The Prophet

Murphy has had three and a half years under Howe. He knows what Howe wants from him and our patterns of play like the back of his hand. His team mates know where he'll be and what he'll do with the ball. It's not an ideal start from Elanga, but by all accounts, Howe demands a lot from his players and some take longer than others to adjust to that. If we're sat here this time next season and he's still putting in highly erratic performances then I might start to think we got this one wrong.

What period of time are you referring to?

Nah, it's perfectly valid to use the Isak situation as an excuse. Firstly, we had to play the first three games without a capable centre forward. Secondly because one of the two strikers he signed picked up an injury and the other completely alters our patterns of play up top. It'll take a bit of time to build those attacking relationships and might require a bit of patience in the meantime. The midfield and wingers need to start chipping in, but we haven't played a flat midfield three for a while now. Yesterday they just looked off it, even Sandro who is outstanding, looked gassed. We just look like a side who are very much in transition. Despite criticism of inflexibility, Howe has also been pelters for playing three at the back, which looked solid but just as impotent as 4-3-3. Is it not just that we have a completely new attacking line up that looks rather disjointed due to their relationship being five games old?

For what it's worth, even in the season of disastrous injury problems, we finished on 60 points. Nothing wrong with analysing the games so far, but it doesn't consider the liklihood or the potential for us to improve, which we will.

Howe said post match that Miley hadn't trained for two weeks so he didn't want to risk him from the off.

I'd happily see this lot go down.

Nah.

Not that it works like this, but I'm bored, so I thought I'd see how we did in these fixtures in our previous three seasons, plus how we started. 22/23: 4th Points from the same fixtures - 9 Points from first eight - 11 23/24: 7th Points from the same fixtures - 9 Points from the first eight - 13 24/25: 5th Points from the same fixtures - 15 Points from the first eight - 12 So we're not a mile off our usual kind of results. Running to the end of January, we have... Fulham (H), West Ham (a), Brentford (a), City (H), Everton (a), Spurs (H), Burnley (H), Sunderland (a), Chelsea (H), Man United (a), Burnley (a), Palace (H), Leeds (H), Wolves (a), Villa (H). So even with European commitments, I'd expect us to be putting a run or two together over this period.

Tough run coming up for this lot.

He's been hugely erratic so far with a couple of poor performances on the spin. Still think he's tailor made for Eddie Howe, but as we've seen before, sometimes it just takes a while to click.

Meh, the points tally for 4th will be circa 70 points as per.

A repeated criticism isn't necessarily a valid criticism. Take for example the low block stuff. Do we lack technical ability at times? Sure, but you'll struggle to count on one hand how many times we were successfully low blocked last season. I agree he isn't perfect and has room to improve areas of his management, but let's not pretend folk haven't called for his head (or heavily implied it) at multiple points over the last couple of the seasons.

Excluding City at home, we have a lovely run of games from now until we play Liverpool on Jan 31st.

Unusually poor for both goals.

Howe has won us a cup, had us in the Champions League twice and has turned multiple poor situations on their head. I can't believe this needs explaining.

Same crack every season. Start slow or have a rough patch early doors. Players are written off, the knives sharpen for Howe and certain posters get a throb on about the Saudis binning him. Howe turns it round. We exceed expectation. Howe is hailed as a genius and attention turns to the transfer window.

For good reason.

We just need a bit of patience. It's pretty evident the attacking patterns are still a work in progress. Obviously we need results sooner rather than later, but I have every confidence in Howe and the lads.

Does a bear shit in the woods?

Agreed. I'd still back us to finish in the top seven.

Not a great start by any means, but I'd be amazed if we didn't finish top half.

Is this satire?

Is that yet another goal keeping error in favour if the mackems? Unreal.

A classic "should be aiming to win, but a draw would be fine" fixture.

Wouldn't be at all upset with extending.