greenhill

Maybe a bit off topic but the LWs in the Premier League seems quite poor especially when the league has so many talents at other positions. Anyone of Vini Jr, Mbappe, Nico Williams, Raphinha (who plays at LW this season), Rodrygo (who can definitely play at LW) could easily be one of the top 2 or even the best LW here had they played in the PL.

Selling Dubs and getting him back on loan for the remainder of this season would be the perfect solution. Any possibility of it happening though?

Exactly, 2 weeks ago I got insulted here for pointing out the fact that Howe got only 11 points in 12 games, now it becomes 14 in 14. The only win that looked convincing was against Wolves last week. To a lesser extent vs Aston Villa, but we were a bit lucky on set piece in that game, and they always looked threatening in the second half. Against Fulham we were lucky with the early red card, and even with a one-man advantage they looked dangerous on the counter until we scored the first goal. Against Nottingham (A) the game could really go either way. Against Luton (H) and Bournemouth both looked more like a point rescued than 2 points lost. Of the 8 games that we lost, we were soundly beaten in most games. Maybe we could have rescued a point against Everton if Trippier didn’t make that mistake. If you look at our performance, I can’t help but have a sense that this pattern will remain largely the same until the end of this season. If my prediction becomes a reality, we will get ~25 points in our last 24 league games. IMO this season had demonstrated that Howe is a decent but limited manager. He is a great motivator, the players were willing to run their lives for him, that’s why that “intensity is our identity” style worked initially. Unfortunately, after 2 years, the freshness and excitement of having a new manager becomes a distance memory. I don’t mean the players are now lazy or unprofessional or anti-Howe, but the desire to run that extra mile and challenge for every ball is gone, for a legitimate reason. Who wants to work hard in order to be punished by getting injuries that could risk their own career? We might have entered the point that we need something new and fresh to bring back the players' desire to work very hard. Howe is also good for nurturing players, whether you like Howe or not, you can’t deny the likes of Longstaff, Almiron, Gordon, Murphy etc had improved a lot under Howe. But it has been 2 years and this growth is inevitably slowing down. If you compare the likes of Longstaff and Almiron in 23/24 vs 22/23, you can’t help but think that their performance declined a bit. Unless we change our squad significantly, I don’t think we could see significant improvement in abilities in our existing players under the same manager again. That being said, I don’t mean I am anti-Howe, I think he should be given the chance at least until the end of this season. After all, what I said is just a hypothesis which might not be true. But what if what I predicted becomes a reality? We need to have a plan. IMO with a decent but limited manager, we should make an educated gamble in the summer. If it is possible to lure the likes of Tuchel or Nagelsmann, I would be seriously tempted. If all we could get is the likes of Mourinho or De Zerbi, then I would wait for maybe 10 more games to see how Howe does next season. If we get anything less than say 40 points in the last 24 league games this season and the first 10 league games next season combined, that’s 34 games which is almost a full season, I think we should look for the best available manager anyway.

I agree with you and that's my point. I think we should keep our faith on Howe at least for the moment, but we need to be rational at the end of the season. If we are poor for 24 games not 12 then questions have to be raised.

Because we make decisions based on what he is doing now, not his CV. Since that Everton game we had been poor for some time, and things are not fixed yet. And FYI, Bruce got 12 points from his last 12 league games in charge.

I don't suggest Howe is a bad manager nor we should sack him now, he is probably a much better manager than Bruce but our current results is worse than that under Bruce is also a fact. I hope and I still have some faith that he could turn things around. But if that doesn't happen before the end of this season, we have to reflect why we were that bad. We still have 12 more league games to play, if our performance and results remain that bad over 24 games it's hard to argue it's over 'a curated set of fixtures'.

When everyone think that Bruce had done an awful job and someone is doing worse than Bruce, there must be something wrong.

Since that loss against Everton we got only 11 points from 12 league games, that equates to ~35 points in 38 games. Bruce got 44 and 45 points in his two full seasons. Compared to 3 or 4 seasons ago, we got upgrades including Bruno, Trippier, Botman, Burn, Livramento, Gordon, Isak, and Miley featuring heavily during this run, the major subtractions are ASM, Shelvey and Willock (mostly injured). I don’t mean we should sack Howe now, but it is a fact that he is doing worse than Bruce with a much stronger squad at the moment. We are just not as good as we should be right now, even if injuries are accounted. He has to turn things around or questions will be raised.

I think we should sign 2 more players in this window. We will probably be in Europe next season and we will likely need to play 10+ more games than this season. With our current squad I think we overachieved this season and if we are not careful enough, we may be dragged into a relegation battle next season like 16/17 Leicester, 05/06 Everton, 05/06 Real Betis and 03/04 Celta Vigo. We will need at least 5-6 more players for European competitions and if we only sign them in summer it also takes time for so many players to gel in the team. If we can sign 2 players this month then hopefully it can smooth out the process a bit while also giving us a lift for the push into top 4.