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.

To be honest I would contest that he has massively overachieved overall. In the 22/23 season certainly but since then? Nah. I'd say he has done very well but hasn't massively overachieved, bearing in mind the money spent. And history is irrelevant to me to. All managers run out of steam eventually and must pay the price for it. And that is what is happening here. I've gone on record here before that I still believe that Howe is a good manager who will learn from this and do well at his next club and I stand by that. But its still time for him to leave here, so that he can recoup and go again. He's not going to turn it around and the idea of giving him a bumper kitty to spend on more Elangas is terrifying. All managers "flame out' and Iraola would do too. But that's not a good enough reason to not go for him.

Sorry but this is simply not true. For instance, we get Iraola and things get better immediately. And if not him, the idea that another manager could not get a better tune out of this squad is bollocks. We have a £130m strike force that he refuses to play ffs. Howe has actually craftily almost gaslighted the fanbase into thinking he is unreplaceable. He's a genius with the media, I will give him that.

The idea of making an announcement now that he is leaving at the end of the season is pure fantasy too. What if he then wins the remaining games? How stupid will the club look then? This isnt Alex Ferguson we are talking about. We have spent a fortune with players that the manager chose and are heading for the bottom six with atrocious, unwatchable football. He needs to go now. Top clubs are ruthless, not awash with sentimentality.

I don't buy this idea that he is going to walk away, and thus giving up a payoff. Yesterday's presser to me seemed to be a message to the owners that if they want rid of him then they are gonna have to sack him.

This needs to end and it needs to happen before the next game. He’s showed that he’s not learning anything and refuses to change anything at all in terms of team selection and tactics. It’s done. Give the job to Jones for the last 5 games and get Iraola in the boardroom tonight for a chat. I was all for giving him the rest of the season as we seemed to have nothing to lose but right now under this manager we are heading for a bottom six finish.

Dickarus is one of the worst posters on here for doing that. And you are right, it's absolutely rife on here.

He’s a good coach but at premier league level he hits a ceiling and runs out of steam, that is glaringly obvious now. It happened at Bournemouth and now it has happened here. When he inevitably leaves here he will take a break and come back to another PL club and do really well for them for a few years before hitting the same ceiling. My guess is that his next club will be Everton. The problem we have isn’t with getting another top class manager, it’s with an ownership that has become complacent. They probably thought that they had lucked out and had secured their very own Alex Ferguson. Well they haven’t, and now they need to do something about it or their asset will be back to the status and financial value that it had when they bought it, in double-quick time too. They might find out the hard way that football fortunes change very quickly, for good and bad. And especially at this particular football club.

He’s absolutely done now. We aren’t getting Europe and we aren’t going down so the club now have two months to get a top class replacement lined up. Absolute crossroads moment for the club. Fuck this up and it could set us back for years.

Whether or not a new stadium actually happens, if we can at least take as gospel truth the club have done a feasibility study on building on Leazes Park, then this surely means that they have already consulted and appeased all of the relevant people, so that there won't be any opposition if PIF give the green light?

Based on that interview it looks like a new stadium will definitely be between 65k & 70k capacity. Hope it's closer to 70k than the 65k.