Holmesy

I think we'll rarely see them player together unless we're chasing a game, and I can't see one player making that much difference if Wissa replaces Wolt. There are issues everywhere. I'd love to be proved wrong obviously.

The bigger problem is that if your entire style, system and management ethos is fundamentally ill-suited to the additional fixtures European football brings, and you don't seem to be able to adapt, you basically seal your own fate. He's the epitome of a victim of his own success.

No, not in my opinion. He’s not going to radically change how he’s always done things. If he does turn it around it’ll probably because we get knocked out of Europe so he can concentrate on preparing all week for one game again.

To be honest, if they had the calibre of players we have, they’d have battered us. They were tactically better than us with inferior players, which is essentially what made it a level playing field.

That was the club rejecting our offer, not the player rejecting us I think

He’s got to control the fucking ball first and that seems beyond him.

What an absolute travesty of a footballer we’ve ended up with. The only thing he does well is run, but only as long as he doesn’t have the ball. Worst first touch I think I’ve ever seen from a professional footballer

I’ve been on the fence for a while now, not in the Eddie out camp but not blindly loyal because of what’s he’s done to-date like many others. The summer highlighted an issue with our ability to attract top talent, which I think an elite manager would help with. Obviously I realise the club stature, area and potentially higher wages elsewhere is a big factor too, but ambitious players also want to play for top tier managers. Couple that with our current tactical issues, awful away form, mental weakness, lack of attacking potency and complete inability to unlock a defence, and I’m starting to think a change might be best. I don’t think he will go mind, but there must be questions being asked behind the scenes.

Joe Willock doing what Joe Willock does. Christ, this is bleak.

Out thought, out fought, and out run by a better coached team who want it more. Fucking awful performance. What are we actually trying to do because it looks like we’re just winging it.

The poll is a bit simplistic and dramatic. Do you want him sacked?! I don't want him sacked but I am starting to think that he's hit his ceiling, and if there's a replacement available with better pedigree who has the gravitas to attract top players, we should at least be exploring it. And that's based on our shocking summer, our appalling away form and the fact that we look like shadow of the team we were a couple of seasons back, despite having spent a stupid amount of money on new players. We don't have a cohesive playing style any more, we've signed some very average players for big money and I don't think Eddie's methods lend themselves to competing in the PL and CL simultaneously, which is the goal of the football club (this has been backed up by the quote about hardly training at the moment, concentrating on recovery instead because of how many fixtures we're playing). Unless he changes his entire way of working, I fear we'll always struggle in the league when we have a European campaign running alongside.

Forget the fee is difficult to do though, when we could've signed the same player for probably half the fee from the continent, leaving us more budget to sign top players when the opportunity presents itself. This obsession with PL-proven players has bitten us this time - Elanga and Ramsey look average, and although we needed the squad depth, we've probably spent £50-60m more than we needed to purely because of their PL experience. We now have two Joe Willocks and an expensive winger who is worse than the one we had.

I’m not having Elanga at all. He doesn’t look out of form, he just looks shit. I can’t see anything in his game that suggests he’ll come good

What the fuck is actually wrong with him? He growing back a new leg or something?

I think it largely depends when we get knocked out of the CL. I expect a significant upturn in results when then happens.

That is the correct opinion. You can stay

This fucking place is mental . It is ok to have different opinions on stuff you know. It's not North Korea

Clearly he thought BDB could adequately fill in at LB if Hall got injured, which is a horrible piece of judgement after what we saw last time. We even let Targett go out on loan, such was the confidence/loyalty in Burn. Maybe we couldn't find anyone decent to sign, maybe we didn't have the budget but I don't think any of us really think those things are true. Even those who piss their knickers any time they hear anything remotely negative said about Eddie must be sitting there wondering.

Bit harsh to judge a player when we're on a poor run and the whole team is playing shit. Do you expect him to single-handedly pull us out of this mess? He's not fucking Messi. Give him some time and judge him when the team is performing and confident

Hopefully but I don't think it's as simple as that. My point was in agreement and response to the above post about us being at our best when Eddie has time to meticulously plan for games, which having two simultaneous campaign running doesn't seem to allow him to do. There is a comment elsewhere attributed to Eddie that we're hardly training at the moment, focussing on recovery instead. That's likely to be a direct result of the injury debacle from the last duel campaign. So, even if we have a bigger squad, it doesn't seem like it would make that much difference because the issue isn't player resource-related, it's preparation and coaching time. Unless he's prepared to relinquish some control and coaching duties to others, which doesn't seem to be his MO, how do get around this problem?

Which is a weakness he has to address, otherwise this cycle just repeats. When people get their backs up about negative Eddie comments, this has to be taken into account. He's a fantastic PL manager but the above could be his downfall - we get into Europe and we have to prioritise either the PL or Europe because his meticulous methods don't allow us to be competitive in both simultaneously (at the moment). Hopefully he can learn how to manage both, but to-date our CL involvement has derailed our PL campaigns and if it doesn't change and he doesn't learn, the writing is probably on the wall long term.

I think this goes back to the point of Eddie being too stubborn and loyal - in some cases it seems he'd rather hang on to players that know his system, way of playing and have the right personality traits than let them go and risk bringing in someone new, which leaves us with diminishing players who have no value. That's something a DoF should be responsible for - convincing him to move players on before they hit the decline and identifying replacements who can fit straight in

I think he's earned the right to have one poor season, so we have to give him the chance to overhaul and go again next season. And I have no doubt that without European football to contend with, we'd have another great campaign (assuming we don't get a European place). But that raises another question - is he capable of leading us to success in the PL while balancing the additional fixtures that CL or EL football brings? This is the second time our league form has suffered when we've been in the CL.

So you're suggesting there's nothing a lesser team can do to be more effective against a superior team and take points from them? Why does every PL team have an analysis department? Might as well sack them all - pointless waste of time. How were we so effective against Liverpool in the cup final? They didn't show up or we found a way to beat a better team, playing to our strengths and negating theirs? How did Palace do the same? The best team doesn't always win, and it's not just down to the better team not turning up. Surely you know that?

I'm far less sentimental than most, and wouldn't be too bothered if he was sacked in the name of improvement. I support NUFC, not the Eddie Howe show. However, I have been guilty of doubting him in the past and he has proved me wrong every time. Coincidentally, the last time I thought we should have considered replacing him was when he persisted with BDB at left back and made us school-boy easy to beat. He has far too much credit in the bank to consider sacking him now and deserves the time to turn it around, and I sincerely hope he does. How that happens i've no idea.