Eddie Howe

[Holloway]

Tonali had to go, his passing deflated

[SUPERTOON]

2 minutes ago, WinstonFC said:

Why would Tonali be struggling fitness wise

Getting used to the intensity of the league ? 

[Barnes23]

10 minutes ago, Big Geordie said:

There will be crackerjacks among our lot who expect us to go and challenge for the PL, this season - that's really unlikely to happen. It's more about targeting a top 8 finish and having a right fucking go at the cups and the CL, IMO.  Nothing to lose on the latter.

 

Nobody at the club will be targeting a top 8 finish, and rightly so. 

[Tsunami]

Just now, El Prontonise said:

 

It helps TAA when they go down to 10 men as if changes his role completely.  Instead of being an attacking RB he's there's simply to defend.

There were 2 occasions in the 1st half where he couldn’t challenge Gordon in case he mistimed a tackle and Gordon simply ran past him. It didn’t happen again as we started playing the ball in front of the Liverpool defenders and perhaps unintentionally we stepped off the pace.

 

Eddie won’t sleep tonight and rightly so.

[WinstonFC]

3 minutes ago, SUPERTOON said:

Getting used to the intensity of the league ? 

Liverpool were down to 10 men. They had very little intensity in the first half and zero in the second half before Tonali went off

[TheBrownBottle]

2 minutes ago, Barnes23 said:

 

Nobody at the club will be targeting a top 8 finish, and rightly so. 

They should be - it’s about right.  Top 8 minimum, then as high as possible above that. 

[Alberto2005]

Why would we aim to finish 4 places lower ?

 

Yeah expectations need to be managed, but what sort of message does this send out if we're aiming to do worse than the previous season.

[George Bailey]

2 minutes ago, TheBrownBottle said:

They should be - it’s about right.  Top 8 minimum, then as high as possible above that. 

I would have thought top 8 would be exactly what our 'target' would be?

Last season was obviously way ahead (maybe, and don't shoot me, maybe way too soon ahead) of what our trajectory would have been targeted as.

But I would think given the decent investment, then a top 8 finish would be seen as about par? 6/7 very good, anything above delirious again.

We must be aiming to be better than most sides in the league surely (Take out Man City, LiVARpool, Manure, Arsenal, Spurs and Chelsea) then up there with Villa as best of rest, with pans for more investment in January and next summer?

[et tu brute]

4 minutes ago, Alberto2005 said:

Why would we aim to finish 4 places lower ?

 

Yeah expectations need to be managed, but what sort of message does this send out if we're aiming to do worse than the previous season.

I tell you one group of people who certainly won't be targeting 8th and that's the Saudis. Absolutely crazy people saying we should be aiming for 8th 

[TheBrownBottle]

7 minutes ago, Alberto2005 said:

Why would we aim to finish 4 places lower ?

 

Yeah expectations need to be managed, but what sort of message does this send out if we're aiming to do worse than the previous season.

Expectations aren’t being managed if you’re aiming to finish higher.

 

This is likely to be a much tougher season than last year.  Some players are likely to ‘return to the mean’, other clubs will be used to our players and style of play, there’s more games (tough ones), other clubs now view us as a big game, etc etc. 

[Barnes23]

9 minutes ago, TheBrownBottle said:

They should be - it’s about right.  Top 8 minimum, then as high as possible above that. 

 

It's a losing mentality, progression and momentum is the name of the game in elite sports. There may well be circumstances where a lower finish is acceptable but it certainly shouldn't be the target. 

 

"Once we're in the CL, the point is to stay there" - anonymised quote from one of our higher-ups from an Athletic article this summer 

[Viana]

20 minutes ago, Jagten said:

Mostly OTT takes in a game where we weren’t great but were still unlucky not to win. That said, we have doubled down on Eddie – hired his family and gone to the limit FFP in pursuit of his style. I hope it does not become relevant to ask whether we could have hedged our advantageous position better.   

Hmm, it's an interesting discussion to have, I just don't know if I can see the other side of the argument. 

 

They tried for a more 'pedigreed' option in Unai Emery and were rejected. I don't remember who else was available at that time, but you'd have to consider the first 18 months of Howe's tenure an success. 

 

In terms of transfers, it would appear from the limited exposure on All or Nothing, that deals require full alignment from the recruitment team, and I can't think of any that have been total failures (Wood is probably the worst, but was a desperate, temporary, solution). 

 

That leads us into the topic of his style. He wanted us to bridge the gap as quickly as possible and has clearly (if somewhat ironically) seen a blueprint in what Liverpool did under Klopp. No system is infallible, and Howe's next obstacle showed itself today - how do we break through teams that sit deep. We'll need to figure that out and we'll need to do it promptly. 

[TheBrownBottle]

2 minutes ago, et tu brute said:

I tell you one group of people who certainly won't be targeting 8th and that's the Saudis. Absolutely crazy people saying we should be aiming for 8th 

No one is saying ‘aim for 8th’.  8th at a minimum.  Anything less than that is a bad season. 

[KingArthur]

Thing is, players like Barnes do not help us unlock deep defences. I see no point bringing him on in this game. Liverpool were comfortable with him having the ball and our creativity was gone.

[TheBrownBottle]

1 minute ago, Barnes23 said:

 

It's a losing mentality, progression and momentum is the name of the game in elite sports. There may well be circumstances where a lower finish is acceptable but it certainly shouldn't be the target. 

 

"Once we're in the CL, the point is to stay there" - anonymised quote from one of our higher-ups from an Athletic article this summer 

Probably need more commercial deals to secure that - FFP effectively capped our spend at around £100m.  They can talk it up as much as they want - money is what really talks in football 

[The Butcher]

Don't think Howe is here next season if we finish 8th. That's if we don't win a cup.

[TheBrownBottle]

1 minute ago, The Butcher said:

Don't think Howe is here next season if we finish 8th. That's if we don't win a cup.

That’s not our call - but I think it would be a poor one by the owners if it occurs. 

[et tu brute]

1 minute ago, TheBrownBottle said:

No one is saying ‘aim for 8th’.  8th at a minimum.  Anything less than that is a bad season. 

I disagree with that, 8th as a minimum for where we are now shouldn't be accepted. As I said I'm quite certain the Saudis won't accept it either 

[Big Geordie]

As someone said earlier, we just don't have the nouse (yet!) to go toe-to-toe with the 'Top 4/5' as yet. We've come so far inside 2 years - remember where we were.

[Jagten]

5 minutes ago, Viana said:

Hmm, it's an interesting discussion to have, I just don't know if I can see the other side of the argument. 

 

They tried for a more 'pedigreed' option in Unai Emery and were rejected. I don't remember who else was available at that time, but you'd have to consider the first 18 months of Howe's tenure an success. 

 

In terms of transfers, it would appear from the limited exposure on All or Nothing, that deals require full alignment from the recruitment team, and I can't think of any that have been total failures (Wood is probably the worst, but was a desperate, temporary, solution). 

 

That leads us into the topic of his style. He wanted us to bridge the gap as quickly as possible and has clearly (if somewhat ironically) seen a blueprint in what Liverpool did under Klopp. No system is infallible, and Howe's next obstacle showed itself today - how do we break through teams that sit deep. We'll need to figure that out and we'll need to do it promptly. 

Howe has been fantastic. I am not suggesting we should have appointed anyone else. Results thus far could not have been any better. 

 

My point is we should be making lots of asymmetrical - ideally uncorrelated - bets. Whilst I am not privy to our internal decision making it feels like Eddie's influence has grown, and our largest bet has increasingly become him. Tonali and Barnes, the two most likely starters, feel like accessories to his style above anything else. Taking such a concentrated position is generally how you blow up. 

[TheBrownBottle]

Just now, et tu brute said:

I disagree with that, 8th as a minimum for where we are now shouldn't be accepted. As I said I'm quite certain the Saudis won't accept it either 

They can not accept it if they want - our turnover will be roughly on par with West Ham for last season.  If our ability to spend was on the same footing as the Sky Six, then they’d have a point.  Until it is, expectations should be in line with wage bills. 

[The Butcher]

Just now, Big Geordie said:

As someone said earlier, we just don't have the nouse (yet!) to go toe-to-toe with the 'Top 4/5' as yet. We've come so far inside 2 years - remember where we were.

Eh? We got a draw vs City last year. Beat ManUtd, Spurs and Chelsea. A point at the Emirates. Absolutely no reason why we shouldn't do the same this year.

[GlenMag]

Yep, a squad that was built to consolidate top half last season massively overachieved and got 4th, now a squad that should have pushing for Europe this year have CL and heightened expectations (and all the bed wetting that comes with them) to deal with. The Saudis know that fine well too, it was their fucking plan

[TheInfiniteOdyssey]

4 minutes ago, Big Geordie said:

As someone said earlier, we just don't have the nouse (yet!) to go toe-to-toe with the 'Top 4/5' as yet. We've come so far inside 2 years - remember where we were.

I don’t think that applies to the match context of playing against 10 men for 70 minutes. I think supporters of clubs like West Ham, Villa, even Brentford and others, would also be bitterly disappointed to lose a game in these circumstances. It’s a really bad defeat to take.

[Vinny Green Balls]

Howe is still only 45 and seems very willing to learn from his mistakes. 
 

He’s a very young manager who has already established a very impressive career from the ground up, and who has shown single minded determination to make himself better. This really sucks, but I have confidence that Eddie will use this well. 

 

 

Edited August 27, 2023 by Vinny Green Balls