Lucky

Yeah Christ, but it’s the reality.

If we lose tomorrow we could well be in the relegation zone after the City game depending on how other results go. That’s not a sentence I thought I’d be typing this season. Hopefully we get a result and kick on but tomorrow is in no way a cert. Brentford are very good at home.

At the root of all of this is that Isak has spread a cancer into the squad in terms of money. What’s he on now? 300k a week? The likes of Tonali will be looking at that and weighing up his value. Loyalty for the ban year will only go so far. If we’re offering him less than 200k a week for a new contract he’ll have his agent in his ear telling him what he can get elshewhere. A few of our current squad will be in the same boat. Not loads of them but certainly a few. The issue is that if we start paying out bigger contracts we won’t be able to sign players at the same level. So we’re quite powerless to stop our big names from leaving.

He might be an upgrade on Joelinton but honestly, thought he looked gash against the dippers midweek. Think 70m would be best case scenario for Madrid.

What fucker asked the question?

It’s not just having more of the ball, we had over 70% in the second half at West Ham, it’s what we do with it when we have the ball that’s the problem, especially when teams sit back and go compact. We’re still a counter attacking team for the most part. Not sure what the fix is, can’t say it’s personnel because Bruno and Sandro are technically gifted players and they could easily adjust to playing for a team like City. Just don’t think that’s his style as a manager - it’s more about quick transitions to exploit space.

We’d probably be relegated to start with. But now, who knows. He deserves a good run to put the PL form right. That’s how he will be judged. And that should be fair enough.

Cracking goal in fairness

Viagra can always sponsor the physio department

First time I’ve watched Madrid in a while, they were all just playing for themselves. You can see they are missing Modric and Kroos.. midfield is awful.

Give him a few days to sort it out ffs 😂

If he failed a test it would be all over the shop, they make examples of players as a deterrent to other players. Remember when Rio was trying to get around being tested as he’d been naughty.. wasn’t performance enhancing as he did the test a week or two later and nothing showed up.

“Will pursue overseas opportunities” points more to being shown the door rather than us being caught napping.

Heard Silverstone may be headed to Juventus?

Nobody is calling for him to be sacked. Why can’t his recent performance be criticised? He needs to do better. We all agree on that. What we disagree on is whether he’s the one to really push us on as a club from where we are now. I have doubts but he should still be given time. A lot of posters here have said he’s either the best or one of the best managers we’ve ever had. No disputing that. What I would say is he’s one of the best managers we’ve had yet.

He never started them together.

Nah you should be fine.

I don’t see him playing both at same time unfortunately.

☺️

He left Bournemouth in 2020

Yeah I agree, I’m not using AI as some oracle, if it had brought up points that were irrelevant to our situation now I’d have said. But can you not look at those points mentioned and use your own eyes to make an opinion on it? I made all these points after Brighton and got stick for it, but same situation again, nothing has changed or improved away from home.

My point is that the AI thing has no skin in the game or an agenda against Eddie Howe, but there are many similarities in what happened there in terms of being overly loyal to underperforming players, being picked apart when having the lion’s share of possession and an inability to adapt to teams figuring us out and pressing us high up the pitch. Whether or not you want to see that cycle happening here or not is on you but doesn’t mean it’s not the reality of the situation.

I asked ChatGPT “what went wrong for Eddie Howe at Bournemouth?” Eddie Howe’s Bournemouth story started as a fairytale but ended in steady decline due to several overlapping factors — tactical, psychological, and structural. At their best, Bournemouth played fearless, expansive football built on quick transitions and brave possession from the back. Howe’s man-management and attention to detail inspired loyalty and overachievement in a small squad with limited resources. But the same strengths became flaws as the Premier League evolved. Tactically, Bournemouth remained too open. Howe’s insistence on building from deep with technically modest defenders often led to costly turnovers, especially once opponents learned to press them high. Their defence was never properly fixed; Bournemouth consistently conceded 60–70 goals a season. Even after major spending, defensive recruits like Ake aside, the balance between risk and control never improved. Recruitment became muddled. Money was spent on players who didn’t suit Howe’s system (such as Solanke, Ibe, and Billing initially), while core players aged or regressed. The team’s energy and intensity — once their hallmark — faded. When injuries hit key leaders like Aké, Lerma, and Wilson, there was no reliable depth. Psychologically, the club lost its edge. Survival became expectation rather than motivation, and Howe, a meticulous but emotionally intense manager, seemed drained by the burden of constant firefighting. By 2019–20, Bournemouth looked tactically stale, predictable in possession, and lacking belief — a shadow of the hungry side that rose from League One. Ultimately, Howe’s downfall at Bournemouth was not a collapse of ability but of adaptation. His philosophy stopped evolving while others adjusted faster, and his loyalty to certain players and methods — admirable early on — became a limitation when the margins tightened.

Those statistics expose the same pattern as what happened at Bournemouth.. the more we control the ball, the less we control the match. Essentially we’re seeing history repeat itself.

Has anyone compared what went wrong at Bournemouth for him to what’s happening here now?