Chris_R

I'm a big fan of Howe, as I say. But let's caveat this by pointing out they started that season on -17 due to going into administration.

I'm from Newcastle but for the last 12 years, I've lived in Bournemouth. In that time, Howe's worked absolute miracles down here. Forget the couple of years of big spending once Bournemouth got a few seasons under their belt, he took a team hurtling out of the Football League altogether and turned them into Premier League regulars. That's a genuinely astonishing feat. A few years ago, with Bournemouth still in the championship, I was overseas and got talking to someone in a bar about football and after having a few I started saying how shit Pardew was. This prat (not a Newcastle fan) kept telling me Pardew was fine, I was ungrateful, deluded, the lot, and asking "well who else would you employ?" - I immediately said Howe. He'd never heard of Howe, so decided Pardew was therefore better. Ever since then I've always wanted Howe to get this job, just to annoy this idiot. He's genuinely a very good manager though, and his teams play great football. For those doubting his stomach for a fight at the bottom, he got Bournemouth out of a 10 point deficit in L2 and guided them to safety. He's still young, forward thinking and passionate. There might be better managers, but I don't think there's many.

Just desperate for us to play with some ambition and put our best players on the pitch, because that's the only way you win football matches and we desperately need to win a football match. Self reflection and learning from your mistakes are vital human characteristics, and if Jones has even a shred of that in him he'll see how clearly his tactics and players were horrific and unworkable over the last 2 games. Let's see what we get.

I hate the argument in the first paragraph... Surely if you leave it this weekend because there's not enough time to make a difference, then you can just say the same next week?

When I say Keegan would be my first signing, it's clearly not as a manager. I was talking about an ambassadorial role. But whatever his strengths, weaknesses and strengths managerially, which we can all argue, I was talking about his ability to captivate an audience and enrapture people about the area. There, he's without equal.

This. He'd have Conte walk out on Spurs whilst the ink was still wet on the contract. kK should've been our first signing.

I think he did want it until we applied too much pressure on him to give an immediate answer, from what I understand? We basically got too needy and desperate and pushed him away.

I don't agree, we might have scored one or two, but never that many.

So why did he pick that same team against Palace? And why sit back in our own box all match in both games, giving the position over 70% of the ball? Why refuse to press at all?

Yep. And the benefit to having a go is that although you don't change the result against Chelsea, you do get practice in having some possession and moving the ball round which stands you in good stead for playing the beatable times.

Not if we all sit in our own box all match and have 20% of the ball, and that seemed to be the instructions we were under rather than because of who the GK was.

I at least feel pain today, and anger. That's better than feeling nothing.

Just because he's not "the manager" doesn't mean he escapes criticism. He's the manager today; he's the one who sets them up, picks the team and tells them how to play. If that's rancid, he's deserving of criticism. Today and vs Palace we were rancid. He's also been a coach here for a good while, it's not like he just walked into the club. He's been working with these players for months. I'm not going to start screaming that we need a managerial appointment tomorrow or anything daft like that, but from what we've seen so far Jones is fucking terrible. I don't dislike him, in fact he seems very decent and comes across well. I'm sure he's a nice bloke and loves the club, etc etc, but that's not enough. So many of us can see what's wrong and what we need to do better - press more, play our best players, put ASM on the wing, get a bit higher up the pitch, we're talking genuinely basic shit here - if he cannot see that he deserves criticism.

ASM gets marked out of the game because he's our only player who can carry a ball or get forward (Either due to skillset, instructions, or a combination of both), and therefore the opposition can just stick 3 or 4 men on him and not worry about anyone else on the pitch because they know we can't hurt them.

We look better drilled defensively, but we offer actually even less in possession and threat going forward. And even though we DO look a bit better drilled defensively, it's pointless if you don't have any threat at the other end because defending for 90 minutes is impossible and will lead to the opposition almost inevitably scoring and you have no mechanism of scoring one yourself beyond relying on some kind of magic or wonder goal. If you cannot carry the ball up the other end of the pitch and attack as a unit, you'll lose virtually every game you play.

It's a different kind of shit, but it's just as shit.

We're getting exactly what our gameplan deserved. 3-0 down, and the way we're played we're lucky to have even scored 0. As I said earlier, whatever the short-term results like being 0-0 at half time, this is not a sustainable way to play football. You have to offer SOMETHING at the other end, or the attacking is relentless. You have to have a plan on how to get forward as a team, not just welly it up to ASM and Wilson and hope. And aside from how ineffective it is, it's just shit to watch. We've had just over 20% possession ffs. Getting beat is fine, especially against Chelsea, but this and the Palace game have been awful. Genuinely woeful stuff.

No, 0-0 is great in itself. But it's shit to watch (which of course is less important) and we're relying massively on luck to be where we're at. It's not a sustainable way of playing or getting results.

Speaking personally, I'm absolutely NOT expecting "all out attack". I'm expecting us to press higher up the pitch, have our best players on the park and offer a threat when we have the ball. That's very different to "all out attack".

I'm criticising Jones, yes, I am. He's picked the wrong team and sent them out to just camp in their own box for 90 minutes. That's deserving of criticism.

Benitez had a plan for what to do when we got the ball. We lack that entirely. The lack of pressing outside of the last third is hindering us terribly too and we're just say back with everyone back all of the time.

Well your point is just not true, unless you think they've been training for half an hour a day since he took over?

What's your point? I can still be disappointed with what he's done so far. And I am. What he's done so far has not been very good.

Well it's not 8 hours, is it? Jones has had them for a couple of weeks. And yes, I'd expect a good manager to be able to make a positive impression in that time. Maybe not to completely change us around, but to show signs that we're going to do more than just sit in our box with 11 men for 90 minutes, not press at all and just hope for a miracle. Plus, leaving our best players - players who could help us be a better football team - isn't a great look either. I'm not impressed at all with what Jones has done so far. Sure, he might be a more coherent speaker but on the football pitch we're offering nothing at all and are playing for 0-0 from the first minute.

I mean I can be simultaneously happy that he's gone, but disappointed that we're still no better.