Gallowgate Toon

As much as I have my frustrations with Howe, I'm finding the discourse around him currently extremely disrespectful. Some fans don't deserve him. We know how good he can be, there could be (and are) extremely valid reasons for whatever's gone down this season so far & some of the weird things we're seeing from him. Imo, you have to look at his entire body of work with us and analyse that rather than just this season, especially when the mooted alternatives are pretty mediocre imo. I was watching the AWSF podcast last night and there was a suggestion it's too far gone - bollocks, football can change very quickly; Howe has literally proved this with us already when he took us from relegation fodder to CL qualifiers in 18 months. Maybe some of the current players aren't responding to him anymore, maybe the club's lack of direction or the splitting nature of the Isak situation has created a mental block for some of them. Fine, move them on if they're not committed to NUFC or don't think they can be back at 100% in. As a club, we need to figure out what we're doing to achieve our publicly stated ambitions before this summer. The initial honeymoon is over, we need to set a strong, stable direction for the next phase - players/agents won't buy in at all otherwise. As fans, we'll buy in too if we can see where it's all going.

Aye, he's an entertaining watch.

I did think not starting him was odd. He's shown with Bruno out that he can be a really handy mover of the ball for us. In his post-match, Howe even said Palace like to sit deep so surely having a midfielder who can be more flexible would've made sense.

It's extremely rare for Howe to give someone so little game time unless they're a wee'un. Something must've happened behind the scenes. He's gone from calling him a dressing room leader to effectively telling him to perform while barely giving him any minutes.

With Bruno as the 6, we often saw excellent line-breaking passes and real risk-taking to get moves going though. We really miss him there now.

Sandro does have some cracking technique in his locker but it's moments rather than consistent tekkers. Bruno, Miley, and Ramsey are our most technical midfielders by a distance imo.

I'm quite surprised at how angry I feel about everything. It feels entitled but seeing the same things week in/week out really does fucking grate Ultimately, it's largely down to poor recruitment balance. Obviously, we have some big constraints with PSR etc. but I just think the split of our recruitment from the first couple of years to the last couple is so noticeable. We've bought too many nice lads (some of which are decent players) when we needed more winners/killers. That team/squad yesterday was very, very, very soft. Everything else is marginal gains to me, even tactics/systems. If the balance of talent & mentality isn't there, none of it matters much. Down to Bruno's return to salvage our season imo.

He probably stayed on due to his leadership group standing. Cracking lad but absolutely nowhere near a leader. He's a court jester who regularly shirks 50/50s.

Great to see him back.

Oh Eddie. Such a shame if this is the way it all ends.

They were frustrating finishes in that he didn't get them on target, really. The rest of his game was good - he does lead from the front well in that role.

Yup, we've gone from having a physical, mentally robust side that needed sprinklings of quality to push on... to a bunch of tummy ticklers. It looks like it all peaked last March but now the balance has gone. Our first 18 months of windows, we signed some really good players but, crucially, exceptionally strong characters. Trippier, Bruno, Burn have been a really big part of the backbone of our success. Obviously having a class forward was part of that (along with a functioning 'keeper). Gordon was a continuation - a known little shit at the time. The subsequent windows - Hall, Tino, Barnes, Elanga, Woltemade, Ramsey etc. Nice lads, some good/really good footballers in there, but they don't feel anywhere as elite mentality-wise as those early signings - certainly not players who will help to keep up our fantastic off the ball game consistently. Tonali is the main outlier in this group but, in reality, he's given us 6 very good months in 3 years. We were once one of the toughest sides to play filled with energy to moving across to a 'prettier' team who lack bite while also not really having enough players to execute a more possession-based approach. We're just stuck.

Howe confirmed in his presser that he was more of a 10 in the first half. He was right on Xhaka, it was a good battle. I think the play second half needed to be to shift Gordon wide and try Woltemade up top to create some overloads against their midfield. Even just for a short period. Gordon's pressing had dropped right off second half anyway.

Yup. We either need to be good at controlling the ball or space when in the lead as a minimum, ideally it's both. Unfortunately, we've been very poor at both.

I thought he had a good game. Wouldn't have been too disappointed to see him hooked at 60 if it was a genuine player coming on, but it was Joe Willock who isn't really someone you bring on to better control possession.

He is easily our most important player.

My head was absolutely gone from this at the time I get the principle there is to trigger a press... But we're a football team playing at home to a pretty poor side. What are we fucking playing at?

I don't want him gone because I know how good we can be under him but he has to cut the shit this summer. And the club needs to not be an operational mess either. This has to be a ruthless move into our next phase. No pussyfooting about keeping good lads about for another year just because. Half of our leadership group now shouldn't be starters ffs some not even at the club

1-0 up at HT... We allowed 12 shots on goal in the second half. That is abysmal We were outshot at home.

He's in bad form. You could absolutely see him shrink in that second half. Either he's exhausted or can't handle levels of pressure.

He's got to get some form of Europe to save his job. This season has seen far too much of the same pattern. We are a soft, shrinking lot. Some really great lads but quite a lot of absolute fannies on the pitch when the pressure is on. Same today as it has been so many times this season.

He's also a waste of space

I do think he's one of the stupidest players I've ever seen.

Really poor management of the second half. Can't be defended.

This season has been such a drain I'm not even that arsed. Weird. Knew from that stupid KO that we'd be in bother.