Wandy

Makes no difference. He's hit his ceiling and won't take us any further. The successful clubs always know when to peddle the manager. And that time is now with this one.

And the relevance of that is what exactly? Muppet.

Entitled I've been going for 42 years, you fucking clown.

He's a lame duck. He really, really needed a performance today but instead we got that and now have a tidal wave of negativity surrounding the entire club. We really could spiral into a catastrophic situation next season. At some point in the season the owners will realise he needs to go but they will be terrified to do it as there won't be an obvious top quality replacement available. It seems they are giving him a pass, purely based on the fact that they themselves fucked up last summer. Absolute fucking madness. At this point the bloke is simply a bluffer who has the media wrapped around his little finger.

Only problem with this image is that a stadium that size would be about 40k capacity at best. I think people underestimate how large SJP's footprint is and how big a footprint a 70k stadium would need to have. Great news about this latest move though. I think Leazes Terrace will become part of the new stadium complex and probably be a hotel, to accompany the all-new stadium.

His main strengths as a manager are motivational, whereby in the early part of his tenure he is able to get players to run through walls for him, and it's easy to see why players never really "stop playing" for him as it's easy for them to keep having much respect for him as a human being, even if they no longer really believe in what he is preaching. However, tactically and in terms of in-game management and player selection he's limited, and those limitations start to show when the motivational stuff reaches the limit of how far it can take a team. His comments about players not getting selected because of how they train again shows how stunted his managerial skills are. Loads of the world's top players historically have been poor trainers so we can safely say they would never have got game time under Howe. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but I think Isak's 3 month purple patch last season massively papered over his cracks as a manager and the following good feeling momentum after the cup win carried us forward to stumble over the finish line for CL qualification. But we've actually been a poor team to watch for nearly two full seasons now. Now we are at the point where Howe is burnt out as a manager, and he's not got what it takes in the tank to move us on to being a club that regularly finishes top six. Giving him another summer would be a critical mistake and could really hobble us for a long time.

Till the end eh you cunts?

The problem is that it's pretty clear a large section of the support have now turned. Doesn't matter what the numbers are, the support is now divided in a way Howe has not experienced here. History shows NUFC never do well when there is such a split in the fanbase.

With seven games to play CL qualification was still a possibility and EL incredibly achievable. The fact that they have downed tools with that at stake speaks volumes.

Highly likely.

Atrocious decision if true, and one that could kill the project altogether in the long term if more Elanga-esque train wrecks are bought in the summer. Seems like they haven't got a clue what to do so are just going to persevere and keep fingers tightly crossed that it doesn't all blow up completely.

It's what I took from yesterday's presser. People were commenting that he had the fire back in his belly but I read it that he was not going to go without getting the usual pay off. He's a man of great integrity but he's not the excessively nice guy that is painted. In my mind I do think he knows he is done here and it was just a case of a final "fuck you, we are done, so pay me off then".

Well surely it's Hopkinson who will be in charge of that. We are likely about to find out how good at his job he actually is.

I'm not confident in who we'd choose as the replacement either but that still doesnt sway my belief that Howe has to go. If they go for Mourhino as the replacement then we can safely say that they don't have a foggiest how to run the club going forward.

Without a doubt he is a NUFC legend and a sacking wont change that. But this happens at top clubs all the time. A manager does great things but then goes stale and he inevitably gets the boot. Sacking Eddie will not cloud his legacy in the long term if he goes now. He's the guy who broke the trophy jinx and this shitshow of a season where he has ran out of ideas wont be able to put a stain on that.