Eddie Howe

[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?

[Ghandis Flip-Flop]

7 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 ?

You ever heard of mental fatigue? I swear clearly there are a lot of people on here who don’t have to do a lot of thinking at work, given the way they go on in here. 
 

Has Trippier dropped a few clangers because he's ran too far, or is it more likely that he's having occasional brain farts due to being mentally exhausted? Factor in a bit of loss of confidence on top and is it any wonder we've seen a drop off.
 

People love to bump there gums but basically since the Dortmund home game we've played the front 6 who have been fit every week. Only the last 2 games have we had genuine options off the bench. 
 

I get the idea of having multiple ways of playing, but given our recent schedule I'm not sure they’ve had the time to work on that. I imagine they’ve probably been worried about breaking the fit players they have at their disposal too tbh.

[Jonas]

Its a lot easier to replace the Longstaff's , Almiron's and Dubravaka's of the world than Eddie Howe.

I feel its obvious we'd be better off sticking with the manager than a wedge of the players who will be replaced in time anyway, probably already would be were it not for various new rules. Nobody at the club has claimed were the finished article and were still transitioning from a shit team to a mainstay at the top.

 

 

Edited December 26, 2023 by Jonas

[midds]

It's also very noticeable that there's a complete lack of buzz or energy about the place any more. The whole squad looks so deflated and they all look shattered both mentally and physically, which is a worry as we're only halfway through the season. Those tough fixtures every few days have well and truly caught up with the players and they're playing like they're fucked, the tough game have taken so much out of them that the easier games are also being lost and we're several layers down the downward spiral now. Out of Europe, out of the League Cup whilst simultaneously falling out of contention in the League in the last 4 or 5 weeks too with 3 ridiculously tough League fixtures on the horizon. 

 

Howe needs to find something from somewhere soon. I sincerely want him to fix this but I think the patience of the owners is only so long 

[Decky]

5 minutes ago, Deuce said:

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.

Howe wouldn’t get anywhere near a relegation battle. We’re not a relegation scrap club now, any sniff of that and he’d be gone. Honestly a lot of us would be happy to give him another shot next season if he finished 9th or something but PIF would be furious that after getting Champions League football last season we’ve missed out on Europe completely this season and might think differently. We don’t know how they’d react to that.

[Menace]

The amount the chap has aged in 2 years is nuts, football management is definitely one of the most stressful jobs in the world you can tell. He'll work it out.

[Deuce]

Just now, Decky said:

but PIF would be furious that after getting Champions League football last season we’ve missed out on Europe completely this season and might think differently

Possibly, but I don’t get that sense. Everything they’ve done with respect to the club has been methodical…surely they can see we’ve been dealt a tough hand this season. 

[Decky]

1 minute ago, Deuce said:

Possibly, but I don’t get that sense. Everything they’ve done with respect to the club has been methodical…surely they can see we’ve been dealt a tough hand this season. 

Everything we’ve done so far has been positive though, we haven’t seen them react to a failure to the magnitude of a bad league position. 

[Miggys First Goal]

The top 4 finish last season came too early in the grand scheme of things, and I think it has ruined the expectations of some of our fanbase (probably people who latched on from the takeover and weren’t around or deeply invested during the Ashley era when things WERE shite) who probably expect it going forward now. If we’d stuck to the 10 year plan that Staveley spoke about and built up gradually, I doubt we’d even be discussing sacking Eddie now. 

[Miggys First Goal]

But then again, I wonder if Yassir has had his judgement clouded as well. In the documentary he’s all “we want to be number 1” and we’re clearly not number 1, or anywhere near being number 1 right now, so who knows what their decision making is going to be. They themselves might be disappointed at anything less than fourth. 

[astraguy]

1 hour ago, WideopenMag said:

Can't wait till Eddie wins his first trophy here