Away Toon

Lucky Boy Wilson

Eddie Howe turns around in absolute disbelief as Ciaran Clark gets sent off. What was the defender doing? The real question is what the fuck was Eddie thinking when he picked the useless twat. I thought he'd watched our previous games.

Two absolute shit looking teams. Who else apart from Watford looks bad enough to go down? Leeds aren't, Brentford aren't, Burnley never do, Southampton I doubt it. Time for us to start winning now.

Norwich will be thinking we can really get at this lot. Poor defense and no midfield cover, yummy.

Who are the best players in the Championship who are ready to step up? If we stay up great they will at least add to squad depth, if we go down well they've already played there. Benjamin Anthony Brereton would be one for sure.

Well until all three owners come out and say that 100% they wouldn't sell the club if we get relegated, it's always a possibility.

Looking at most of the suggested lineups, we are so fucked, talk about rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. And yet Bruce kept these useless fuckers up the last two seasons so Eddie Howe this is your time to shine.

He would be a much better bet to keep us up than Howe is, though I'm sure it would have been extremely ugly to watch as it often was in his spell in charge here. We need a manager who can organise us defensively and extremely quickly, an improvement in the attacking play and a bit more possession that I'm sure we will see under Howe won't make any difference unless we stop conceding goals at the current rate. Anybody want to bet against Pukki scoring on Tuesday?

In my case the jury is definitely out until we see if Howe has learned anything from his last relegation with Bournemouth. The early signs and team selections are not promising.

He'll be suspended or injured soon, he can have a rest then.

I thought Joe was particularly shit today, replace him with Willock.

Against Brentford we looked like we couldn't defend, still the same today.

Didn't expect us to win but I'm sure most people were hoping to see some signs of progress. There weren't any. I think we'll draw with Norwich and lose to Burnley.

We have. Nobody watching us can deny it. Absolute tripe. The fact that Shelvey is by far our best player says it all.

I don't. He picked Kraft who has just cost us a goal and probably the game.

21% possession in the first half. Interesting that we have managed to become a pretty nasty niggling dirty team at such short notice.

Lose with 10 men. Hope they prove me wrong.

If we don't improve defensively we will go down and it won't even be close. Howe doesn't have a history of improving sides defensively so he's probably not the right manager at this moment in time. I hope he proves me wrong, we were certainly exciting and entertaining yesterday, with improvements all over the field. Except where it matters, defense and goalkeeper. Not sure what he can do about that especially as he's locked up in a Hotel room until further notice. We will have to be very quick and smart in the window, new goalkeeper, new fullbacks at least one CB, couple of central midfielders who can run and create and cover for Wilson. Do this and we are a 5, don't do it properly an 8.

Fucking high. Drop 200m in January intelligently and maybe we escape.

Well we couldn't defend before Howe came in and his team can't defend anyhow, so no real surprises here. We might look more enterprising and the football is definitely better to watch but we can't keep defending like this. Mind you Joe has turned into the reincarnation of Ronaldo the fat so who knows.

Hope that this is not going to be an anti-climax. Any way you look at it our team is essentially shit.

Shelvey can't play in a two man midfield even with Hayden as off the ball and defensively he's so poor and if he plays further forward he doesn't have any space and gets lost. Not sure what anyone can do with him really. Maybe if we have players running around and looking for space he can find someone to pass to.

Afraid not, most of the players next.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/59225679 Some interesting bits in here about the process that led to Howe being appointed.

Well Klopp has proved himself now. winning the league and the Champions League and though he's spent a lot not as much as some have. Pep on the other hand has spent a fortune and keeps bottling the Champions League. Nobody I think is disputing that Howe is a hard working innovative coach, the problem appears to be that his teams concede a lot and in Bournemouth's case that's what got them relegated. This should mostly be in the Howe thread because comparing managers is a pointless exercise they are hardly all batting on the same wicket. Unless it's OGS with the resources he has he should certainly be doing much better