Holmesy

No, but you did call us armchair managers because we have an opposing view to you - not a million miles away is it?!

Same stupid questions are being asked over and over because no one ever provides any actual answers. All we get is the same Hodors with the same "Eddie is our King" responses. If you want people to stop talking about it (on a Newcastle United discussion forum by the way) provide an adequate response rather than blanket statements with no actual substance.

What though? What have you seen? Genuine question, not being a dick

He's played the odd 5 at the back but it's pretty much been 4-3-3 since he got here. And i think this one of the underpinnings of the discontent and concern - Eddie hasn't done loads of different things well on the pitch, he's done one thing well, very well, until this season - one formation, one gameplan, one way of playing. And the issue (that concerns many of us) is that when the thing that worked before doesn't work, he doesn't seem to have much of an answer. We haven't see him try new things things to stop us being so leaky defensively, we haven't seen him try different formations, drop us deeper, play it around a bit etc. He seems to believe so steadfastly in his approach that he won't break from it even when it isn't working, highlighted by the recent "no plan B" comment in the press conference. For those of us who have concerns, we are concerned that he can't or won't change. I guess those that have total faith either believe the same stuff will start working again (mayb e with different players) or Eddie will find a new way to get us winning? But he was similar at Bournemouth - stubbornly sticking to his plan A despite diminishing returns, which eventually led to Bournemouth's relegation.

I know, i was just being a dick. But you know the way these conversations go on here. We have been a very good cup team since Eddie arrived and that's something to be proud of, and grateful for.

"Mitigating circumstances" "Won the cup" "Hodor!"

It's a bit clumsy but it's only destructive if the only path forward you see is 100% Eddie in. I'm on the fence and i'm not really concerned by what he said - if he says unequivocally that Eddie is our man and then sacks him, he gets called out for being a disingenuous prick. He clearly thinks we've underperformed, as many of us do. I imagine if we scrape Europe in the last 7 games he'll get a reprieve. If not, it's probably more like an inquest and an uncomfortable conversation.

That's exactly it, he sounds like a cold, functional CEO which is exactly how it should be. Most CEOs i've worked with are arseholes in one way or another but they're in post because they're efficient, ruthless, effective, and able to work without emotion. They work on facts, and probably look at objectives met and missed over a quarterly period, not "Eddie won us the cup last year". Put some of us in charge and Eddie would either have been sacked by now or have a 15 year contract and a massive pay rise. Like it or not, we're a business and we're being run that way.

Every manager should be under scrutiny all the time. The board can't be sentimental about this stuff when hundreds of millions of pounds are at stake every season - it's common fucking sense. They will be asking the same questions some of us are - long term, is this the right man to help us meet our goals? What happens when we get into Europe again? Is he the right man to work in this hierarchical structure? If we invest in youth, will he give them a path into the first team? Not necessarily those questions, but questions like them, but they'll be doing it without the emotion of a football fan. I agree those comments aren't great and he could clearly do with some PR/media training, but take your personal feelings towards Eddie out of it and is there actually anything wrong with what he is saying? If Steve Bruce was still the manager and DH came out and said that, would you have any complaints?

With hindsight (and it's obviously a wonderful thing) I would have loved them to come in and say we're going to try to get there with a different, more long-term strategy - obviously still focussing on getting the first team competing but alongside bringing in the best scouting talent in the world and hoovering up the best young talent we can find, giving them a clear path into the first team. Set up development academies across Europe and South America, bringing young players into the fold early and nurturing them under the club banner, increasing our overseas profile at the same time. Competing head-to-head against teams with a huge headstart, battling rules specifically designed to hold us back was always going to rely on a manager/players punching above their weight, and constantly. And we've done great to-date, but how sustainable is that and what happens when we hit the ceiling? We move forward, they move forward too but with deeper pockets - it's a moving feast we can't win. We could be 4.5 years down the line, with a dominant reserve team, a killer youth setup and a conveyor belt of top talent coming through. That also helps with managerial succession planning - any manager we bring in (including Eddie) has to be on board with promoting youth, and working within a playing identity that is instilled at every level. Anyway, it's all pie in the sky because it hasn't happened and doesn't look like happening but hopefully last summer has opened some eyes inside the club and made them realise we're working within a different set of rules and need to be a lot smarter.

If we think the refereeing performances have been bad against us, we’ve just seen a new low bar set. That was comical but really really concerning.

There's no room for that type of sentiment unfortunately. He needs to go, Elanga becomes our backup and we sign an actual football in that position - not sure that's what will happen but it's what should.

That's fair. It took him a long time to develop his original plan A blueprint and it will take time to develop another one. I just wish we could see some signs of what that actually is, and for it to involve a tighter defence while it's evolving.

Not for full games we haven't but we still tend to go hell for leather for the first 30-40 minutes and then either run out of steam or do something different that none of us can quite put our fingers on, but that is causing us to leak a lot of goals.

Nail on head. Danny Murphy can see it, some of us can see it, opposition managers can clearly see it. Even if we get back to the very best version of 'intensity is our identity' and get back into Europe, we know what happens next. Not sure that nagging concern is going to go away now, sadly.

Howe has stated, "if you have too many Plan Bs, it means your Plan A is flawed," arguing for consistency over constant change. So what we're seeing now is plan A. And when that doesn't work, it's more of plan A. But honestly, I haven't got the foggiest what we're trying to do at the moment. You?

Exactly!

Yes, 100% that's what he should be doing but that's not our plan A, and we can't break from plan A.

I don't think many are tbh. I think majority of disgruntled voices just want to see some signs that he's adapting and evolving, which he doesn't seem to be. You can't keep playing the same record forever - eventually it wears out.

You do realise the manager's job is to find a way to get results despite these things, right? Any talk of losing Isak will be met with "we gave you quarter of a billion pounds to spend". And talk of fixture congestion will likely be met with "you knew that at the start of the season. Your job is to manage that workload." There will be no sympathy at board level for this season. They are seeing what we are seeing - a team that can't defend, a team that concedes 7 goals in one game on global television, a team that consistently gets beaten by teams it shouldn't get beaten by, a team that cost £650m to put together, a team that can't train because our training is too intense. He no doubt has some credit in the bank but can you imagine him going into a meeting and listing all of those things as reasons why we can't keep possession and routinely have our midfield bypassed. That credit would disappear immediately. WE have more sympathy for him because we're not on the business side of things, but we also have some of the same questions he is likely to get asked at the post-season inquest. Like what is going to be done to rectify those PURELY FOOTBALLING issues.

Firstly, they weren't challenged in a very constructive way at all. What was basically said for all of it was 'We lost Isak' and 'We lost a DoF'. That doesn't come close to explaining some of the things we are seeing on the pitch. Yes, he has achieved all of that - incredible stuff. No one is trying to take that away from him. But there are essentially two schools of thought here - he will do it again because he's done it before, and his methods have hit a ceiling and he now needs to change stuff. You are clearly in the first camp, as is your right. I am in the second camp along with a growing number of fans. The best managers evolve when their ideas no longer bring the results they used to, or when their ideas no longer fit the situation. If you can point to any part of our identity, approach, tactics or in-game management that have evolved, i'm all ears, genuinely. However, I suspect the response will be something along the lines of 'he won the cup last year' or 'we lost Isak', which is pretty standard for first-campers. It completely ignores the fact that things change and move on, and adaptation is needed to keep moving forward. I'm not trying to be rude mate, but the mitigating circumstances you're referring to don't come close to explaining why we can't defend for shit, why we let the opposition onto our back line so easily and expect our tired players to sprint half the length of the pitch to mop up, why we can't keep hold of the ball for more than 4-5 passes and why Europe for us seems to be more of a punishment than a reward. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I both respect yours and understand the reason for it. And I sincerely hope Eddie can turn things around but not by doing what we have done in the past because it has shown to not be sustainable long-term. Get back into Europe and we'll be back on the same hamster wheel. We need to see Eddie chapter 2.

This is totally unnecessary and it's sad to see Eddie's integrity being called into question because that's the one thing that isn't up for debate. But take away the roid rage and attention seeking, and he's making the same points a lot of us are making - no evolution, easy to play through, playing/training style that isn't conducive to playing in Europe, wasted money, unable to get the best out of certain players, can't defend, and the need for possession-based football (maybe he's been reading this thread). And that is all fair. I don't really give a shit about the derby defeat now - it hurt at the time but it's gone. That game and performance was a symptom of bigger problems that aren't being addressed though - that's the major concern. Eddie is more than intelligent/talented enough to turn this around but it will take for him to rip up his playbook and do something different, and whether he will or not will ultimately dictate his fate.

Is it? How so?

Based around a single way of playing and a very rigid structure though. The tailor-made plan for the opposition is usually based around how we get the ball forward, where we try to win it back, how we mark in an attacking sense, how high we sit and where we channel our attacking play. It pays very little attention to how they can hurt us and how we can stop it - I believe that bit sits with Tindall, who is looking worse at his job by the day. It's variation but within a very specific theme.

It doesn't matter what you think happened - go and re-read the thread. 53 responses, tell me how many of them actually answered the question and how many were people criticising the question being asked, despite it's legitimacy.