AyeDubbleYoo

If you want criteria I guess those are reasonable-ish, problem is forecasting how good the explanation really is, whether the problems are permanent or you back the manager to improve again. Which just leads us back to the question of assessing the manager. But recency bias is still something to keep in mind when asking the ultimate question of how good a manager Howe is (if that' how you want to make the decision). Some people are fine with assessing things just on the last few months, certainly in football we tend to be extremely short-term.

Not even sure giving him a big new contract is sensible given his injuries.

Right but we need to sign a quality player for every one we sell, as well as replace the ones that don't have quality already. For me keeping Tonali is a much more solid move than trying to sign another CM that's better than him as well as the other signings we need.

Comparing us to Bayern v PSG is faintly ridiculous though surely. Maybe in a decade when we have a new stadium and double the revenue.

The answer is obvious, it's about whether you're putting too much emphasis on recency If the whole of Howe's record was bad we wouldn't be having this discussion.

I know what you mean but it's not a logical argument. Every manager should be assessed on whether they are a good manager and can get better etc. Sacking is not like a punishment for a certain set of results, so the idea of making an exception isn't really real. Of course in a lot of cases a manager that has had the season we have had would be sacked, but that doesn't tell us anything about our own decision.

I personally think Tonali is really important to keep. If we had to sell a player it would be Tino for me, and it looks like Gordon is going. So I wouldn't sell more than those 2.

I just can’t see any way we can lose that much quality from the first team. Unless we’re entering a 3+ year rebuilding period where we’ve really changed our ambitions.

I mean, recency bias is a thing because it’s meant to indicate a flaw in thinking. Treating the latest results as the most important. Something football suffers from on a massive scale. That’s before you start talking about results vs process and all that. Something which we really don’t have a clue about.

I agree generally but I am very suspicious of the Gordon one. Especially with what Howe said about which players were giving everything. Hope I’m wrong obviously.

Yeah of course, I just don’t think it reflects ‘that’ badly on the squad building because of the number of signings we’ve needed to make since the takeover. Can’t wait to see a lot of them gone, obviously. And some of the first team TBH

TBF those are all meant to be backups and squad players at best.

Yeah, realised on day one when he did a Baywatch run into training at 5am

Almost everyone thought Eddie was as bad appointment I think. In the media anyway.

He didn't mention a lizard conspiracy to get rid of Howe, odd.

Should've stopped there really.

He was on co-comms on TalkSport last night, unbearable.

Ah cool, appreciate that. Doesn't sound like an appointment because Howe loves the guy and wants ultimate control though, which is normally what people are trying to imply.

Definitely. TBF Arsenal’s set piece team is probably bigger than our entire coaching staff.

I just don’t agree on this. He was too expensive but the reason we were prepared to overpay was because of his PL proven nature and what we could expect him to produce. If anything we were investing more money because we thought we were reducing the risk.

Have you got a link to that? This was discussed a while ago and I couldn’t find that detail.

The outcome dictates that kind of assessment, but the recruitment team can only decide based on what they knew at the time and what the player could reasonably be expected to do.

If you're going to assess signings you can't really just assess the outcome. It was very reasonable to expect that Wissa would score 10+ goals for us this season and Elanga would contribute a decent number of goals and assists IMO. Of course it didn't happen, if only we could tell the future when we sign someone.

I thought this was a meme

Depends what you mean by best in class. He hasn't worked for Barca or Madrid. Is there a particular level that would satisfy you? He's a professional at his current role, which is more than the club has really had for a generation. The relationship with Howe is also massively overblown to imply that he was chosen to keep Howe happy. They had never worked together before, they just spoke before the appointment was made to make sure that they would be able to work together positively. Very sensible step which will hopefully avoid what happened with Mitchell.