Eddie Howe

[Displayname]

Dont think there should be serious talk about Howe losing his job now(dont really think there is either other than a couple of posters).

Cant deny im having concerns about his versatility and ability to handle rotations of both players and systems though. We were pretty lucky last year being able to put out more or less the same team throughout the season. And only one game per week made it possible to have that intensive playstyle we seem to be lacking these last couple of months.

 

But these are just concerns for now, I certainly want to give him time to prove me wrong. He has more than earned that.

 

[loki679]

15 minutes ago, Hanshithispantz said:

Because people are seriously talking about Howe losing his job, and some actively want it to happen. It's just a massive exaggeration how bad we've been.

 

In anycase Fulham aren't a lower league side. The Luton and Bournemouth draws weren't great but energetic teams obviously feel like they can step on us at the minute and are taking advantage.

 

 

 

 

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

[TheBrownBottle]

1 hour ago, mighty__mag said:

 

On present form we were undefeated in 5, the only two losses sandwiching were Man City the game before our recent undefeated run, and Arsenal currently stopping the run, Arsenal who sit currently top of the form chart, and were at home, and currently involved in a title race.

 

There's nothing to say we can't or won't put another run together, especially with players returning, I'm not putting my house on a top ten, but I'm confident we'll/Howe will achieve 10 or higher.

 

The fixtures appear to look kinder to us in this final quarter. ??

 

 

 

There’s 12 games left.  Our form in the previous 12 was 17th best in the PL.  That run included Bournemouth H&A, Forest H, Luton H&A, Fulham H - they weren’t exactly ‘unkind’ fixtures. 

[Andy]

1 hour ago, Mikky said:

I think in the summer Howe needs to be ruthless with this squad - it’s obvious where we need to strengthen - CB - LB - CM - RW - CF, the likes of Targett, Hall, Longstaff, Almiron and Wilson need disposing of - the quality and depth in quality needs increasing

 

Agree with this, at least as far as FFP allows us. There needs to be no sentiment this summer. There are a lot of players kicking around who have "done a job" but are either past their past (Wilson, Ritchie, Dummett), or are younger but were never really all that consistently good to begin with and have reverted to type (Longstaff, Targett, Almiron, Murphy, maybe even Lascelles I'd include here too).

 

Maybe keep one or two around as squad players, but we shouldn't be seeing these players starting games next season unless it is dire circumstances. 

[Matt1892]

I don’t think anyone in here doesn’t want Howe to turn around our current form, whilst also calling it out for what at best is a period of inconsistency, which follows a period of being consistently poor due to a mixture of schedule and injuries.

[FLUMPO235]

Stuff

 

 

Edited February 25 by FLUMPO235

[Mattoon]

13 minutes ago, loki679 said:

 

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

 

But also saying 8 games without a win (not that I'm saying you have) is also disingenuous without context. 

 

As I said a few pages ago, we look shot of confidence and belief, we went into the game last night expecting to lose, like lambs to the slaughter. 

 

I still think it's rashly unfair to judge Howe in the midst of an apocalypse and he should be judged when he has all his players back next season plus new recruits. Let's see what he's learned from this season and how he tackles next.

[Ronaldo]

3 hours ago, Kid Icarus said:

 

Such a reductive argument.

 

From my understanding of every argument you've made about our 'keeper, midfield, and striker situation, because the club hasn't accounted for each weakness, it's a failure on the clubs part and the elephant in the room - that those weaknesses are exposed because of an unprecendented injury crisis that's hit all departments collectively - is in the end, making excuses. Would that be fair?

 

The club should have either got a 2nd choice sweeper keeper, a DM, and replaced a 1 in 2 striker instead of...? Or got them on top of our spend in the summer. 

 

It's all hypothetical but who's to say that if we'd accounted for those weaknesses, the weaknesses we did account for wouldn't have been exposed instead.

 

 

 

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

[Shadow Puppets]

1 hour ago, loki679 said:

 

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

As disingenuous as lambasting our form without the context of missing goalkeepers and first choice midfielders?

[Kanji]

I’ll sound like a broken record but I’d love to know how teams fare when they are missing their #1 GK and missing half a squad of starting players. I’m sure it’s not kind. And I’m sure those fans don’t have stupid and unrealistic expectations of their teams. 

[Conjo]

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.

 

 

 

Amen. It's absolutely crazy to talk about Howe getting sacked. By all means critisize/discuss some of his decisions, but this is our guy.

 

The problem/difference for Howe is he did too well last season in a way  Arteta showed progression, while we have regressed this season (in terms of league position) which is optically worse. If Arteta got 4th in his first season, then 8th, I'm not sure he'd necessarily be at Arsenal today (and it would have been a mistake by Arsenal if they did let him go in that scenario).

[madras]

1 minute ago, Conjo said:

 

Amen. It's absolutely crazy to talk about Howe getting sacked. By all means critisize/discuss some of his decisions, but this is our guy.

 

The problem/difference for Howe is he did too well last season in a way  Arteta showed progression, while we have regressed this season (in terms of league position) which is optically worse. If Arteta got 4th in his first season, then 8th, I'm not sure he'd necessarily be at Arsenal today (and it would have been a mistake by Arsenal if they did let him go in that scenario).

Or a mistake to keep him if the person they brought in had won them the title ? Football sliding doors.

[gbandit]

16 minutes ago, Kanji said:

I’ll sound like a broken record but I’d love to know how teams fare when they are missing their #1 GK and missing half a squad of starting players. I’m sure it’s not kind. And I’m sure those fans don’t have stupid and unrealistic expectations of their teams. 

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

[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