Eddie Howe - Granted Freedom of Newcastle

[BGRM]

8 minutes ago, reefatoon said:

I’ll be seriously questioning him if he hasn’t identified any midfielders before the end of the window. If he can’t see that glaring weakness in our team then that’s a worry. Hopefully he has that rectified by the end of the month.

This is where i stand as well. Yesterday highlighted the weak areas so much, if this isn’t resolved in the next couple of weeks and the results stay the same (obviously resulting in relegation) then we need think about looking elsewhere, its too early to do that now I reckon. Getting out of the championship with the majority of the squad we have wouldn’t be a forgone conclusion either, we need to bin most of them tbh. I really like EH as a bloke and hope he can turn our form around, just becoming more pessimistic with each match. 

[Zarathustra]

Indeed, and it didn’t inspire confidence when Howe went out of his way in the pre-Watford press conference to say that Sean Longstaff had “a long term future at the club”. Granted, for various reasons he can’t go ahead and say “tbh, I intend to piss him off at a hundred miles an hour”, but surely he could have left the door for him to leave at least slightly ajar, because for a long time now Longstaff hasn’t looked fit for purpose (even if his surprisingly good performance against Man U was encouraging). 

[The College Dropout]

I think a Gerrard would’ve helped with a new manager boost at the least.  
 

in our situation there’s always the chance players mentally log out because they know they won’t be part of the long-term project.  A Gerrard appointment, certainly for the English players would energise them.  
 

 

IMO Bruce would have won more points if not for the toxic crowd.  

[RUHRLYASLEEVESUP]

11 minutes ago, The College Dropout said:

I think a Gerrard would’ve helped with a new manager boost at the least.  
 

in our situation there’s always the chance players mentally log out because they know they won’t be part of the long-term project.  A Gerrard appointment, certainly for the English players would energise them.  
 

 

IMO Bruce would have won more points if not for the toxic crowd.  

Oh ffs 

[GWN]

13 minutes ago, The College Dropout said:

I think a Gerrard would’ve helped with a new manager boost at the least.  
 

in our situation there’s always the chance players mentally log out because they know they won’t be part of the long-term project.  A Gerrard appointment, certainly for the English players would energise them.  
 

 

IMO Bruce would have won more points if not for the toxic crowd.  

 

 

No 

[Ben]

I would honestly rather have no manager than bruce

[greydos]

Where I question Howe is in his judgment of the merits of players relative to one another. Our squad is terrible but a manager has to make the most of the assets he’s got available. From day 1 he should have prioritised playing Fernandez and Schär as our best centre backs/defenders. Quite how he didn’t know Fede defends better than Clarke and Lascelles is beyond me.

 

He should have had the balls to choose a new captain (Wilson probably, or Fede) so he wasn’t hamstrung by playing Lascelles. Perhaps that would have given everyone a hunger to work harder knowing it’s a truly new regime with a clean slate. 
 

He should have got Ritchie out of left back for Lewis. At least with Lewis his natural instincts would be correct at full back. Howe should also have prioritised ability to cover ground and play short passes competently in CM. Options aren’t great but at the least don’t get overrun by putting Hayden, Willock, and one other with legs in there (we now know it’s Joe). 
 

Overall, he’s been too friendly. He talks about not wanting to hurt the squad’s egos far too much. Being a soft patsy-manager doesn’t work with these players, it’s what Bruce did. Just with high intensity interval football training. The players clearly need to know new high standards are being set. Don’t ask players to play your new system Eddie, tell them To play it!

[GWN]

Maybe he's just TOO nice?

[Armchair Pundit]

Howe has been a vast improvement on Bruce, I think the issue has been more with the players not having been properly coached for so long, not being fit enough, not having had decent fresh recruits amongst them since we came up from the Championship and a general acceptance of our predicament. That said, I can't help feeling Howe's methods probably only work sufficiently if he has decent defenders who don't need as much direction as our current crop.

[Guest neesy111]

Just now, GWN said:

Maybe he's just TOO nice?

 

I do think once he has his signings he needs to read the riot act to 1/2 the squad.

[GWN]

2 minutes ago, neesy111 said:

 

I do think once he has his signings he needs to read the riot act to 1/2 the squad.

 

By which time our fan base will want him out you watch . 

 

 

Edited January 16, 2022 by GWN

[mighty__mag]

3 minutes ago, greydos said:

Where I question Howe is in his judgment of the merits of players relative to one another. Our squad is terrible but a manager has to make the most of the assets he’s got available. From day 1 he should have prioritised playing Fernandez and Schär as our best centre backs/defenders. Quite how he didn’t know Fede defends better than Clarke and Lascelles is beyond me.

 

He should have had the balls to choose a new captain (Wilson probably, or Fede) so he wasn’t hamstrung by playing Lascelles. Perhaps that would have given everyone a hunger to work harder knowing it’s a truly new regime with a clean slate. 
 

He should have got Ritchie out of left back for Lewis. At least with Lewis his natural instincts would be correct at full back. Howe should also have prioritised ability to cover ground and play short passes competently in CM. Options aren’t great but at the least don’t get overrun by putting Hayden, Willock, and one other with legs in there (we now know it’s Joe). 
 

Overall, he’s been too friendly. He talks about not wanting to hurt the squad’s egos far too much. Being a soft patsy-manager doesn’t work with these players, it’s what Bruce did. Just with high intensity interval football training. The players clearly need to know new high standards are being set. Don’t ask players to play your new system Eddie, tell them To play it!

 

I agree on the captaincy thing perhaps now, but that could have looked really cunty, ex Bournemouth boss comes in and makes his ex player captain?

 

Would have just annoyed too many.

 

On Fernandes, I can only put it down to a trigger on games, maybe the club have a contract agreement that will be triggered? I don't know its weird one, because as you rightly point out, he's miles better than what we have playing every week. 

[KingArthur]

Fernandes is veeeery slow also, its not like he is Maldini. Our centrebacks are awful.

[Dr Venkman]

1 hour ago, NE27 said:

 

Would you trust staveley and mehrdad again to make the managerial choice?

 

I know PIF were supposedly in agreement on Howe, but do you think they sort of just allowed AS to push on in her management of the club?

 

I think we need the right man in place as DOF before we make anymore big decisions. We need a clear vision for how they want this club to be and allow this person to make the moves.

I don’t know the answer to any of these questions but all I’d say is I would prioritise staying up this year over everything else and make decisions based on that.

[Lazarus]

If we can bring in DM and CB (or 2) we will stay up. I think there will 3 worse teams than us.

 

Just because weve got new owners doesnt mean we arnt the same shit club. Ashleys ownership will be felt for years yet - the club was literally rotting from top to bottom and as we all know,  under Bruce there was a steady decline in the players and we knew that his luck would run out and we would go down, probably this season.

 

Under Howe, yes weve dropped points in games we should won but weve made individual errors, weve had injuries, weve had poor starting line ups and poor options on the bench. Its all very well saying that Lascelles, Ritchie and Shelvey are crap and shouldnt be playing but who exactly is he supposed to play instead?

 

If Howe really is the student of the game we are led to believe, he will come good.

 

 

 

 

[Guest reefatoon]

27 minutes ago, KingArthur said:

Fernandes is veeeery slow also, its not like he is Maldini. Our centrebacks are awful.

He gets around that by being able to read the game better. 

[Guest HTT II]

My main worry right now is I only see very small and marginal improvements, fitness being the main one which you’d expect as a given anyway. It’s currently not good enough and whatever they are doing in training isn’t quite working and although we are hamstrung in terms of personnel, we are not playing to the strengths of the current players we do have whatever they are right now and a good coach, like Rafa, would work on that and eventually get an upturn in form and with it results as he did. I support Howe 100%, but if we are to go down, don’t give the likes of Lascelles and fucking Shelvey their opportunity to hammer that nail into the coffin. Get them out of the team ASAP and go to the owners and demand they spend what is needed on better players. They don’t have to be a Botman, look at Watford, they spent a few million on some random CM who ran the show against us. That player in ahead of Shelvey would have been a massive improvement on the waste of space that he is. 

 

 

Edited January 16, 2022 by HTT II

[Ben]

We have a very limited squad that Howe needs to work with, he needs them all on board just now to get the best out of them, it would be crackers to upset them just now.

[Ste]

When he first came in and the training clips were released, I was encouraged by the focus on pass and move. We aren't carrying any kind of threat, our midfield is either stationery (Joelinton aside) or disjointed, there's no communication between players. We aren't covering space, we aren't offering anything different with our attack, it's like everyone goes into position to receive the ball and we never stray from it. I'm not expecting our front three to turn into Messi, Neymar and Suarez, but at least see what isn't working and change it. 

 

Cathcart looked shakey, why wasn't our focus changed to work ASM into positions to run at him, or have Wood drop deep and a midfielder run beyond him. Make their defenders think instead of our attack being like a real world example of Subbuteo?

[xLiaaamx]

His reaction post Cambridge annoyed me so much. Its just a farce to try defend that as good enough but he did because he's desperate to be nice with them. He's not ruthless enough to make the changes the squad need either. 

[xLiaaamx]

3 minutes ago, Ben said:

We have a very limited squad that Howe needs to work with, he needs them all on board just now to get the best out of them, it would be crackers to upset them just now.

Babying them hasn't worked. They've had it easy and nice far too long. 

[Ben]

Just now, xLiaaamx said:

Babying them hasn't worked. They've had it easy and nice far too long. 

I don't think that's true, Trippiers comments this week about the good lads in the squad seems to be true, there are never any stories about players kicking off or being arseholes and getting pissed up, the problem is lack of talent and a championship ability in the premier league.

[toon25]

There are definitely not three worse squads than us, like. We're the only team in the league without any discernable style of play.

 

Most of the players still don't look as they have a fucking clue what they're supposed to be doing on the pitch over the course of 90 minutes

[Bimpy474]

I think i said this before, we have a very very poor squad, in fact we're a terrible team. I think most of us know it, and we need better players obviously. Of the two we've bought so far, I'd say we've upgraded at right back. Striker wise, we've added a body which we needed, rather than the quality we ultimately wanted imo.

 

 

Edited January 16, 2022 by Bimpy474

[Ste]

These players are comfortable behind their barrier of people writing them off. It's unacceptable to be in this position, good coaching and mentality see us out of it. If Shelvey is dropping that deep out of instruction, then they're getting it horribly wrong. If he's doing it and it's not what they want, then they should be drilling it into him to get forward and offer support, or you drop him. This goes for ASM, Fraser, Wood, Lascelles, Schar, you tell them exactly what you expect regardless if it's what they want to do or not, it gets drilled into them.

 

It's like we're trying to keep everybody happy in their own little comfort zones of being beyond criticism because everybody think they're shit anyway. Majority of this squad feel sorry for themselves and Ashley will get the blame and he should in some respects, but this squad shouldn't be in the bottom three.