TheBrownBottle

Gambling being a no-no hasn’t stopped him in the past

Yeah; can’t imagine he’d be cheap for us - especially in January. Arsenal would be unwilling sellers

Yep, it’s the biggest weakness in his game for me. He dawdles on the ball quite a bit. I do think he’s improved this under Howe, but it’s difficult to imagine it being ironed out completely

I still stick by my view from the start of the season - anything less than a top half finish is failure, 7th and a cup run would be a good season

He’s miles better than Dubravka; I also think he’s better than Pope. Just my opinion mind

We’ve got Hall on loan - don’t think we’d be allow another two PL loans

Yeah, I saw that video in the ‘Twitter / YouTube’ thread. There are some right whoppers knocking about.

That is the problem though, ultimately. It’s why FFP should exist - the current format is the problem. Football clubs are community assets; that they are rich people’s playthings is an unfortunate consequence of history. Century-plus community assets shouldn’t be put at risk to stroke the ego of vainglorious business wankers.

No, you’re right. I’m still convinced that this is far more of a passive investment than most other people think. The commercial deals have been slow in coming and not exactly pulling up trees; PIF’s complete lack of involvement in the day-to-day running is another flag. It wouldn’t be difficult to have a permanent member of the board on Tyneside who is a PIF person. They have stated that they want to be ‘number 1‘. This is standard sales patter in the ME - plenty fall for it, with the ‘they only get the best’ stuff the standard response. What usually happens is that they get nothing like the best, though they do usually pay through the nose. Plenty of talk about ‘the project’ and it needing time - but two years is actually quite a long time, and the radio silence is a constant theme. Just a guess, but I think that there is a good chance that PIF didn’t really consider the rules in place to prevent a simple pump-and-grow investment in football these days. The club won’t go through the legal challenge routes re FFP - they’d need a stalking horse for that. There is no chance whatsoever that the KSA govt challenges the rules of the English FA & PL in a UK court - it would be a minor diplomatic issue over a passive investment. That’s the reason why they have accepted everything thrown at them to date. If the FFP shackles are off, we would likely see greater investment - but no-one should hold their breath for NUFC to be the club which does it.

Not how FFP works, unfortunately. Staggered payments don’t stop the full value of the transfer being counted in that financial year.

Fair enough - while I do think that we have zero data on how PIF will react to what’s happening at present, from a fans’ perspective talking as if the bloke has weeks or even days to turn this around isn’t great. Losing to Sunderland would cause anger - but that shouldn’t be enough to provoke calls for his sacking.

I missed those tbh mate - if people have written that, then those posts deserve some pushback. I will say I’ll be pissing blood if we lose to the Mackems, but no chance should Howe lose his job. I agree - he should be given at least the season. For me, he’s got enough credit that even if we sputter over the finish line, I’d want the club to back him again for the start of next season. Totally agree that he’ll learn - he’ll be better and the team will be better again next year. The bloke had never managed a European campaign before - he’ll have learned shitloads this time round.

Literally no-one here has called for his head.

Sorry, who is ‘you lot’? From Froggy’s post: ’My thoughts: Are you in poor form? Yes. Is fatigue/injuries to blame? Yes. Should Howe also take blame? Yes. Should Howe be sacked? Only if you're a fucking mentalist.’ That’s pretty much every post on here which has been critical of some aspects of Howe’s management.

Yep. Straw man nonsense. I’ve not seen a single person on this thread calling for his head.

I agree that fatigue means that Howe’s play style doesn’t work, but I think the third comes as much from a lack of shape in defence and midfield - and Dubravka’s inability to play sweeper - as it does fatigue.

Christ, that last one. I always wondered what happened to the ‘Magic Bike Ride’ radgie

They aren’t too knackered then - and that’s the point. You don’t wait until they are to start rotating them. You avoid them becoming fatigued by rotating when they are fresh

He started with the same XI in the first five league games. It took knocks and injuries to start moving the team around. We’re not going to agree on this one by the looks of it madras - I think Howe is an excellent manager and I don’t want to see anyone else in charge, but I think he’s made errors this season and they’re catching up with us. We’ve had bad luck with some injuries, but our playing style has contributed to others. We’ve won one league away game in the last fourteen; if we lose at Anfield we’ve lost as many games as we’ve won this season, and there has been serious investment on the playing side. Howe isn’t immune from criticism - those calling for him to get the chop are being daft, but he’s not blameless for what’s happening. He can’t be given credit for when we’re winning and playing well but it’s nowt to do with him when we’re not.

Yep - they went up well beyond inflation. They didn’t come back down, even if they tapered off

I’m one of those who thought it was a really good window - so far I’m badly wrong. Not sure that Tonali loving a punt, Barnes seeing the shittest specialist in medicine or Hall being miles away could have been predicted mind

I agree re playing a weakened team in a QF - I’d rather rest players in a league game - but ‘mong’ isn’t necessary; it’s a horrible word mate.

No, I don’t think it is hindsight at all - I believe you were saying precisely that at the time. I’m one of those who hates seeing reserve XIs start cup games - if anyone is looking for those who hop up and down on the spot for that stuff, it’s me. I think Howe’s rotation has been insufficient in that it isn’t an all-or-nothing move. Swapping your right back one match, then a centre mid the next is how sensible rotation normally operates. We played the same starting XI in the first five league games of the season - the only time we had a full squad available. I doubt that will happen again.

NUFC crowds have a tendency to turn on their ‘own’ before others - not sure BDB would be immune to that tradition

I thought Howe’s management of that LC game was masterful tbh. He rotated, could see that there were issues, changed at HT and we looked like a different side second half. Perfect. Rotation doesn’t mean changing the entire XI for me, though. It means swapping out one or two players game by game. I still think we’ll see Howe doing that from now on - the man learns from his mistakes.