Holmesy

Maybe bring Hall on to deal with Elanga’s pace, go 5 at the back and give ourselves greater numbers to mitigate the counter attack. There are loads of tactical tweaks that could’ve been made, but we just let them run right through us time after time, pushing EVERYONE forward and leaving ourselves vulnerable to the counter. It isn’t a groundbreaking suggestion to say the manager should make in game changes in reaction to what we’re all seeing.

Seriously, you don’t think it’s a manager’s job to manage the energy levels of his squad? If they’re knackered, do something different. If you can’t do something different, you’re not a very good manager. Are the players fatigued? Yes. Should we just accept that we’re going to lose every game until they get some energy back? Fuck no. Fucking manage it! It’s not an unreasonable thing to suggest a manager should have more than one trick in his playbook.

Again, I pin that on the manager. This season has highlighted a glaring glitch in EH’s matrix. If he can’t execute plan A, there’s nothing. Yes, he’s been unlucky with injuries, really unlucky but I’d expect a top class manager to be able to chess game his way out of it, to a degree. Have we all just got to accept that because players are tired and we have an injury list, we aren’t winning games?

I’m afraid it’s shit one-trick-pony management in that case. We can’t be at full tilt all the time and what we’ve seen is that when we’re not, we’re shit and we get beaten….badly. Zero ability to adapt. Plan B is something that has been mentioned time and time again, but even tweaks to plan A would be something.

This fatigue excuse needs to stop now. Players are bound to be tired but it’s up to the manager to ‘manage’ what energy they do have. He isn’t and deserves to be called out for it. Simply saying we’re tired after getting bummed by Forest at home is letting people off the hook who should be doing a better job. They tore through us at will and we had the chance to react and make ourselves harder to play through, but didn’t. Fatigue wore thin a long time ago.

I don’t think anyone expects us to be Man City, but we don’t expect to get shat on by Forest at home and comfortably outplayed by Luton. The manager is rightly being criticised for certain things that are within his control

I agree to an extent. He’s definitely improved individual players through coaching, but for me Rafa is the master at making a team better than the sum of its parts. Rafa never had the likes of Botman, Pope, Trippier, Bruno, Isak, Gordon, Wilson? Joelinton etc. They are a world apart from what Rafa was working with. Anyway, moot point and totally off track

As has been touched on plenty of times, he had the players to rotate fullbacks and rest the likes of Trippier, but chose not to. Trippier then went on to make a series of costly errors and everyone cried ‘fateeeg’. I say poor squad management. We’ve been wide open in midfield for weeks. It doesn’t take a lot to tell Longstaff to hang on the halfway line when we go forward or at set pieces. It also doesn’t take much to know that Forest are full of pace and would try and hit us on the counter. Once you see it a couple of times, fucking react and stop it happening again. It’s basic stuff that isn’t happening. How many times do we have to get hit on the counter this season for Eddie to do something about it?!

The grinding out result is the key. If he can add that to his toolkit I think he’ll belong at the very top table. From what he’s saying though, I don’t think he wants to - front foot all the time regardless of the circumstances

The football was crap, but he was managing a championship squad in the PL. Look at the team he won the Champions League with as well though, not exactly stellar. My point is his squad management was superior, his tactical flexibility was superior, his ability to change games was superior. When we’re in full flow under Eddie we’re a joy to watch. But if we’re not at 100%, we’re not just below par, we’re fucking terrible!

Constructive!

Would you have confidence in Rafa to get results even with a tired, depleted squad? I 100% would. He is probably the reason why the shit we’re serving up right now frustrates me as much as it does. Any supposed top class manager should be able to find a way to get results even if conditions are far from optimal. So far Eddie has got great results when everything was in his favour but his tactical weaknesses have been fully exposed when we have injuries and the players are tired (which they were always going to be this season). Chuck the team out, try to execute our high intensity plan a, and when it doesn’t work, do more of plan a. For me, the tactical nativity and limitation is a serious worry and has eroded a lot of my confidence in him. Even when we get players back and results start to improve, I doubt I’ll ever think of him as a top manager again. I hope he makes me eat my words though.

Fuck knows! No one does. But if someone buys a business for £50m, they employ teams of auditors to go through every fine detail. If you buy a property for even £1m your solicitor is going thorough everything with a fine tooth comb. I’ve no idea what the scouting and vetting process is, but if it was anyone’s job to uncover shit like this it would be DA’s wouldn’t it? ??‍♂️ As I said before, I was merely speculating, but I can’t imagine the board are happy at spending £50m and watching their asset sit around while we’re dropping down the league

? You don’t think when we’re making a £50m investment, we dig as deep as possible?! I don’t know to what extent, but I’m sure it’s more than just asking folk if he’s a nice lad.

There was a rumour his missus wanted to move to London, not Newcastle and that played a big part in his decision. Not sure we ever had a real chance

Background checks not uncovering a serious gambling problem? You don’t think?

I do wonder if he stock might’ve fallen a bit, hence the links to Man Utd. If he and his team are responsible for identifying and researching the players we buy, the Tonali debacle reflects terribly on him, as does Lewis’s apparent unreadiness for first team action. Pure speculation but who knows?!

Serious question - what signs have you seen that he’s working on his limitations? We’ve been wide open in midfield for weeks, and we’re still wide open now. We've been prone to counter attacks all season and we still are. We’ve had no plan B all season and we still have no plan B. I wish I had the faith and confidence you do, but what I’m seeing doesn’t give me any.

Of course I appreciate it. We are a world apart from where we were pre-Eddie, but I also think we can’t be too sentimental about it if we genuinely have hopes of winning top honours. People may disagree but I cant See us winning anything big under EH - he just has too many limitations as a manager. I’ve never mentioned Mourinho and I wouldn’t want him anywhere near the club, but a young, proven manager with pedigree that could kick us on to the next level would be attractive. And I don’t think it would take away the feel good factor at all. If we sacked EH now it would, but give him chance to turn it around and if he doesn’t, make the decision. By that time most people won’t be feeling good about the situation any more anyway. Let me just clarify, I don’t want him sacked. I want him to turn this around and learn from his mistakes, but my confidence in his ability to do either is not high

Why would it be undone? We have ambitious owners who would likely replace them with people who can build on the platform we’ve created, not tear it down

Is it?! Explain why. Has he run players into the ground? Has he managed this game poorly? A team who were only ever going to counter attack us? Is there an argument that he mis-managed us from a winning position against Liverpool, AC Milan and arguably this game? What is his plan b? Name one game where he made an effective in-game change to swing the result? I’m happy to be corrected, but you haven’t done that. You’ve just used your extensive vocabulary to disagree, with no follow up

And this one especially is on Eddie. His weaknesses have been exposed over the past few months, but our home form was his saving grace. But tactical naivety, running players into the ground, an inability to make effective in game changes, no plan B, mis-management when we’re in winning positions etc. are all starting to look like traits rather than one-offs.

People talk about him learning from his mistakes because he’s a student of the game. There’s absolutely no sign of it! Just more of the same old shit, and the fateeeeeg argument doesn’t wash any more. This is just tactical suicide against a team who were always going to play on the counter

Plan b?

Unfortunately you can’t coach the thick out of players. His decision making at crucial times is almost always wrong. He shoots when he should pass, he passes when he shoot shoot and he’s totally incapable of crossing a ball, seemingly. Lovely guy, very average footballer at this level.