Sean

He's shite but still, if more of their players had O'Nien's attitude they might have done better today. Or been down to 8 players

Botman giving far too much time to pick his spot there. Trippier wrestling. Like the good old days

Has the Championship got a whole lot shitter in the last few years? These lot are laughable. Not even got any fight or desire it seems.

Back to the expected goals statistics, I think I am correct in assuming a right footed Miggy shot from the same position as a left footed Salah shot has the same Xg?

Reading through a few pages of this thread has been hard work, seems to be two camps going at each other when there is clearly validity in both sides' argument (ignoring the odd one calling for the manager to be sacked of course). It's not a clear one or the other situation. He's had it hard but has also underperformed this season.

Howe is having a bad season. A very bad season at this moment in time. Is it salvageable? Yes. Does he need to learn and adapt and change things and improve as a manager? Yes. Are injuries a major reason for our bad run? Yes, clearly. Does he have to take some responsibility for that? Again, yes.

Cunt did that deliberately for attention. Hate him with a passion. It always has to be about him.

Need to book him for diving if VAR is looking at that. What planet are these goons on?

VAR has outdone itself. Fucking hell

Yeah this has been really really bad. Couldn't complain if it was double figures.

No idea how we're level, but I said earlier form doesn't matter against these. Completely underserved like.

Wow.

We looked beaten from the first minute. This is horrific.

We have to beat these at some point, surely. Fully fit and in form doesn't work, so why not beat them with half a squad lacking confidence.

Having had a think, I'm not really on the doom train for the next 4 matches. We can and have got results in similar games in the past, and adverse circumstances can lead to great performances. If ever there was a time for the players to play for a manager, it's the next month or so. 4 points from 3 tough league games and dealing with the Mackems is not out of the question.

Do people, with the benefit of hindsight, think he really wanted a new challenge away from Milan in the North East of England? Or was it a way out for him, leaving another club to pick up the pieces, whilst leaving his relationship with the Milan fans intact? And if it's the second one, where does that leave us and him next season?

This season was always going to be a learning curve for Howe. It's proving to be a very steep one so far. I think this is why Emery was 1st choice, as he had experience of leading his teams in European campaigns, and winning in them. But after someone at the club leaked the news and that fell through, we opted for a manager who has it all to learn in that regard. It would seem pretty short sighted to not allow him the opportunity to learn from the experience and his own mistakes, and look to improve the next season. Of course, all that assumes we qualify for Europe for next season. I think that may be the minimum finish deemed acceptable by the board.

He couldn't handle the pressure of playing for us, in front of 52,000 disappointed fans every time he missed a chance. He's not the first striker to turn to shit in our colours and won't be the last. At times for us he struggled to control a football, yet he looked like Prime R9 against our defence. Go figure

It's been a rough season so far, and as others have said it looks likely to get a whole lot worse before it can get better. Rightly or wrongly, there will always be increasing pressure in such a situation - my opinion is it's the players who get managers the sack most of the time. These players need to get some results, and fast, if they want to ensure Eddie's future here is secured, rather than the pressure continuing to grow.

My bet is by early April the first stories about him wanting to return to Milan in the summer will start appearing. Call me a sceptic but with hindsight it's clear he had ulterior motives for a move away at that time.

Just seen quick highlights. Oh my. We made Chris Wood look like Messi ffs

Missed this so don't know if it was as bad as the scoreline suggests, or even worse? But fuck me, losing to a Chris Wood hat trick leaves huge questions. Like, how the fuck?

I do agree we definitely lack quality in key areas and that needs addressing over the next 2 windows. But any club would be in trouble with so many injuries, and we also need to find a way of ensuring that is not repeated next season. Whether that's adjusting the intensity we play at, improving the medical department, getting less injury-prone players in the squad, or simply hoping for better luck. I'd hope it's not the last option tbh

He can defend. Like a cone on the training ground

I mean, the summers business was exactly about creating a squad able to compete on all fronts. Howe was talking about having 2 pretty equal teams IIRC. The amount of (and severity of) injuries has been the big problem, and the inability to deal with such a crisis. Lewis Hall, signed in the summer, is sat there unused for example. What is to blame for the injuries is up for debate.