Kid Icarus

That we've been extremely unlucky and/or we need a new 'keeper.

Don't give me the "you do realise?" reddit guy thing man. Yes, I'm well aware of that, I'm also aware that getting results in those circumstances isn't the reality for most managers, as I touched upon with Man City, Liverpool, Spurs, Chelsea and others, and that's just this season. Isak left on the last day of the transfer window, so no they didn't really. We also didn't have a CEO or DoF, again something that keeps getting ignored, as if Howe being left in the shit was a privilege he should be grateful for, and that we should only blame him for. Fixture congestion has been managed in terms of managing injuries for the most part, but the results haven't come with it consistently and obviously they depend on all the other factors mentioned. Neither of us speak for everyone tbf, I would hope the board are seeing what I and others see rather than what you're seeing. £650m over 5 years is NOTHING for a Champions League club btw, Man City spent £500m+ from last January alone. The team also doesn't train because of the schedule, not because of our intensity - from Howe's mouth. Again though, everything you're talking about isn't detached from the mitigating factors at all, they're all impacted by them massively, as I say we've seen it for year after year with team after team. To just fixate on the manager and ignore everything else is myopic imo. There are clearly limits to it though, Pep and Klopp have seasons of massive underachievement but it's been overlooked because it's taken as a given that they're great managers with honours to back it up. Howe, despite winning honours with a club that'd won nowt in 50 odd years doesn't have that luxury, which again I find mad and contributes to this feeling I have about some of our fans having an undeservedly high opinion of themselves and what they're entitled to: linear success and no adversity.

Yeah our per90 isn't great, but doing it by total is ridiculous when we've played more than anyone. Even Arsenal, who are a game behind us and have one of the best defences around are on 20 goals conceded in 2026.

Would love an N-O ban on that cunt and Ornstein tbh. Absolute parasites.

The worst defence record in Europe?

Students are away at the moment so town will be way quieter.

Chelsea HQ

It really does like. I have no idea why really simple concepts that we see time and time again in football are rejected in favour of more complicated and imo far less convincing theories about the efficacy of managers whose records are there for all to see and fly in the face of those theories. The style and effectiveness of a team's football being affected by: Lack of leadership at the top Lack of personnel at DoF level Ability to spend for 3 windows Manager's being spread too thinly Changes in backroom staff Squad overhauls Tactics overhauls due to key players leaving New players needing time to gel and get up to speed with tactics Overwhelming game schedules (partly as a result of staying in the cups I might add) Reduced training time impacting on how well and quickly they gel Players having no pre-season Players being injured Players being fatigued, not just physically but mentally Having to adjust the line ups and tactics to deal with all of the above and more that haven't come immediately to mind now and all of these things combining, impacting on each other, exacerbating the situation, and turning into a perfect storm is a tale as old as time in football. We see it constantly, year on year, and it's not even just us that's dealing with it and failing as a result of it this year. To their own standards look at Man City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Spurs, Palace, Forest, Wolves. All affected by one or more of the above, even Villa are in for a rude awakening soon imo. Most of those teams are dealing with a few of them and others, I'd argue we've been dealing with more or less all of them at the same time. With all of the above in mind, bypassing it to settle on 'this manager who has been overwhelmingly successful for the 3 and a half years before all of the above happened is what we should focus our attention on' will never not be mad to me. I don't know where the mentality comes from that all of the above is for the birds, and has nothing to do with how we play.

Think it's less a case about the system in itself being flawed, and more about needing to refresh the team a bit. Tbh, I don't even think we press all that much anymore anyway. That was very much a 2022 to 2024 thing, and we only really see us really going mad on pressing now in specific matches - Similar to the progression that Klopp had with Liverpool, but with obviously varying other factors at play with both teams - eg they kept their best player/s and improved, we didn't and haven't.

Yeah I don't even think an overhaul is definitely necessary let alone likely. We 100% need a new 'keeper, but beyond that I'm not certain where/if we bring in new players. The whole point with having Howe in theory (and backed up by our reality) is that he can spot players others don't and they turn into highly effective players. I don't see him giving up on them, wholesale, after a very difficult season with limited opportunities to improve through being coached.

And they'd be right tbf.

Not a valid excuse for a lot of people for some reason

No need to apologise! We all say these things in the moment like.

They questioned his position as they improved. That 5th season I was sure they'd sack him, the pressure was so immense after Eddie Howe's relegation threatened Newcastle United tonked them 2-0. It's probably for the best that in general football fans as a collective aren't listened to unless they've been rightly saying the same thing for a long time.

Thing is as well, this notion that we haven't learned from 23/24 doesn't make sense to me. The issues we had in 23/24 are completely different to the ones we have now. If we still had a ridiculous injury list it would definitely be a fair point, but we don't.

Not a chance that's true and not a chance that I'm not going to fantasise about it being true.

I wasn't being entirely serious like, if he's made good points fair enough, I just don't personally rate his knowledge and opinions on Newcastle, or like his and a lot of our social media presence for being somehow 10x more fickle and emotionally led than our fanbase. The majority of last season our performances were diabolical? Don't even know where to begin if that's your view like, probably easier and quicker to just say I think that's a load of utter bollocks, agree to disagree and then we both just move on.

I get my insights on Newcastle from the man who thinks Keegan is a coward and couldn't separate Franz Carr from Stephen Carr if his life depended on it.

My pointless wild conspiracy theory if he still ends up going there is that him going there was part of the Isak deal.

Nah it reeks of something dodgy.

I couldn't care less about Sunderland personally, I've never liked being rivals at a level that we should always aspire to be far, far above. One of the big 6 going down would be really funny, though I'd feel bad for Leffe on here.

And he's every right to call him a wanker You're not a protected species.

Think the horse has long since bolted on boos being based on lack of effort and not the result. Just another modern game thing that you expect everywhere tbh.

The player who was the fans player of the season in 23/24 didn't suddenly start getting criticism because of how he looks, because he's a scouser, or because he's into philosophy. He got it because he played poorly and was perceived to be not giving his all, and it was imo allowed to slide for over a year, before anyone really said anything about it. If anything he got way more rope than possibly any Newcastle player I can think of. That said, I do think that the increase in criticism of him happened in sync with him actually improving drastically. It was very weird.

How long did we long for a manager and club that took the cups seriously? I get that there's a middle ground between being serious and managing the squad, but I'll never begrudge him for prioritising winning.