Andy

If Hall hasn't been following instructions, I'd be concerned about what the instructions were given that the lad has had maybe 150 cumulative minutes of not looking our best player this season. I suspect it's more that Eddie is trying to fall back on things that he feels have worked in the past.

"When you play, you have to do enough to stay in the 11" is such a wild quote in this situation that I'm not sure if the context is wrong? There are players who have given absolutely honking performances over and over and maintained their place in the team - Burn included in that, especially in that exact position earlier in the season. Hall being dropped after a slight dip in form despite being arguably our best player in the months prior doesn't sit particularly well with me. It's also concerning to me that he thinks we looked better as a result, as our entire left hand side of the pitch was completely blunt. We only looked better defensively because Arsenal were wank IMO.

Yeah, agreed tbh. We don't defend well as an entire unit, and the majority of our problems come from shite ball retention in the first place. The blame doesn't fall on one or two individuals and the solution is absolutely not moving Dan Burn back to left back.

A lot of Newcastle season ticket holders would've had you believe Laurent Robert, Rob Lee, Gary Speed, Hatem Ben Arfa and many others were shite. I sat next to plenty of them back in the day. Edit: And more recently there's plenty who would tell you the lad in the subject is shite too.

Nailed on that one of these teams will somehow shithouse their way to victory in the final against one of the teams that actually want to play football.

I don't think anyone is pretending everything is alright. There's a massive difference between that and thinking we'll lose all four games and somehow both Spurs and West Ham will overtake us despite being consistently worse than us by some degree all season

Even though Howe is worse than Bruce and Pardew combined and it's entirely possible that the club will sink down the leagues and fold entirely if he remains manager, all four of our final fixtures are games we should actually be getting something from, and two of them are against teams that are somehow even worse than us, the worst team in England ever. I reckon we'll be alright.

We'd be a shoe-in for the drop if so

I mean it makes sense given that they put us on the road to the champions league and to the first cup win in most of our lifetimes, and seemed to actually want to connect and communicate with the fans, something that has been sorely missing since they left. It's more baffling that people think losing Anderson and Minteh wasn't worth everything else they brought. I'd have them back in a heartbeat.

I feel like that's a damning statement on the state of our attacking options, rather than a solid defence of Nick.

After the verbal abuse I took for including an "on the fence" option in the previous poll, I'm glad to see people aren't letting this lazy effort slide.

To be fair, we had the option to play a better front three. Certainly a more expensive front three. The decision to put out an almost entirely toothless left hand side contributed massively to our lack of goal threat.

Undeniable successful signings for me are Isak Tonali Gordon Barnes Bruno Tino Botman Hall (permanent but not loan) Targett (on loan but not permanent) Burn Trippier Pope So 12 of them. I've had a few drinks today and don't know what question 2 is even asking of me

Good to delete this by request now, aye?

Depends if it's a good signing or not, if the player's shite we need to leave some wiggle room to be able to retroactively blame Eddie for it IMO.

The version I heard was that it was the Bournemouth game and he said to Eddie "how come you don't make half time subs you little cunt, look at Farke at Leeds in the cup next week for a prime example of how to be proactive", Eddie stood up from massaging Dan Burn's feet and was absolutely stotting, beetroot red, "I do make half time subs Lewis, let me show you how it's done", followed by maniacal evil laughter. KI was in the corner clapping him and laughing too with his Eddie Howe jarmies on.

Half time shows, every player wears go-pros and the footage constantly shifts to them, David Coote Corner where he chips in on refereeing decisions from prison, double-VAR where every VAR decision has to be VAR'd again, goalkeeper interviews while the ball is down the other end of the pitch

Any news on his Facebook and Tiktok?

Btw, not to go at rgk too much as I know that post is well-meaning, but I have my doubts that the majority of Liverpool fans would be thrilled if Eddie got Slot's job on the back of the season we've had. Don't think he'd be an attractive enough name for them at all.

Aye I thought that too Eddie's done a top job here but he isn't anywhere near Klopp and Pep's bracket. He'd absolutely be in contention for a "best of the rest" over the past few seasons, but I think overplaying his achievements or acting like he's a generational manager does him no favours. Glasner won an FA Cup last season, Emery has pretty much matched Howe beat for beat in the league and in Europe, hell Ange won a Europa League, and if he didn't, Amorim would have. Slot won the league and Arteta may well do so this season. Even Nuno nearly sneaked a champions league spot with a much weaker squad. Not to disparage the job has done at all, and like you I'm still on the "in" side, but I think suggesting it would be some irredeemable, unbelievable mistake to get rid of him is almost as daft as comparing him to Bruce.

It's the admin Illuminati that you've got to worry about. You really think influential figures like Dave, HowayTheToon and Indi just "left the forum"?

I mean in principle what you're saying is true, but it's ignoring the rather obvious point that this kind of season was Bruce's par and there was little sign of it ever changing across his entire career, whereas based on his performance with us to date, it's a blip for Howe.

I voted yes, but there's a hell of a lot of land in between those two options, and I think I find myself pretty much slap bang in the middle to be honest. It's basically "I back him but with a ton of caveats".

The club let Howe down. Isak fucked us. Howe has had a bad season tactically and hasn't adapted to the fixture list or (arguably) the change in style across the league in general. Howe isn't suddenly a bad manager, he may or may not be able to turn it around. History says he absolutely can. The players have been shite. They may or may not have stopped responding to Howe's tactics, which is a significant problem if so. All of the above are, I believe, true statements. The discussion should be whether you believe Eddie can rectify it next season if the club is managed correctly from the top, not whether the entire thing is his fault.

Agreed, my concern before the game was that our lineup was entirely geared around nullifying an Arsenal team that have been blunt recently anyway. Putting Burn, Willock and Ramsey down the left just immediately set our stall out to try to not concede, which obviously we immediately did anyway and couldn't recover. They held us at arms length all game because we had basically no attacking outlets.