Dr Jinx

He said anything can happen? Hardly handing in a transfer request. A player basically saying who knows what will happen in the future is fairly standard in media responses. He’d look fairly stupid if he said no way and then we sold him. Has he ever been fully fit since he’s been here? Imagine having him available for 90% of the games we play in a season.

So what you’re saying is, it’s not Howe or the medical team to blame for all our injuries, but our groundsmen for laying a shitty pitch ?

He’ll go some day but hopefully not this summer. He’s intelligent enough to say the right things to the press but I would not be surprised if he’s having some doubts about the project he was sold. If it’s another window of austerity and treading water again in the league, he’ll be off in January. He’s too good to be wasting his best years.

You can criticise the medical team but ultimately you have to look further up.. some of these decisions were also made by Dan Ashworth as well so he’s also in the firing line alongside Eddie Howe. The buck stops there really. It has to. Someone made a call to leave the decision of having surgery or not up to the player himself which looks so amateur, a player will always want to play or come back with the least amount of downtime. It’s been a massively frustrating season where I think the manager has come up short. Did he deserve the chance to have a go at it? Yes absolutely he did but how long does that good will last for? How much of a pass should he get?

There’s a difference between a knock, ie a bruised shin or something and a potential ACL tear. Even to a layman it was obvious that Botman wasn’t right on his return. Howe should have held him back.. this season was pretty much a write off by the time he was returning anyway so why take that risk.

Don’t think he eased Tino in due to injury concerns, he does that with all players at the start. Only Isak got hoyed in the first game. I’ve been negative toward him this season and I genuinely think he’s hit his ceiling with us.. last season his intense style of play ran the players into the ground too to a point where our form dipped. We got away for some warm weather training which effectively saved the season for us. This season we’ve had none of that.. we had a more hectic pre season, and despite a bright start we’ve been found out more often than not. We still need to work much harder than any other team to get something from games.. that’s all down to his ethos and tactical setup. He's not willing to change, or maybe he’s not capable of it. Either way we have a squad of players running on fumes and picking up serious injuries. I don’t get how he’s so immune to criticism.

I said he was way off it since his return. Is that also incorrect? You haven’t answered any of my questions. So you think the manager hasn’t left injured players on the pitch? You think he hasn’t ran them into the ground leaving them open to serious injury? And you think he hasn’t rushed players back before they were ready?

Yeah I’ve read it. He got multiple pieces of advice and the club gave him the option to do either. He hasn’t mentioned anything that I’ve brought up in that post. I don’t think Eddie Howe is doing right by this squad, short term fixes for long term problems. No other team has to physically work as hard as us to win games.

With respect, what has that got to do with this thread? And what comment in relation to Eddie Howe are you disputing? Has he not left injured players on the pitch? Has he not run the squad into the ground?

It’s not quite the career ending/altering injury it once was but it’s still one of the more significant ones a footballer can get. I really feel for the lad as he’s a top player. A couple of weeks back it was obvious that Botman was miles off it… now at that point as a manager who should be able to notice these things in fucking training.. what do you do?.. leave him in and roll the dice or give him extra time to rehab and build back to the point he was beforehand, or as close to. Eddie Howe has been running this squad into the ground over the course of 2 years, nearly every single one of them are walking on ice in relation to picking up serious injury. Fatigue is a massive contributing factor. There's also been several instances of players being obviously crocked and being left on the pitch for 10/15 mins before being subbed. He’s done this repeatedly. If any potential new signings or existing players that the club should be doing everything to keep have any level of intelligence, they’ll be thinking “playing for this guy is going to shorten my career”.

Jesus fucking Christ. He’s not been right since he returned but this is the exact injury they thought would be better off “healing naturally” Absolute blame on the manager and the medical team for this. They got it so wrong like countless other decisions this season.

Someone explained quite well recently that stadium naming rights isn’t quite as big as you’d think.. it certainly wouldn’t be a main reason for leaving or rebuilding. If they really had their best minds on it.. building some sort of massive multi purpose development all in the name of the club would be the way to go. Hotel, Conference Centre, Event venue (15k+ capacity), offices, casino and of course a new shiny massive football stadium. Thays how the club could be earning money all year round that would dwarf chasing around for sponsorship deals that are never going to get us close to those who have an unfair head start on us. Do PIF or the Reubens want to achieve something that big? Remains to be seen.

I’m not so sure, they have a lot more visibility in the press than the Chinese league ever had. The Chinese also react to the economy in how they invest in something like that. They learned quickly that it wasn’t a sustainable venture.. the Saudis don’t have those constraints.

Well that’s the thing.. this extra money is a short term event.. once it’s spent, a new manager won’t have that luxury and be left with whatever Howe decides to bring in. So it’s a huge gamble. Give someone like Nagelsman a proper war chest would be my preference.

Ok so here’s the question: Summer coming up with relaxed spending rules.. this will likely be a one or possibly two window thing before tighter controls kick in. Do you trust this man to spend that? He seems to have consolidated a lot of power with others not here now so it’s very likely he’ll get to bring in his pals if that’s what he wants to do.

Too many players injured and too many players bang out of form. Botman looks miles off it since he returned. Like his decision making is all over the shop.. and I dunno, it’s like his aura has diminished similar to what happened with VVD where he was shit for a year and players started believing they could get the better of him. Longstaff.. it’s like he gets 90 mins each and every time because he can just run about making up the numbers. So bad tonight and yet he’ll keep his place. GK was so very very poor.. he doesn’t inspire confidence. But no alternative. Others could probably single out but what’s the point. Same with Howe.. I’ve said my bit on him several times this season.

That Cucarella is a snidey cunt

Good for us in the short term as it’s phased so for a couple of windows we’ll be able to spend a lot more and then it’ll settle down. Our revenue’s could well be doubled in 2/3 years depending on what other commercial deals we have lined up.

Massive profits on player trading is not something I can ever see our fans getting behind.. as in the ones that would generate those sorts of fees we tend to get very attached to.

I’ve defended Longstaff on many an occasion. It’s not a personal dig at him, but he’s one of several players we have in our first team squad taking up a space that we’re going to have to let go of if we’re going to take a step up.

All for a midfield addition if it pushes Longstaff down the pecking order.. he’s had that purple patch but then been way off the boil this season, I suppose like much of the team but he’s been particularly poor in recent games.. Joelinton, Willock, Bruno, Tonali and then a new face would be ideal, someone who can add some power and pace to the midfield.

Straight from Eddie Howe’s mouth in a press conference.

The notion that any area and its local businesses would crumble and die if the £ from a 1 day a week, possibly every 2 weeks event and nothing over a summer is all it has its hopes pinned on, doesn’t say a lot for its viability. The club don’t owe these businesses anything.. and same can be said vice versa. If we moved to a new stadium on a different site, something else would be built in place of it.. quite possibly an events arena with hotels and apartments.. and the area would adapt, possibly even flourish. Just as the area close to the existing arena site would build up to accommodate a new football stadium.

Timing of that comment is purely so Eddie Howe can be asked about the link at tomorrows press conference. Anything to disrupt preparations.