Eddie Howe

[TheBrownBottle]

1 minute ago, Upthemags said:

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

Being ‘unbeaten’ is often meaningless.  If we’d won one and lost one instead of drawing two we wouldn’t be unbeaten - but we’d have more points

[The Prophet]

There's also another very good reason why we were outplayed away at Milan, PSG and Arsenal.

[toon25]

19 minutes ago, TheBrownBottle said:

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. 

Aye, agree with all of this 

[TheBrownBottle]

5 minutes ago, The Prophet said:

There's also another very good reason why we were outplayed away at Milan, PSG and Arsenal.

I’ve heard that they’re quite good sides.  Though I do think we have been far too conservative away from home this season. 

[Big Jow]

11 minutes ago, The Prophet said:

There's also another very good reason why we were outplayed away at Milan, PSG and Arsenal.

 

That’s that then. Every time we play a team with a higher squad value or perceived quality, we should retreat onto our goal line and concede the game from the first whistle.

 

Brest went to PSG and completely outplayed them in the second half, getting a draw from 2-0 down. Bologna at Milan too.

 

We had less shots at Arsenal in the whole game than West Ham did in the first half, when they, also won. Burnley put up a bigger fight than we did.

 

You can get results at these teams, granted you will ultimately need a bit of luck on your side and to have your team playing at 100%, but you’ll get neither of those setting up like we have.

[The Prophet]

36 minutes ago, Big Jow said:

 

That’s that then. Every time we play a team with a higher squad value or perceived quality, we should retreat onto our goal line and concede the game from the first whistle.

 

Brest went to PSG and completely outplayed them in the second half, getting a draw from 2-0 down. Bologna at Milan too.

 

We had less shots at Arsenal in the whole game than West Ham did in the first half, when they, also won. Burnley put up a bigger fight than we did.

 

You can get results at these teams, granted you will ultimately need a bit of luck on your side and to have your team playing at 100%, but you’ll get neither of those setting up like we have.

 

There's multiple reasons why we've been outplayed across those three games. Injuries, tactical decisions, quality of opposition and v PSG fatigue, along with game state have all played a role.

[Big Jow]

Just now, The Prophet said:

 

There's multiple reasons why we've been outplayed across those three games. Injuries, tactical decisions, quality of opposition and v PSG fatigue, along with game state have all played a role.

 

4 of those 5 reasons (injuries, tactical, game state, fatigue) are Howe’s responsibility.

[McDog]

Just now, Big Jow said:

 

4 of those 5 reasons (injuries, tactical, game state, fatigue) are Howe’s responsibility.

 

 

Yes and no. Injuries are not Eddie's responsibility outside of maybe Murphy in my opinion. Fatigue comes down to earlier fixture congestion, injuries and shite options. 

[Orphanage]

 

[Big Jow]

6 minutes ago, McDog said:

 

 

Yes and no. Injuries are not Eddie's responsibility outside of maybe Murphy in my opinion. Fatigue comes down to earlier fixture congestion, injuries and shite options. 

 

The Wilson and Isak fiasco has been entirely on him. Both made out of hula hoops and he’s failed it manage that properly. See my comment earlier about playing Isak when he can’t even move.

 

You can make a real case for injuries that seem completely random being a cause of fatigue. Players stretching further, chasing the game and opposition more.

 

Also impossible to know if situations like Joelinton may have aggravated his injury coming back out for the second half at the mackems, for example.

 

Not saying we wouldn’t have absences, of course we would, but he’s made the situation worse than it could’ve been.

 

Fatigue is massively on him. We’ve had ample opportunities to rotate and failed to do so. Klopp played some kids in a cup final today… and won, with fresh legs, funnily enough.

 

 

Edited February 25 by Big Jow

[McDog]

Just now, Big Jow said:

 

The Wilson and Isak fiasco has been entirely on him. Both made out of hula hoops and he’s failed it manage that properly. See my comment earlier about playing Isak when he can’t even move.

 

You can make a real case for injuries that seem completely random being a cause of fatigue. Players stretching further, chasing the game and opposition more.

 

Also impossible to know if situations like Joelinton may have aggravated his injury coming back out for the second half at the mackems, for example.

 

Not saying we wouldn’t have absences, of course we would, but he’s made the situation worse than it could’ve been.

 

Fair point. I do wish he'd sub more often.

 

 

[Big Jow]

1 minute ago, McDog said:

 

Fair point. I do wish he'd sub more often.

 

 

 

I just can’t can’t get my head around when he waited until we were 4-0 up against Palace at home and 5-0 away at Sheff Utd prior to making subs*

 

Being obsessed with fatigue and knowing what our fixture list was going to look like, you’d have taken people off at HT in both those games.

 

Loads of examples of it… Chelsea he waited until it was 4-1, Fulham at home he waited until it was 3-0**

 

Across those games alone you could save the equivalent of 2 games in people’s legs.

 

*not counting Barnes coming off with an injury.
** again discounting injury subs

[Conjo]

8 minutes ago, Big Jow said:

 

I just can’t can’t get my head around when he waited until we were 4-0 up against Palace at home and 5-0 away at Sheff Utd prior to making subs*

 

Being obsessed with fatigue and knowing what our fixture list was going to look like, you’d have taken people off at HT in both those games.

 

Loads of examples of it… Chelsea he waited until it was 4-1, Fulham at home he waited until it was 3-0**

 

Across those games alone you could save the equivalent of 2 games in people’s legs.

 

*not counting Barnes coming off with an injury.
** again discounting injury subs

 

I genuinely think he changed his approach after the Liverpool game  1-0 up against 10 men and Howe makes a triple sub in the 72nd minute. ~10 minutes later Liverpool equalise and the rest is history.

 

[Hanshithispantz]

2 hours ago, Big Jow said:

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.

Sorry like but this is obviously silly.

 

2 hours ago, Big Jow said:

 

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.

We took the game to Milan, they just defended really well (Tomori was briliant) and slaughtered us on the break. Not sure how you watched it and thought he'd set us up for a draw?

 

2 hours ago, Big Jow said:

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.

Most of these games were during our worst period for injuries and fixture congestion. 

 

2 hours ago, Big Jow said:

 

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.

I'd be amazed if he was setting us up much different outside of tactical tweaks to suite the opposition. We played well against Villa and they were shite. If we were bad and lost you would have lumped them in with the other games and blamed the way we set up.

 

2 hours ago, Big Jow said:

 

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.

Again, what approach? We clearly tried to control the game at the San Siro. 

 

2 hours ago, Big Jow said:

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? 

How are we meant to play with intensity with a threadbare squad?

 

Howe wants push up the pitch and set pressing traps, shuttle the opposition out to the wings and clear away speculative balls and crosses. This is obvious by watching us play with a near fully fit squad.

 

The fact we've mainly dropped the 'intensity is our identity' style of play should be a good indicator that we just cannot apply the effort.

 

Why would you assume this is some random tactical diversion, rather than something forced onto him by our situation?

 

2 hours ago, Big Jow said:

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.

See last comment.

 

2 hours ago, Big Jow said:

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.

After the WC teams seemed to suss us a bit, but he sorted it out. The season tailed off last few games, but I wouldn't say we struggled?

 

2 hours ago, Big Jow said:

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.

Too much to really get into here. He'll likely change a lot of things in hindsight, but a lot of the things people say he should do will never address our actual issue, which is our inability to be physical enough to control games like we used to.

 

Teams like Luton and Bournemouth just looked far fitter than us. More athletic and quicker to 2nd balls. 

 

2 hours ago, Big Jow said:

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. 

Who exactly do we bring on from that bench, who is going to be capable of single handedly besting PSG's back line?

 

Riviere at least has the physicality to win an aerial challenge, and if he was still here he no doubt would have came on 

 

But just throwing on random National League level 18 year olds is unlikely to do anything. With Isak, even when fucked, there's always the chance he can make something happen.

 

2 hours ago, Big Jow said:

 

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.

This applies to any manager. 90% of the time you know how they'll set up.

 

Our issue is that even the likes of Everton, Luton and Bournemouth know that they're fitter than us, and can bully us off the ball.

 

2 hours ago, Big Jow said:

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.

Why would we finish 8-12 every year? He had us consistent top 4 for over a year and a half, before an insane injury crisis.

 

2 hours ago, Big Jow said:

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.

Replacing him in the summer would be absolute insanity.

 

 

Edited February 26 by Hanshithispantz

[mighty__mag]

2 hours ago, Upthemags said:

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

 

Some of you just don't get it do you. We had some form/momentum building under really difficult circumstances. 

 

I'm forgetting though, we're now up against the new fans, the ones who've been around in the last three seasons probably, they know everything, from now, to reading Wikipedia 

 

Or is it the new wum (Mackem) sign ups?

 

 

Edited February 26 by mighty__mag

[mighty__mag]

2 minutes ago, Hanshithispantz said:

Sorry like but this is obviously silly.

 

We took the game to Milan, they just defended really well (Tomori was briliant) and slaughtered us on the break. Not sure how you watched it and thought he'd set us up for a draw?

 

Most of these games were during our worst period for injuries and fixture congestion. 

I'd be amazed if he was setting us up much different outside of tactical tweaks to suite the opposition. We played well against Villa and they were shite. If we were bad and lost you would have lumped them in with the other games and blamed the way we set up.

 

Again, what approach? We clearlly tried to control the game at the San Siro. 

 

How are we meant to play with intensity with a threadbare squad?

 

Howe wants push up the pitch and set pressing traps, shuttle the opposition out to the wings and clear away speculative balls and crosses. This is obvious by watching us play with a near fully fit squad.

 

The fact we've mainly dropped the 'intensity is our iidentity' style of play should be a good indicator that we just cannot apply the effort.

 

Why would you assume this is some random tactical diversion, rather than something forced onto him by our situation?

 

See last comment.

 

After the WC teams seemed to suss us a bit, but he sorted it out. The season tailed off past few games, but I wouldn't say we struggled?

 

Too much to really get into here. He'll likely change a lot of things in hindsight, but a lot of the things people say he should do will never adress our actual issue, which is our inability to be physical enough to control games like we used to.

 

Teams like Luton and Bournemouth just looked far fitter than us. More athletic and quicker to 2nd balls. 

 

Who exactly do we bring on from that bench, who is going to be capable of single handedly besting PSG's back line?

 

Riviere atleast has the physicality to win an aerial challenge, and if he was still here he no doubt would have came on 

 

But just throwing on random National League level 18 year olds is unlikely to do anything. With Isak, even when fucked, there's always the chance he can make something happen.

 

This applies to any manager. 90% of the time you know how they'll set up.

 

Our issue is that even the likes of Everton, Luton and Bournemouth know that they're fitter than us, and can bully us off the ball.

 

Why would we finish 8-12 every year? He had us consistent top 4 for over a year and a half, before an insane injury crisis.

 

Replacing him in the summer would be absolute insanity.

 

@Hanshithispantz You deserve a medal for taking the time to respond to that shite. Well done 

 

 

[Hanshithispantz]

I posted it before but cannot find it, basically we had 2 very strong starting XIs with the idea of rotating with the congested fixture list, that completely went out the window within a couple of months.

 

Everything after has basically just been staying afloat.

 

EDIT:

It hasn't gotten much better.

 

 

Edited February 26 by Hanshithispantz

[Bimpy474]

And throw an injury list that prevents those out of the team pushing those in it. Players levels will definitely drop, sub consciously imo if they know they will start week after week with no competition for the starting spot.

[et tu brute]

As I said earlier, massive game on Tuesday and a more favourable run of games until the end of the season. I personally think we will improve going forward this season. However, if this is not the case then the pressure will really start to ramp up. Failure to get a European spot, will hinder the value of commercial revenue and sponsorship deals. PIF will make the final decision and I honestly believe that a lot will depend on the form and results for the remainder of the season.
 

A big 3 months coming up, as things have to improve as there are errors being made in tactics. The press has totally disappeared and the midfield is being bypassed so easily every game, that it's virtually guaranteed we will concede goals. As mentioned also earlier, I feel that the ownership have for the last two transfer windows got it totally wrong. You improve your first team first, which then automatically improves the squad. We seem to have gone down the opposite route. I'm of the opinion this was down to Ashworth, but I don't know that for sure either. Going to be an interesting few months I feel.

 

 

Edited February 26 by et tu brute

[TheBrownBottle]

Just now, et tu brute said:

As I said earlier, massive game on Tuesday and a more favourable run of games until the end of the season. I personally think we will improve going forward this season. However, if this is not the case then the pressure will really start to ramp up. Failure to get a European spot, will hinder the value of commercial revenue and sponsorship deals. PIF will make the final decision and I honestly believe that a lot will depend on the form and results for the remainder of the season.
 

A big 3 months coming up, as things have to improve as there are errors being made in tactics. The press has totally disappeared and the midfield is being bypassed so easily every game, that it's virtually guaranteed we will concede goals. As mentioned also earlier, I feel that the ownership have for the last two transfer windows totally wrong. You improve your first team first, which then automatically improves the squad. We seem to have gone down the opposite route. I'm of the opinion this was down to Ashworth, but I don't know that for sure either. Going to be an interesting few months I feel.

It could even be why Howe was very un-Howe like in his presser when asked about Ashworth.  Perhaps Ashworth pushed a policy which Howe wasn’t fully onboard with, before pissing off at the first opportunity, leaving Howe to carry the can

[Conjo]

20 minutes ago, mighty__mag said:

 

@Hanshithispantz You deserve a medal for taking the time to respond to that shite. Well done 

 

 

 

November through to yesterday, every game my father says "why don't they press like they did last season?" and I try to explain the injury situation and the limitations of the human body. "uhm, ok, but I think they should try harder"  Same comment and same explanation again every fucking match

 

Some people just don't want the context. (or are showing early signs of dementia)

 

[TheBrownBottle]

1 minute ago, Conjo said:

 

November through to yesterday, every game my father says "why don't they press like they did last season?" and I try to explain the injury situation and the limitations of the human body. "uhm, ok, but I think they should try harder"  Same comment and same explanation again every fucking match

 

Some people just don't want the context. (or are showing early signs of dementia)

 

That’s great if you’ve developed tactics beyond a pressing game.  But we haven’t. 

[andycap]

I cannot remember us taking the game to Milan like in the San siro. We where pulled apart we basically sat back majority of the game. 

[Strawberry]

3 hours ago, Big Jow said:

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.

The old HTT type of post great analysis. Everything he said here is so true. We cant suck him. My hope is Southgate flops and England come calling for him. Lets hope thats the case.

[Kanji]

Go away.