TheBrownBottle

He’s bounced back once, and not after a run / season like this one. 23/24 wasn’t close to be as bad as this - there was a bad run of seven defeats in eight, but generally the side looked good outside of that. This season has been turgid and got increasingly worse as it went on.

I just wrote that it doesn’t (you still have to build a winning team) and I was replying to someone who kept talking about Bournemouth. But somehow the idea has sprung up that he performed wonders on a shoestring when in fact he was massively backed by a wealthy owner.

I don’t think there’s owt wrong with being worried that the club will balls up a successor to Howe and therefore want to stick instead of twist, and cite Souness as an example. But it is daft to suggest that we’re doomed to repeat it or that this is what is bound to happen

Probably

Definitely. Given Arsenal’s height and dominance from those situations, it’s not crazy to drop the smallest player in the side in a one-off.

That’s not quite the case - Howe did an excellent job at Bournemouth, but it wasn’t a miraculous one. Bournemouth spent a fortune to get up to the top flight. So much that they breached the FFP regs by a decent margin. I don’t at all think that this invalidates the achievement, but it wasn’t exactly the same as Wimbledon’s rise through the divisions - Howe was massively backed by a billionaire owner. https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/36189779

Richard Dinnis lost ten top flight league games in a row after winning the opening match in 77/78 Generally speaking though, Richard Dinnis isn’t a manager you want to be compared to in terms of NUFC And welcome aboard

It is, but Winter’s point is irrelevant - it wasn’t meted out by the same administrative body as the one which allowed clubs selling hotels to themselves

Literally doesn’t address the reports - Downie and his ilk are absolutely tank journalists

It seems we did, and we sold him to Forest

It would be good to see a performance today, even if a result isn’t likely. A good, solid, competent performance would give a boost for the remaining games. Hope springs eternal, though - you never know.

100%

It’s unfortunate that we just didn’t have the money to buy a decent goalkeeper last summer, would’ve resolved that issue if we had

We’re obviously not going down, Spurs haven’t won a league match this calendar year But I don’t understand how so many seem to be able to write ‘we’re only X points off 5th/6th’ all season, but when we’re three points off 16th with five fixtures to go - fixtures we took three points from last season - it’s because we’re a bunch of pissy-pants over-emotional fannies I’m not anxious or emotional about any of it - it’s pretty obvious we could easily finish 16th. It’s also increasingly obvious that there is no level of shitness for some where Howe takes a scintilla of accountability for it.

Spurs, no. Luckily. West Ham - yep.

Some us did actually say this at the time

The fact that this thread exists in any sense after the money spent on the squad generally and last summer in particular would be enough at most clubs

Bloody hell, forgot about Ritchie and Ramsdale

Howe came out and said not having a preseason (which happened because Wissa was an unprofessional arse) is what fucked him. So according to the manager who vastly overpaid for him - a fee only potentially worth it for instant results - he was never going to hit the heights because he didn’t do what was needed, and signed him anyway. Then he fucked his knee. Not sure this one can be waved away with ‘bad luck’. At least not according to the manager.

Yeah, it’s a funny one that we’ve had three ex-Bournemouth players working with Howe, but he either didn’t sign them or they were free

It was a jokey response to jokey comment

If we’re allowing shortened forms, then we’ve had a few: Sam Charlie Chris Terry Willie

It’s the most entertaining thing ever - Boehly playing at running a football club. It’s like an even more insane version of Ron Noades, just with a much bigger purse and a marginally more annoying accent

‘How much do you want for the club? £200m? Ok, we’ll give you £300m, final offer. No, make it £350m. You are PL-proven’

Thanks Tom, that was a good read. Yes, the 1988 discussion is what I was referring to - and while our board at the time equivocated a bit, we were absolutely open to it. What’s even more shocking is that our chairman (McKeag) was also chairman of the Football League, with responsibility to look after the interests of all 92 clubs - yet he wasn’t turning around and telling the then-‘Big Five’ to fuck right off!