, but I just don't see it. Particularly with Ramsey and Elanga, I really just don't see them as being the type of players that we needed that will consistently win us points.

Getting the best out of his game relies on us pushing the opposition back and allowing him to make nice bits of link up play in and around the box. He's spent most of his time here on the halfway line.

We have to find another option at left back if Hall and Tino are out. Whether that's Trippier LB and Kraft right back, or a youngun coming in, just anything; there's no point repeating the same mistake over and over again, and it's frustrating to me that it's taken a sending off and a match losing penalty for it to come to a head. Burn isn't a left back and never has been, even when he did okay there in the first season it was often with the caveat that Joelinton or Willock practically played as a second LB too, and that Trippier was causing havoc on the right; obviously both he and Trips are much slower now and having both of them on opposite flanks is just a liability. We lose so much going the other way with him at full back, the odd headed goal doesn't change that. Him being in that position affects the whole team tactically. Put him back to centre half, put Botman on the bench, bring in a young left back in January and let's move away from ever playing him in this role again.

The lack of posts above yours says at all really.

I don't think Eddie should be under pressure internally yet, but he undoubtedly will be externally from large chunks of our fanbase if the form continues, especially with the mackems doing so well at the moment too. He got it wrong today and has quite a few times this season. And yes, there are huge concerns over our identity and capability to create chances, but it's a little too early for full-blown panic. Priority for me however should be a review by the club into the summer's recruitment. It wasn't good enough, we all knew it wasn't at the time, and if Eddie led that then there definitely needs be discussion about just how much control he has in that department. There's a reason why other clubs have moved away from the notion of their head coach also being their head scout. It's incredibly difficult to see what we saw in Elanga and Ramsey, and for me the jury is out on all of our signings apart from Thiaw at the moment - even Woltemade is a bit of a question mark since we have no idea how to get him involved in games. This feels like his toughest moment at the club.

Aye. The goal we scored was only a half chance too. We are consistently creating absolutely nothing away from home.