Holmesy

You'd think Sky Sports would be advanced enough to tell Claude to remove the em dashes from their articles ffs! Amateurs!

34% in the final against Liverpool as well. I think it's more the ability to play that kind of football when it's necessary, like against inferior opposition who sit deep - they just nick it off us and hit us on the break. But we currently don't have the ability to do it at all, and I refuse to believe it's because our international footballers can't pass and move.

The possession thing for me is less, let's play like Barca, although I would love us to move to a more possession-based game because we need to if we're going to consistently compete for top honours. Keep giving the ball back to top teams and you reap what you sow. It's more that we seem to have a complete inability to keep it when we need to most. There is a naivety to us that has cost us time and time again - we keep attacking until the 95th minute and often concede when we're knackered. Whereas, putting our foot on the ball and knocking it around for 15 minutes to kill off games, winning cheap free kicks etc. would show we're learning from our mistakes. And it's increasingly important in seasons where we're fighting on multiple fronts. When you're as easy to play through as we have been, gifting the ball to the opposition in the latter stages of a game when we're still pushing men forward and everyone is knackered, is suicidal. And yet we did it all season.

I think this is the biggest concern. Those saying 'he's done it before so he'll do it again' generally don't present any facts or arguments as to why. Just faith, hope and statements like 'if we'd have got 5 more points we'd have been in Europe'. And the first part isn't actually true. He turned around a sinking ship when he first joined, spent £750m and everything since has been an upwards trajectory. When it took its first downturn, he didn't seem to have any answers. What we have witnessed this season is toilet football, worrying patterns that the manager couldn't arrest and an inflexibility that left certain players looking shite. And no acceptance from some sections at all that the manager is at fault for much of this. He's only responsible for the good stuff and the players are to blame when it doesn't go right. I have as much love for Eddie as a person, and as the man who revived us, as everyone else but the fact that our current situation mirrors what happened at Bournemouth worries me. I don't want to see the same football any more - it's not great to watch and has been found out. It had its time. Could it be effective again with new players? Maybe but it doesn't really point to progress, evolution and top managerial prowess. The only way for him to win back the doubters IMO is to come back next season with something different. If it's more of the same, even if it is effective, I think the doubts will remain.

There was a line in one the articles that said Eddie wanted him but Wilson blocked it. I've been one of Eddie's biggest critics but if that is true, it's a huge red flag

Understandable if they've seen him try to play football. It's early and we're probably trying to get top dollar - feels like a later window sale.

Have we brought through any of the young players we've signed as development prospects? At all?

You mean the same Emery who has won the Europe League 5 times with 3 different clubs? I think he'll be alright

I think the opposite. Pretty sure we'll see a very different Wissa next season - he was getting in decent positions, just fluffing the chances. I don't think we've seen anything at all from Elanga to suggest he'll come good. He's not even as fast as everyone said he was - we've been absolutely diddled.

This is the point of proceedings where you're like "Fuck's sake, just sign someone. What are you playing at?" and then you realise the window doesn't open for two weeks. We must be up to about 25 rumours so far.

The concern is that if he did evolve but we didn't see early signs of it working, he would revert to his old plan A, which makes sense to a degree because he is under pressure after this season. But I certainly think the supporters would have a lot more patience if we saw him trying a different playing style (even if it wasn't working initially) than we would if he peddles more of the same with different players.

This one of my biggest gripes - when we're not overpowering teams with pressing and running, we can be quite easy to nullify because there's not a lot of intricacy or craft about the way we attack. There have also been times - the first stint of BDB at left back - when we were made far too easy to play against as well. Fast winger up against BDB worked every time. It can all just feel a bit basic. When we were at our best under Eddie, the beauty was in the simplicity but when it got figured out, that simplicity just makes us look ordinary.

Passing and moving are the fundamentals of football ffs, they're not things only certain players are able to do - all of them have to do it to get to the top of the game. Some more than others, yes but they don't have to be fucking Maradona to play 15 minutes of keep ball at the end of a game. They just have to be coached that way. If we want to play possession football throughout a game, taking the ball in tight spaces, yes we need a certain type of player (and we don't have it because that's not the way Eddie wants to play) but you're seriously suggesting learning to kill off a game is beyond these players?! If it is, it's a fucking sad indictment on Eddie Howe that he's spent £700m on players that limited. How's that for real?

The issue of conceding late goals was a pattern, and a pattern that the manager couldn't or wouldn't reverse. If that's due to players being tired, play a brand of football that conserves their energy ie. keep the fucking ball. There's a reason the buck stops with the manager in top flight football - he is paid a fortune to find solutions to problems. Eddie didn't, and I suspect part of the reason is because for 4 seasons he has ingrained one way of playing. If we have players who are incapable of keeping the ball so we can't conserve energy, again who does that come down to? I understand the Eddie sycophants will always want to find reasons why it wasn't his fault but it just was, whichever way you come at it. His job is to mould the squad we have into an effective unit, regardless of fixture pile-up (the privilege we earned for getting into Europe), injuries etc. There's also plenty of comments on here celebrating Eddie when we do well but blaming the players if we do badly - on what planet does that make sense? The buck stops with the manager and this season he did a shit job for whatever reason. Let's just hope he does a better job next season.

At least one RW Two LW if we sell Barnes CM CB Two keepers Two RB if we sell Tino Backup LB Striker That's some rebuild. Mind you we have been linked with about 50 players so far, so who knows?!