Cf

Their heading down wasn't as sure a thing as ours was with Bruce. Both cases show what a difference a manager makes mind.

But if you then factor in where we started from....

Think he's made the position his own now which is really pleasing to see. Fully fit I assume our defence this season is Trippier/Livramento Schar Botman Hall

Chelsea have done that though whilst spending bottomless amounts of cash. It's not a luxury we have. And of course it's only any good sticking with your man if it's the right man. I just think Eddie still has that potential and I'd like to see us keep the faith for now. The alternative at the moment is to give someone else his team and the financial restrictions at which point we could find ourselves on the merry-go-round. Of course if it turns out not to be working we will need to take action but I think we're a little ways from there yet.

With the financial restrictions in place there's only so much the 'project' can do. Until something changes in the rules we'll be in a position of needing sales/rebuilds whilst the sky 6 can just spend whatever they like. It's not to say we can never finish in those places but it's very hard to do so. As for Howe he still has my support but it's not unconditional. Last season we would have made Europe of not for Chelsea winning 5 in a row and City not bothering to turn up despite having the worst injury crisis I've ever seen. This season so far isn't filling me with confidence. We said the early results weren't sustainable with the performances but now we have the opposite where we haven't got the results our performances deserve. Ask me a couple of seasons ago am I sure he's the man to take us to the next level and I'd have said yes. Now I think the answer is I hope he is. He's done enough where at this point we keep the faith and get him a fucking RW in January. Feels like it might be a milestone moment. Do we stick with our man (Ferguson, or Arteta more recently) and potentially see it pay off or do we become one of those clubs chopping and changing managers?

Agree with this totally. It's been a scourge for a long time and is becoming even more blatant now that players are being punished for reacting to being cheated.

I'm all for sorting out dissent, especially with the effect it can have on the grassroots game when we see top players screaming in a refs face for instance. But no idea what Hall got booked for. It was a pretty small reaction in the heat of the moment to an awful decision. They're not robots and we don't want them to be.

I thought it was borderline. The more I think on it though the more I think it is a penalty. He can see the ball and was going down in control. He knew what he was doing handling it and could have easily not done.

I worry that he was having a purple patch last season and that his level isn't as high as we might think. He's obviously better than current showings though. I think him and the team as a while just need things to fall their way at the minute to give a bit of a lift.

I'm not going to read too much into that one. Just need to start scoring a couple and get the confidence back. Especially Isak and Gordon. Performance itself wasn't really any cause for concern. Just shit it was against a rival.

Bruno off is an interesting one.

Can't help but think we aren't going to score again all season the way this is going.

We aren't scoring are we?

Think we've played well. Don't deserve to be behind. Hopefully turn it around in the second half.

And again.

Such awful reffereeing.

Obviously.

Isak in full match fitness buries that.

This is much better than so far this season. Need to take a chance at some point and repeat this play in away games.

That's extremely borderline. He could have gone down such that he didn't handle that.

I guess it ultimately boils down to do you consider the manager to be part of the team? Given they're the figurehead of it, choose it, dictate the tactics, etc, etc, I do. And whilst they might not play in games most managers are ex players. Seems bizarre that you can be not eligible to play for a national team but you can manage them. A role I'd say is more impactful than one player of eleven. I've no issues with the appointment in the sense it's within the rules. It's the rules that need changing imo because it makes a bit of a mockery of it being a national side.

If Isak is fit he's the first name on the sheet. Perhaps you could argue Bruno is but beyond that baffling to suggest otherwise.

I'm in the camp of we should have an English manager. It's the England team after all. If we don't have enough good enough English managers then tough shit. Nurture some better ones then. That said the rules are what they are. The appointment itself is a fascinating one. Proper crash or burn stuff. But if we did win the world cup I can't help but feel it would have a small asterix next to it as it wasn't an English manager.

I mean in the sense that if you apply "what would the market charge" if you asked it for a loan. Loaning Everton £100m isn't what I imagine would be considered low risk that you'd be happy with a 0.1% rate for £100,000k per year.

Even if you could guarantee the base rate would remain 0.1% over 5 years no-one is loaning a football club 200m at anywhere near that rate. It'd be financially stupid wouldn't it?