Eddie Howe

[NE27]

Just now, Decky said:

Losing to Sunderland is an embarrassment and a disaster lads I’m sorry. It’s not just another game to the local fans and that is largely what football is about. Losing to them is worth losing 5 games in a row and the lads deserve the shite coming their way to lose to a side vastly inferior to them know the implications of it. 

 

It is, but I think it being the final nail in Eddie's coffin would make us one of the biggest laughing stocks in football.

 

Would make us Sunderland actually

[duo]

9 minutes ago, Kid Icarus said:

Incidentally Steve McManaman just said in his summary of our match that we look out on our feet. You hear it fairly regularly so it's not like we're just imagining it or being biased.

It annoys me when people say we can't use it as an excuse as it's a fact that the team are on their knees.  We've played pretty much the same team all season with Eddie having very little opportunity to change things up. Our whole success has been built on our press and intensity.  And in the second half that was just lacking - the team put it all out there in the first half. I thought it was telling that NF had a stronger bench than us and we able to add fresh legs.  

 

 

Edited December 26, 2023 by duo

[Dokko]

Just now, Decky said:

Losing to Sunderland is an embarrassment and a disaster lads I’m sorry. It’s not just another game to the local fans and that is largely what football is about. Losing to them is worth losing 5 games in a row and the lads deserve the shite coming their way to lose to a side vastly inferior to them know the implications of it. 

 

I think there's a lot of people on here not wanting to show how much this means, like. Protectionism. I'm usually a protectionist (safety bets etc..) but hoying my nads on the chopping block to say, that if we lose, it would be the worst result in my time supporting the club.

[Cf]

Losing to Sunderland would be shit yes.

 

But you don't fire your manager because of a single result. 

[Ronaldo]

5 minutes ago, Kid Icarus said:

A lot of those players are still here and have just been playing in the Champions League because of Howe tbf.

 

I loved Rafa and will always defend him, but in terms creating a team bigger than the sum of its parts, there's no comparison between him and what Howe's done.

 

In a way Howe's set a rod for his own back - now he's got us in the Champions League with a lot of Rafa era players, rather than thinking of it as a remarkable achievement, those players are reimagined as better players. So then when the bad results come it's less "these are Championship level players" and more "Howe should be doing better"

Rafa finishing 10th with the team that lost 10 times in the Championship was bloody impressive mind.

[Kid Icarus]

1 minute ago, Holmesy said:

I agree to an extent. He’s definitely improved individual players through coaching, but for me Rafa is the master at making a team better than the sum of its parts. 
Rafa never had the likes of Botman, Pope, Trippier, Bruno, Isak, Gordon, Wilson? Joelinton etc. They are a world apart from what Rafa was working with

 

It wouldn't be the same Joelinton and that's kind of the point. Howe is a huge factor in who these players are.

 

We don't have the same Joelinton, Schär, Almiron, Longstaff, Murphy and others. Howe got to the Champions League largely using those players. No comparison for me, what Howe did was remarkable, what Rafa did was commendable.  

[The Butcher]

Losing the next two and to Sunderland and I think quite a few would turn on him.

[dcmk]

2 minutes ago, Decky said:

Losing to Sunderland is an embarrassment and a disaster lads I’m sorry. It’s not just another game to the local fans and that is largely what football is about. Losing to them is worth losing 5 games in a row and the lads deserve the shite coming their way to lose to a side vastly inferior to them know the implications of it. 

I'm dreading it.

 

If we lose that then the bandwagon for changes would be in full swing.  All the feel-good factor around the club would have vanished in a space of a couple of months.

[Kid Icarus]

1 minute ago, Ronaldo said:

Rafa finishing 10th with the team that lost 10 times in the Championship was bloody impressive mind.

It was really impressive, definitely.

[madras]

Just now, Ronaldo said:

Rafa finishing 10th with the team that lost 10 times in the Championship was bloody impressive mind.

To be fair qlwe had a squad that shouldn't have gone down in the first place and should never have had a worry about getting promoted 

[Ronaldo]

Wasn’t the same squad. We made a huge profit that summer after going down.

[Geogaddi]

Anyone wanting Eddie out now or even if we lost to the mackems deserves to have Bruce and Ashley back .

[Decky]

2 minutes ago, dcmk said:

I'm dreading it.

 

If we lose that then the bandwagon for changes would be in full swing.  All the feel-good factor around the club would have vanished in a space of a couple of months.

I’ll be honest, my opinion on Howe won’t change for the long term but my opinion on our players will if they allow that to happen. If we lose it’s because they didn’t show up, and if they don’t then they don’t truly know the club tbh. Everyone of them has to know what that fixture means.

[OverThere]

Grind out a few games rather than the same shit or bust tactics. This feels like the same game over and over again no matter the opposition.

[Tonalis Bookie]

I said it a few times this season to friends that Howe has got it seriously wrong in some instances and incredibly spot on in others but the 'failures' are so large you can't simply ignore them.

 

Wolves was the prime example. We were clearly exhausted in the last 25 and he didn't make a change despite it being blatant. Eddie has also partially created his own mess, whether he likes it or not he has had spare players he could have called on, he chose not to. Whether they are up to first team standard is not the debate, they're in the squad.

 

Richie isn't brilliant but hes better than somebody who can't move. He flatly refused to play Livramento and Hall despite the desperate need. We could have switched to a back 5 or back 3 should he would have chosen and given players a rest. We could have brought players off much earlier when we had leads and trusted some of the kids e.g. striker when Isak is struggling in the 80th min and we had no Wilson. There has been no thought of adaptation to circumstances in that regard which is worrying.

 

Somebody summed it up earlier when they said it was much like his last month at Bournemouth.

 

Wolves was when I saw serious misjudgment but keeping an injured Gordon on for 10 minutes against Chelsea when he couldn't move, especially with our current issues was bordering on negligence. There is no reason in that game he couldn't have changed to a 5 and had fresher players at the back.

 

These issues aren't a few weeks old, they've been in place since October.

[gjohnson]

4 minutes ago, Cf said:

Losing to Sunderland would be shit yes.

 

But you don't fire your manager because of a single result. 

It's not a single result though....its now 5 losses in 6 games. Unacceptable for a team trying to survive in the league let alone challenging for the top 5/6

[Jonas]

19 minutes ago, Kid Icarus said:

Incidentally Steve McManaman just said in his summary of our match that we look out on our feet. You hear it fairly regularly so it's not like we're just imagining it or being biased.

Its almost tradition for it to be said at this time of the season for generations even without having had 12-14 injuries in 25man squad.

I've a match of the day from boxing day in 1995 where Leeds and Blackburn drew 0-0 and both managers lamented precisely that (both had European football prior but no squad size limitations and presumably not 12 injured players).  To rule it out even as a debate isn't reasoned.

 

 

Edited December 26, 2023 by Jonas

[Paullow]

13 minutes ago, Decky said:

I’m 100% for Howe being here next season no matter what happens but all this talk of top ten is ok is madness. We finished 4th last season, are people seriously saying 10th is ok after that? We’re not Mike Ashley’s club anymore lads, even Howe himself would say 10th or 9th was a bad season. Howe would want to forget that asap and move on but if we went and had a bad start next season off the back of 10th he’d be gone and that’s it.
 

That’s where the club is now, we’re not midtable anymore we’re a club that wants to be in Europe. Tenth would be a disaster and Howe has enough credit to be given another shot but he’d be on the ropes. Our owners aren’t putting this kinda money into the club to be midtable. 

I don't think anyone, or certainly few, would be happy with 9th or 10th, clearly not at the start of the season, but after months of adversity and general tough times, some would think OK, don't finish any lower than that, regroup in the summer, and hopefully not finish that low for the foreseeable.

 

The Premier League is very competitive now. You have your usual 6, us, Villa, and Brighton who would all hope to finish in and around the top 6, but one of those will finish 9th at absolute best, another will finish 8th at best, positions that would generally be considered mediocre to most of those teams, perhaps with the exception of BHA, but some will have to finish in those positions at best. Chelsea, with all their recent accomplishments and resources finished 12th last season, and probably won't be that much better this season, Spurs were 8th last season, Man Utd currently in 8th with a -5 GD, Arsenal had recent back to back 8th placed finishes - if things don't quite go to plan, and you face some unfortunate and unforeseeable circumstances, then it's very easy to quickly occupy an unwanted league position.

 

We're only 2 years into the takeover, there's still a lot of squad filling dross in the squad that need upgrading, and it's easy for those (not dross) players who have been playing above their usual level to drop back off if the better players are out of form, or are massively fatigued. The likes of Almiron, Longstaff, Lascelles, Burn etc. will have only finished in the top 10 of the PL once in their entire career. 

 

Still time to turn this season around and finish in and around 6th, but at the same time, we could easily be in the bottom half come February given our next 3 games, and if so, even the easier looking fixtures after that suddenly look much tougher.

[500bhp]

8 minutes ago, Kid Icarus said:

Incidentally Steve McManaman just said in his summary of our match that we look out on our feet. You hear it fairly regularly so it's not like we're just imagining it or being biased.

In which case he is talking bollocks?. We were not beaten today due to fatigue, we looked very fit all game. Burn was skinned all game from minute 2 and Almiron and others were crap. Every single team in the PL are well familiar with our 433 formation from last year. They have loads of employee (including AI?) who analyse our style of play and work out how to play against us. The Trippier, Longstaff, Almiron triangle does not work now, that was for last season.

 

Howe needs to find a Plan B and use that when appropriate. He's a very clever guy and will work it out. Just hope he gets the time to do that ?

[Jagten]

Decisions with respect to personnel to maximise the probability of ultimately winning the Champions League vs being a functional Premier League team are very different and possess entirely different risk profiles, especially in the context of KSA funding. Margins are smaller, downside tail risk is less. If we went too early on Howe, would it even matter?  

[The Butcher]

Anything from 8th and down I don't think he'd survive. Unless we win the FA Cup of course

 

[buzza]

Surely he must see that Miggy is offering nothing at the moment and anyone, even Gordon on the right and Isak on the left, would be better than what we are seeing from him.

Same for the LB situation, the way Tino has played there is no way he should be replaced by Burn unless it is for resting him (a 21 yr old...hmm)

[Deuce]

There are enough mitigating circumstances that I can’t imagine PIF would entertain sacking Howe this season. We’d have to be at risk of relegation, which isn’t going to happen…despite the results, we’re not a bottom half team.

[Lush Vlad]

9 minutes ago, 500bhp said:

In which case he is talking bollocks?. We were not beaten today due to fatigue, we looked very fit all game. Burn was skinned all game from minute 2 and Almiron and others were crap. Every single team in the PL are well familiar with our 433 formation from last year. They have loads of employee (including AI?) who analyse our style of play and work out how to play against us. The Trippier, Longstaff, Almiron triangle does not work now, that was for last season.

 

Howe needs to find a Plan B and use that when appropriate. He's a very clever guy and will work it out. Just hope he gets the time to do that ?

Agree with a lot of that and we were shit for a lot of reasons today. But we didn’t look fit all game. 
 

The midfield looked like they had Timberlands on when chasing back (often do, not the quickest). Burn had a caravan attached to him, Botman looked sluggish and the widemen looked slow and predictable all game. 
 

It can’t be used as the sole reason. But the lack of rotation and players with knocks are massively impacting on how we play. 

[OpenC]

I'm not convinced actual PIF will be that hands on interested in Eddie Howe in all honesty. Has that lad been back since he was on the cosy documentary?