TheEntertainer

3/10 for me, the league has been a shocker, but probably not a 1, more of a 2 and the champions league and league cup pulls it up to a 3 for me. Could have maybe gone with a 4, but the league is massively the most impacting on how I feel about the season so I'll stick with a 3.

I'd put CL above the Prem but the rest of the order is right

Alexander who?

Who plays instead of him? Rashford has been in and out at Barca, Eze isn't really a left winger. There's weirdly not much competition for the spot at the minute. Maybe Eze? But he's a completely different profile and forces you to be more narrow.

The game today hasn't changed me from Howe out, but it has softened that somewhat. I'd got to a point where it felt like he'd lost the players and without changing him sooner rather than later we'd end up dangerously close to relegation this season. Today was better, but still not great. Very much a Newcastle 25/26 performance, the better team in the first half, then got nervy in the second and let the opposition back in. However hopefully holding on for the win this time and actually getting a 3rd will take some pressure off the players and we'll see more of the first half performance for the rest of the season. I'll take any win against a decent team who we struggle against. If it does and the team actually get going in the last 3 games maybe I was wrong and he does deserve the summer to sort things out. Either way super happy for him on a personal level and the team today, must have been grim for him the last few weeks

Haha! True! I don't think I've ever heard it used in real life

We've lost 4 in a row, that's why we're more worried about relegation than excited about maybe winning 4 in a row and making Europe. I don't think we'll get relegated, but I think it's something the team should be thinking about and should make sure it's impossible as soon as possible.

Got Welbeck in the fantasy football team for this one.

Ah we are back to disrespect and entitlement, jolly good. It's been a while.

I mean it could be either right, who knows what other fans are thinking, It was more just that it could be super positive Newcastle fans, or it could be super negative Sunderland fans, or it could literally be anyone. I just thought it was interesting how different that result was to ours.

Yeah 100%, I was thinking it could be a load of Sunderland fans hoping for our downfall. Still interesting to see the difference.

The BBC voting public are much more pro-Howe than the forum.

He's not, but he is still quite good and one of our best players.

This is the problem, his heads gone. He's clearly a confidence player and he's not feeling it and may now never feel it for us. As someone who suffers from the same thing when I played at a much much much much lower level I know hard it is when you don't feel loved. I also know that it's hard for anyone to love you when you're playing like that, it's a vicious circle. I don't think it's a scouting issue, unless we could have got some insider info on his mentality.

My mistake then, I took irrationality, spitting the dummy and having a chip on your shoulder as suggestions of mental fragility but I don't want to put words in your mouth.

I do think one of the major issues is the quality of the chances we have been giving up this season, I've seen the keepers given a lot of stick, but every game we seem to allow at least one chance from 2 or 3 yards out.

This is the one I was thinking of, but there may have been others, I'm not completely up to date with the thread

You've made this a personal argument by the way you've talked about the mental fragility of the people who think Howe should be replaced. Just accept other people have a different opinion than you which doesn't make them less of a person or a fan or a mentally strong person or whatever it is you think. It's just a different opinion which is great. Differing opinions are incredibly important for a healthy, high performing society, it everyone thought the same way life would not only be pretty boring, but we'd never try anything new. I'm not a fan of the way the argument has now swung back round to the failings of the Howe in crowd either. I'm Howe out, but I fully respect the other sides opinion on that and don't think they're lesser than me in any way just because they think differently about something. Diversity of thought is strength not weakness. I always find when people start resorting to insults, they're losing an argument.

Given how the negotiation went, you really are expecting the best outcome from something that was clearly terribly handled throughout. The whole summer was a shit show and we made a complete pigs ear of every negotiation we entered. I can't see it being % of profit personally, I can't find anything that clears it up online though. Everything says a 25% sell on clause, which I'd take to be 25% of the total sale, but it could easily be profit as well as it's not explicitly stated either way.

I'd guess the thinking would be he'd not be a car crash and we wouldn't be looking to move him on till he's 33ish at which point he's probably leaving on a free or for next to nothing so 25% of nothing is nothing so who cares. It's clearly not turned out that way though.

There's no way it would be profit on the Wissa deal though, imagine Brentford thinking we might sell him on for more when they've already sold him to us for twice what he's worth!

The newer football manager games have both now, 25% of the sale or 25% of the profit of the sale (other percentages are available)

Yeah worrying that Merson's backing him as he's never been right about anything in his life

Isak on strike versus current Wissa is probably about the same output

Bruno and Joe are 28 and 29, still absolutely at their peak so their age has nothing to do with it, I agree Trippier has declined with age, but it's not like we didn't know he was going to get older. Pope has just turned 34 so I guess age could be a problem for him as well, but that doesn't seem past it for a goalkeeper. We've lost one player. Claiming we've lost the spine of the team is a massive over-exaggeration. The under-performance shouldn't be due to age for most of these players and other than Isak and Trippier we haven't needed to replace a first team player (although for whatever reason it's become clear that Pope isn't it as well now). We have Tino at RB who on paper is as good as Trippier and I would imagine was the succession plan though he's obviously made of glass (you do lose some leadership though I guess). I just really don't like the argument the players aren't good enough, this team is so much stronger than the one Howe inherited when he came in and he got a tune from them. In my opinion the teams still good enough, they are just massively under-performing for whatever reason.