Eddie Howe

[Scoot]

4 hours ago, STM said:

Just looked and it wasn't until Artetas 4th season at Arsenal that they even got into the CL, they finished 8th, 8th and then 5th. Look at them now.

 

Klopp finished 8th in his first season too.

 

People were baying for blood with the former, but I'm sure the "top managers don't make these mistakes" crew won't acknowledge this.

 

Also something absolutely fundamental to the above. Liverpool and Arsenal had/have way more in terms of funding and player draw... as well as an array of talent at their clubs to begin with... and two of the best youth sides in the world. I also doubt they had anywhere near the injury crisis we have had.

 

The season we are having is absolutely par for the course.

 

 

 

This!

[Orphanage]

3 minutes ago, gbandit said:

Agree on the first part. I think fans are idiots across the board really in football. I see all sorts of absurd takes from all teams’ fans

Who made you judge and jury ?

[Kid Icarus]

1 hour ago, Ronaldo said:

So what you’re trying to say is that my expectations are completely unrealistic given the general constraints in place for the club?

 

I don't think your expectations would even be in focus right now without a ridiculous series of injuries that's depleted every department of the team and highlighted some of the improvements that need to be made.

 

Your expectations are realistic as part of the plan for the squad over a few years, but I don't think it's a failure on the clubs part to have not addressed them yet. 

 

Without FFP it would be reasonable to expect every eventuality to be covered, but with it I'm not sure how you could do everything we have and also sign a 2nd choice 'keeper, another midfielder to cover for the 5 who've been regularly out this season, and a 1 in 2 second striker without doing any combination of: breaking FFP, signing below standard players and (without the benefit of hindsight) being a bit paranoid about the extent that cover is needed. 

 

 

[Ronaldo]

1 hour ago, Kid Icarus said:

 

I don't think your expectations would even be in focus right now without a ridiculous series of injuries that's depleted every department of the team and highlighted some of the improvements that need to be made.

 

Your expectations are realistic as part of the plan for the squad over a few years, but I don't think it's a failure on the clubs part to have not addressed them yet. 

 

Without FFP it would be reasonable to expect every eventuality to be covered, but with it I'm not sure how you could do everything we have and also sign a 2nd choice 'keeper, another midfielder to cover for the 5 who've been regularly out this season, and a 1 in 2 second striker without doing any combination of: breaking FFP, signing below standard players and (without the benefit of hindsight) being a bit paranoid about the extent that cover is needed. 

 

 

Yes but I have to balance my intrinsic need to moan about something with love for Eddie - and injuries are generally faultless. It’s a thankless task.

[Kid Icarus]

Fair enough 

[Big Jow]

The excuses of injuries, fatigue, suspensions, the schedule, the time our flight takes off are not actually as strong as people believed. They never have been.

 

This crap performance yesterday wasn’t down to any of those things. Our away form all season has mainly been due to these bizarre tactics we’ve put in place away from home. It first appeared at AC Milan and I wonder if the fact Howe thinks it ‘worked’ (depending on whether you view clinging on for 90 minutes for a draw is a good result) has been the reason he has persisted with it.

 

The reality is, it hasn’t worked, ever. We rode our luck in Milan and in other variations of it at Liverpool, Dortmund, PSG, Tottenham, Everton, Bournemouth have all shown it’s a disaster waiting to happen.

 

You only need to look at the games we’ve been successful in away from home like Villa where we took the game to them to realise even more what a crap plan it is.

 

Yes, we’ve had injuries and several other issues but we didn’t in Milan. This approach has been designed for us from the beginning.

 

Today we had what? Tonali, Big Joe & Pope missing out of the first 11 (assuming the former two start ahead of Little Joe). Are we so depleted we had to play the whole first 45 minutes on our goal line? 

 

We’ve had much worse starting 11s against much better Arsenal 11s in this fixture before (with much worse managers too) without resorting to that and it was criminal to set up in the way we did.

 

Howe was absolutely sensational last season and gave me some of my best memories as a Newcastle fan, last season his plan worked to some extent, although towards the end teams worked out how to play against us and we started to struggle.

 

Refusing to change formation, refusing to change tactics, refusing to address the gigantic gap between defence and midfield, refusing to take Burn out the 11 until today, refusing to play Hall, refusing to bring others on to rest players towards the end of games have all played a significant factor in terms of how this season have panned out. That said a lot of ‘elite’ managers are stubborn.

 

People continue to say “but what else can he do”, all of the above is the answer, because time and time again this season, what he has done hasn’t worked so he should maybe consider something else.

 

PSG for example, hoofing balls up to Isak for the last 45 minutes when he could barely walk, I don’t care if we had Riviere on the bench, bring him on for the last 10-15 minutes as he’ll at least be able to run and potentially keep hold of the ball. 

 

The only thing that I can’t work out, is if he’s as stubborn as above, why have we had a total U-turn this season with tactics from last? I can only assume he did this to try and conserve energy with the extra games.

 

We’re a dream to play against. The opposing manager and teams know exactly who will be playing and how we’ll set up.

 

The best situation is Howe reacts and changes, because I’d love for him to progress as we do, as he’s earned it. But sadly, this has striking similarities as to why he got relegated with Bournemouth, he was too stubborn to change. Not that we’ll get relegated, but we’ll be inconsistent and finish 8-12th every year under him imo. I’d love to be wrong though.

 

We’ll not improve this season by sacking Howe at this stage, he also has credit in the bank, but no idea if I’d look to replace him this summer or let him have one final crack at the whip with a blank sheet next year. We’re all in on the FA Cup this season and he needs to get that right.

[mighty__mag]

8 hours ago, loki679 said:

 

Still pretty crap results and saying '5 games unbeaten!' is disingenuous without context.

 

How's it disingenuous, wtf are you talking about.

[toon25]

Tbf @Big Jow, I don't think anyone watched that Milan game and thought tactics worked. 

[jigen]

Howe is a good coach but a bad manager. He wasted crazy money and the team is not better than last year. He wanted overpriced PL players because he knows PL players. When a coach make the transfer market is always a disaster. 

[healthyaddiction]

2 minutes ago, jigen said:

Howe is a good coach but a bad manager. He wasted crazy money and the team is not better than last year. He wanted overpriced PL players because he knows PL players. When a coach make the transfer market is always a disaster. 

Our signings were almost certainly better when Eddie had greater control over transfers (the first two windows). I don't think you can blame Tonalis gambling addiction or Barnes' turf toe on Eddie either and I'm not sure where else the money has been wasted.

[TheBrownBottle]

5 minutes ago, jigen said:

Howe is a good coach but a bad manager. He wasted crazy money and the team is not better than last year. He wanted overpriced PL players because he knows PL players. When a coach make the transfer market is always a disaster. 

Not sure about that tbf - Brian Clough once described success in transfers being that it was like a set of scales - as long as the good outweighed the bad, you’re going to be alright.  I think other than summer gone we pretty much nailed the three windows beforehand.  The ‘scales’ would look like this to me:

 

Successes  Middling   Failures

Burn             Wood       Targett (perm) 

Bruno                            Hall (loan)

Targett (loan)

Pope

Isak

Botman

Trippier

Gordon

 

And TBC (need more time and games) - Livramento, Tonali, Barnes, Minteh. 

 

Just my take on where they sit of course (your view might be different).  But I think Howe and the club had a pretty good success rate over the last couple of years. 

[Upthemags]

27 minutes ago, mighty__mag said:

 

How's it disingenuous, wtf are you talking about.

Two draws against two sides fighting relegation and a win against NF where we were arguably the worse side is hardly a triumph, I think is the point

[TheBrownBottle]

1 minute ago, Upthemags said:

Two draws against two sides fighting relegation and a win against NF where we were arguably the worse side is hardly a triumph, I think is the point

Being ‘unbeaten’ is often meaningless.  If we’d won one and lost one instead of drawing two we wouldn’t be unbeaten - but we’d have more points

[The Prophet]

There's also another very good reason why we were outplayed away at Milan, PSG and Arsenal.

[toon25]

19 minutes ago, TheBrownBottle said:

Not sure about that tbf - Brian Clough once described success in transfers being that it was like a set of scales - as long as the good outweighed the bad, you’re going to be alright.  I think other than summer gone we pretty much nailed the three windows beforehand.  The ‘scales’ would look like this to me:

 

Successes  Middling   Failures

Burn             Wood       Targett (perm) 

Bruno                            Hall (loan)

Targett (loan)

Pope

Isak

Botman

Trippier

Gordon

 

And TBC (need more time and games) - Livramento, Tonali, Barnes, Minteh. 

 

Just my take on where they sit of course (your view might be different).  But I think Howe and the club had a pretty good success rate over the last couple of years. 

Aye, agree with all of this 

[TheBrownBottle]

5 minutes ago, The Prophet said:

There's also another very good reason why we were outplayed away at Milan, PSG and Arsenal.

I’ve heard that they’re quite good sides.  Though I do think we have been far too conservative away from home this season. 

[Big Jow]

11 minutes ago, The Prophet said:

There's also another very good reason why we were outplayed away at Milan, PSG and Arsenal.

 

That’s that then. Every time we play a team with a higher squad value or perceived quality, we should retreat onto our goal line and concede the game from the first whistle.

 

Brest went to PSG and completely outplayed them in the second half, getting a draw from 2-0 down. Bologna at Milan too.

 

We had less shots at Arsenal in the whole game than West Ham did in the first half, when they, also won. Burnley put up a bigger fight than we did.

 

You can get results at these teams, granted you will ultimately need a bit of luck on your side and to have your team playing at 100%, but you’ll get neither of those setting up like we have.

[The Prophet]

36 minutes ago, Big Jow said:

 

That’s that then. Every time we play a team with a higher squad value or perceived quality, we should retreat onto our goal line and concede the game from the first whistle.

 

Brest went to PSG and completely outplayed them in the second half, getting a draw from 2-0 down. Bologna at Milan too.

 

We had less shots at Arsenal in the whole game than West Ham did in the first half, when they, also won. Burnley put up a bigger fight than we did.

 

You can get results at these teams, granted you will ultimately need a bit of luck on your side and to have your team playing at 100%, but you’ll get neither of those setting up like we have.

 

There's multiple reasons why we've been outplayed across those three games. Injuries, tactical decisions, quality of opposition and v PSG fatigue, along with game state have all played a role.

[Big Jow]

Just now, The Prophet said:

 

There's multiple reasons why we've been outplayed across those three games. Injuries, tactical decisions, quality of opposition and v PSG fatigue, along with game state have all played a role.

 

4 of those 5 reasons (injuries, tactical, game state, fatigue) are Howe’s responsibility.

[McDog]

Just now, Big Jow said:

 

4 of those 5 reasons (injuries, tactical, game state, fatigue) are Howe’s responsibility.

 

 

Yes and no. Injuries are not Eddie's responsibility outside of maybe Murphy in my opinion. Fatigue comes down to earlier fixture congestion, injuries and shite options. 

[Orphanage]

 

[Big Jow]

6 minutes ago, McDog said:

 

 

Yes and no. Injuries are not Eddie's responsibility outside of maybe Murphy in my opinion. Fatigue comes down to earlier fixture congestion, injuries and shite options. 

 

The Wilson and Isak fiasco has been entirely on him. Both made out of hula hoops and he’s failed it manage that properly. See my comment earlier about playing Isak when he can’t even move.

 

You can make a real case for injuries that seem completely random being a cause of fatigue. Players stretching further, chasing the game and opposition more.

 

Also impossible to know if situations like Joelinton may have aggravated his injury coming back out for the second half at the mackems, for example.

 

Not saying we wouldn’t have absences, of course we would, but he’s made the situation worse than it could’ve been.

 

Fatigue is massively on him. We’ve had ample opportunities to rotate and failed to do so. Klopp played some kids in a cup final today… and won, with fresh legs, funnily enough.

 

 

Edited February 25, 2024 by Big Jow

[McDog]

Just now, Big Jow said:

 

The Wilson and Isak fiasco has been entirely on him. Both made out of hula hoops and he’s failed it manage that properly. See my comment earlier about playing Isak when he can’t even move.

 

You can make a real case for injuries that seem completely random being a cause of fatigue. Players stretching further, chasing the game and opposition more.

 

Also impossible to know if situations like Joelinton may have aggravated his injury coming back out for the second half at the mackems, for example.

 

Not saying we wouldn’t have absences, of course we would, but he’s made the situation worse than it could’ve been.

 

Fair point. I do wish he'd sub more often.

 

 

[Big Jow]

1 minute ago, McDog said:

 

Fair point. I do wish he'd sub more often.

 

 

 

I just can’t can’t get my head around when he waited until we were 4-0 up against Palace at home and 5-0 away at Sheff Utd prior to making subs*

 

Being obsessed with fatigue and knowing what our fixture list was going to look like, you’d have taken people off at HT in both those games.

 

Loads of examples of it… Chelsea he waited until it was 4-1, Fulham at home he waited until it was 3-0**

 

Across those games alone you could save the equivalent of 2 games in people’s legs.

 

*not counting Barnes coming off with an injury.
** again discounting injury subs

[Conjo]

8 minutes ago, Big Jow said:

 

I just can’t can’t get my head around when he waited until we were 4-0 up against Palace at home and 5-0 away at Sheff Utd prior to making subs*

 

Being obsessed with fatigue and knowing what our fixture list was going to look like, you’d have taken people off at HT in both those games.

 

Loads of examples of it… Chelsea he waited until it was 4-1, Fulham at home he waited until it was 3-0**

 

Across those games alone you could save the equivalent of 2 games in people’s legs.

 

*not counting Barnes coming off with an injury.
** again discounting injury subs

 

I genuinely think he changed his approach after the Liverpool game  1-0 up against 10 men and Howe makes a triple sub in the 72nd minute. ~10 minutes later Liverpool equalise and the rest is history.