Jaqen

Lad Im sitting next to has just called to offer me a ticket as his old man has tested positive for COVID, his whole household has other than him but he's insisted on going still. He's showing negative atm but I'm really in two minds whether to go now or not.

Used to play in the same 5 a side league as him at Gateshead. He'd always have a full van der Sar kit and armband on every week like

Looks like he's aged quite abit already after only a few weeks

You can like Rafa and still admit he went to China for the money, like. The narrative that he wouldn't have had any any better offers football wise from European sides is a bit daft. There wasn't really much for him to achieve there, the league is abit of a closed shop where a majority of your players have to be Chinese and the top sides can take their pick of the best of them. He was right to leave us but that and the Everton job have been poor career choices it's fair to say.

Digne looks to have regressed a fair bit under Rafa this season I think.

Thought they were quite lucky at points in their early good spell to be honest. A lot of the time in large portions of those games they were fairly terrible and it seemed obvious they'd not be able to sustain those kind of results playing like that. Everton have much bigger problems than just Rafa but there's no doubt he's doing a poor job there too.

Looks way off the pace.

After the Man U game our fixtures up until the end of March are pretty good. Even if we can only get a few loans in I think we'd give ourself a chance. Really need to win on Saturday though, then go into the Leicester game with a bit of confidence. Stranger things have happened in football then a team surviving from this position.

Worked like a Japanese prisoner of war.

64 goals including breaking the all time league record is pretty stellar to be fair.

Think it's a lot more that he's just not suited to a 2 man midfield like that. Needs 2 behind him really and playing alot more advanced. Arsenal spent the summer assembling a young squad and we're happy to ship him out pretty easily so they probably don't rate him much. Early days but I don't think he'll turn out to be the success we hoped for here. We need Hayden back in there if we are going to paly this kinda system.

Think I'm the only one feeling more positive after today Wasn't a great result but there was a massive difference in terms of performance. The more Eddie works with them the better we'll get. Darlow cost us today.

Darlows triangle button mustn't be working.

OGS is the only who's followed not to win a trophy isn't he? Mad that Neville keeps repeating Mourinho was a failure there despite winning three trophies and having a win record far better than OGS who he refuses to criticise. It's hard to pick the best but he's ealiy the worst I reckon.

The majority of the players have played a sit back and concede possession tactic their whole time here. Even under Rafa we were needlessly negative in certain games in the championship. People were saying in the other thread Jones should be giving us a new identity It's not FM, there's no quick switch to set the team to play high pressing attacking football all of a sudden. He's been told he has two games (ended up being three) to work with, there's a limit to what you can do in that time frame really. We have a poor limited squad low on confidence. His selections weren't what I'd have went for either but that doesn't necessarily mean he's a cunt or needs sacked. Two away points were decent in the grand scheme of things. Eddie can come in now and change things, but it's going to take time. Looking forward to reading all the abuse he gets when we don't look like prime Barca against Brentford next game anyway.

Jenas actually talking sense for once.

Only won one game in his last season with above 40% possession. So not as possession based as you might think.

It's strange how the narrative has changed so quickly. Just before the takeover it was 'get anyone in to replace Bruce and we should stay up'. Now there's people claiming Howe with the backing of the new owners is guaranteed to take us down

Bournemouth would have stayed up that season if there wasn't the Hawkeye fuck up in the Villa game. They were pretty unlucky to be fair.

Interestingly, reading up on it it looks like Howe did change his tactics in that final season in the league. Even before they were in trouble he'd tried to make them into a more defensive counter attacking side and it was the loss of attacking threat that ultimately cost them.

Looking forward to reading the sensible comments in this thread everytime he doesn't win a game.

I don't think people appreciate how much harder it is to make good signings as a small lower end premier League club. Would be totally different to attracting players to us. Norwich spent over £60m this summer and don't look any better for it. He made some bad signings for sure but is wouldn't necessarily be put off by them. I mean Emery paid £80m for Pepe.

From Reddit Bournemouth fan: Howe is also not rubbish at transfers. £4,000 for harry arter, £100,000 for marc pugh, £150,000 for steve cook, £200,000 for charlie daniels, £400,000 for ryan fraser, £800,000 for aaron ramsdale, £3,000,000 for callum wilson, £8,000,000 for tyrone mings, joshua king and dan gosling for free. Ten regulars for a solid, midtable premier league team for less than £15m altogether is actual wizardry. It shouldn't be possible. Throw in Ake and Brooks as well and it's nowhere near as bad as what is portrayed.

It's going to be proper annoying if we lose Emery to Howe, all because we leaked Howe was the other candidate like I think of they announced Howe a few weeks ago alot more people would have been on board with it.

Fraser refused to play in the relegation season so probably not likely