AyeDubbleYoo

Looks like a different player on this. I feel like he just struggled to adapt to the move, mostly psychological probably. Of course Forest were playing explicitly counterattacking football, but still.

Can people please stop this stuff?

I think if we can start Bruno and Tonali until the end we might see some measure of reaction. I'd like to see 4231 with Woltemade and Osula maybe. I don't feel like the players have given up, maybe Gordon and Tino but one is injured anyway.

I don't think Elanga is all pace at all, if anything I think he gets too much criticism when he doesn't play with all pace. When I watched his highlights before he joined I thought he was good off both feet and his decision-making was pretty good too. I didn't get the impression his game was just knock and run at all. I mean, he scored a great goal for Sweden with his left foot the other week. This is why I suspect we were trying to add more technical ability to our squad and not 'just' sign athletes. Although he is very quick he was meant to be a technical upgrade on Murphy. Ramsey, Woltemade and Thiaw are also technically pretty sound.

TBF some might be checked out because they're leaving or the season is ending so badly. Tonali was still bombing round like his life depended on it. I don't really think Howe has 'lost the players' in any meaningful way.

True Faith wasn't 'that' bad compared to usually whinge levels, Alex is extremely Howe out at this point - more than I expected anyone to be really. But was just about listenable, which for them is good work.

Since I don’t really expect a turnaround, I wouldn’t want to sack Howe this season. It’s not really realistic to expect much to change in the position we’re in now. If he’s up for a rebuild and we have transfer plans in place then go for it. I think the rest of the season will be awful but overall I think Eddie Howe is a very good manger and I’d rather go again with him. Of course if there’s a world class manager lined up then you couldn’t complain.

I'm tempted to start the new True Faith just for the car crash fascination of it all. Not sure.

Aye, surprised it's that many, I guess many are just a sub appearance though right? I haven't been blown away by him but every team needs tidy midfielders who are technically sound and can move the ball (and with the ball). I still hope he can contribute more next season.

Well we can never really say when we should sack him in the future. All we can say is do we sack him now, if we keep then we discuss it again if he doesn't do well.

He's clearly better than what he's shown since he's been here, mentally he must be a mess. Just end the season and let everyone forget about it TBH

They would be thriving if they had a nice little stadium TBH. You’d see plenty of people who are priced out of Newcastle or just can’t be bothered with the PL bullshit.

And if he goes?

He’s a good addition still, might even end up as a starter next season. Would be willing to give him a run in a non-shit team and see how he does.

I don't blame for that, but he should give everything for us until he's a Bayern player.

Sensible end of season review, nee good for Luke

Yep fair enough, I just think some people seem to think Howe designed our previous approach to transfers or something. When really it was the result of a takeover which happened and a club running on a skeleton staff at executive level. Especially after Staveley left, and even when she was here TBH.

But I mean, Howe is arguably our best ever manager and has been the most important individual in the recent history of the club. It doesn’t mean we were wrong to keep Howe and replace Mitchell.

OK, but we’ve gone for relegation battlers to CL with our approach too. As I said though, broadly I agree we want to be more strategic going forward.

I don’t really disagree. I just understand that if you’re new owners without a professional recruitment process in place yet, and people like Murphy and Joelinton are playing really well for you, it’s reasonable you might decide to keep those players around longer instead of gambling that you will be able to replace them. Long term I’m in favour of a much more strategic approach, it’s just we haven’t been in a position to do that as a club. I have hopes for this summer now Wilson has been in place for long enough to prepare.

No doubt, but there are mitigating factors. If the team was playing well and Wissa was banging in goals we would’ve had the luxury to integrate Woltemade slowly and take risks in certain games.

True but I don’t think selling people like Wilson and Murphy would’ve brought that much money in.

I think the main reason we hung onto players was that we already needed to make so many signings to build a PL squad. Agree we didn’t have a professional setup in place and that’s part of the reason why we didn’t let people go. We would’ve struggled to make the volume and quality of signings needed to replace everyone.

We have to reserve judgement based on this season IMO. Everything has compounded and the worse we do the less likely Eddie is to give a new maverick player a run of games to show what he can do. Like I said, maybe the season now looking a write off will play in Woltemade’s favour.

I really hope we can use Woltemade still, I don't think it's necessarily over. Even when he came on against Bournemouth he had a couple of good touches and passes. I know it hasn't happened yet but I wonder if this Bournemouth defeat will make Eddie accept that the season is basically over in terms of achievement and mix things up in a bigger way. Probably not against Arsenal away TBF, but overall.