The Prophet

Do a minority of fans need a reminder that we won the League Cup less than a year ago?

No.

Scored twice v Chelsea the week after.

Wouldn't be a huge suprise. Not sure how an Italian deal affords him though. Cash plus Yildiz please.

It's a bit misleading in that it ignore the starting base of the squad, along with inflation. For example, we have the 7th highest squad cost in the league and 8th biggest wage bill. He's had a fair amount to spend, but until we're able to increase that wage bill, we'll always have a ceiling.

This sounds like a solid idea on paper, but they won't come cheap. Smit has appointed Mendes as his agent and is courting half of Europe. You're talking £50 million fee minimum. I do also worry for young players joining this club. While Howe is a fantastic coach, capable of enhancing their development, the patience of the fanbase seems to be getting worse. It took what? Four months for some of the summer signings to be completely written off. A young lad learning the game needs time and patience to play through his mistakes, will that be afforded here or will it be groan O'clock from the off?

The Champions League wasn't a write off, it was worth it for PSG alone, but Howe's opportunity to learn from it was limited given his inability to rotate. There's been all kinds of criticism levelled at Howe that he's batted away. If anything, I'd say a lot of the systemic issues that we're seeing this season are a result of growing pains. We're rotating more frequently, but that in turn isn't giving the new lads in particular an opportunity to build any momentum or forge relationships with their team mates. I have three main gripes of late. i) a lack of resilience, which is something I've previously never associated with an Eddie Howe team. ii) the strikers aren't performing. Again a new issue following the sale of Isak, something that should improve with more coaching and a bit of patience. iii) the shape of the midfield at times, particularly when Bruno and Tonali play alongside together. This is an issue that has re-emerged fairly recently after looking like it had been resolved last season. As for Trippier, we don't really have an alternative at the moment. We've managed it much better this time. More rotation, lower intensity, less naive in Europe. It's not been perfect, but we're trending in the right direction In that regard. Ultimately though, we need more quality in the squad to continue the improvement. In recent seasons both Klopp and Guardiola have had similar struggles, but they've had the benefit of being able to make vast changes to their squad without having to think about the financial repercussions.

That's of course providing the players fancy it. I can't see Elanga for example, fancying a move to Saudi.

What is there to check like?

Fanalysis needs to get in the bin.

Their own fans refer to them as Doctor Spurs. They got the likes of Burnley and West Ham out of a rut. Fingers crossed.

Respectfully disagree. I poke fun at it, but the hounding and dog piling of players has been a common occurance for some time. Even many moons ago, when I had a season ticket, we had a group of geezers behind us that would spend most games hurling abuse at whoever was flavour of the month.

If we beat Spurs on Tueday, they're in a bit of shit.

Minteh has been really frustrating today.

Don't think we can afford to sell Big Joe if Tonali decides to go.

There are multiple mitigating factors at play, but Howe is a manager who relies heavily on patterns of play and one-on-one coaching that usually has players performing above their accepted capability. This is second effort at managing a season with Champions League football, the first became a write off following injuries. He'll make mistakes, but some of us feel he should be afforded time to learn and adjust, particularly given the limitations of the squad. Far more successful managers, with far deeper squads have suffered the same struggles. It is noticeable that a lot of the names put forward by fans who want him dismissed are also inexperienced in that regard. If you're advocating for change, surely you want experience of managing a Champions League campaign as a baseline? That said, I'm not sure how in one breath we can talk about belittling the achievement of club legends, then on the next talk about "the only defence of Howe for those with their head in the sand" regarding the bloke who delivered the club it's first trophy in modern times, less than a year ago. The same geezer who was a penalty shootout away from guiding us to four semifinals in four seasons and will oversee our first ever Champions League knockout next week. It's hard to tell if it's incredibly bad faith or just absolutely dense.

Wrong thread. In terms of the summer, (financial aside) not being in the Champions League probably does us a favour, giving us a bit longer to rebuild the squad depth. Goalkeepers A new first team goalkeeper is priority for me. I imagine we send Ramsdale packing, so whether we need further reinforcements depends on Pope's appetite to sit on the bench. Full back Depends on Tino. If he decides to stay, with no Champions League, one young full back to cover him and Hall would be fine. It'd be nice to see Shahar given minutes given his age and the stage of his development. Centre back Thiaw, Botman and Burn is solid. It sounds like Schar will be off, so cover for RCB will be needed. Wingers I'd stick with what we have for the time being. Granted, if a big offer comes in for Gordon, I wouldn't say no. Centre midfield This is the trickiest part to manage for me. In an ideal world, we'd sell Joelinton and Willock and bring in a new first player, but it sounds like Tonali and his agent might kibosh that. That would likely mean that we need to hang on to Joelinton for the time being. A new first team centre midfielder is the other priority though. Strikers I assume Osula will leave for first team opportunities and if Saudi come knocking for Wissa again, it has to be considered. Either way, a young, flexible forward wouldn't go a miss. In summary First team: goal keeper and centre midfield Development/rotation option: full back, centre back and forward

Until this season, we held a very good record against everyone other than City and Liverpool at home, we've also taken out some big sides in the cup. I'd have to disagree that we've been flat track bullies.

I don't disagree. No CEO, no Sporting Director and a manager, flanked by two glorified scouts manning the void. Rudderless ship is being kind and that falls at the door of the ownership.

I think it's very reductive to blame the summer spending on the current slump. There's more to it: i) not trading in previous windows and the January window gone has caused a lack of depth that we were unable to address in one market. ii) the striker situation was a mess. Our first four targets all decided to move to traditionally bigger clubs offering bigger wages. That was followed by our only senior striker deciding to chuck his toys out the pram well into the transfer market. iii) Individually, most of the signings have played well at some point, but we haven't established any patterns of play or given them long enough runs in the team to build confidence and relationships with team mates. iv) some of the existing squad aren't playing particularly well either, suggesting it's more systemic issues than a couple of new signings not adjusting. Some of this is executive mismanagement in seasons gone by. Some of it is Howe trying to get to grips with managing a two game a week seasons, but I think it's way more layered than simply overpaying for a few players in the summer.

The same posters appear with the same opinions everytime we hit a rough patch. Fire up the thread in his initial months as manager, the beginning of 22/23, around Xmas time in 23/24 or the beginning of 24/25 and you'll find plenty of them. Plenty went way over the top and were way too premature. At the time, there was plenty of evidence in the bank to suggest that he could turn it around and given time, there's still a decent chance that he will. It's been a tough few months for sure, so plenty of back slaps and points scored for sure

If we're willing to be patient and he gets the correct coaching, he could still be a brilliant footballer

Doesn't sound like it.

This only his second bite of the cherry. The first was kiboshed by a fair bit of misfortune too.

Doesn't sound like he's in a healthy head space.