Eddie Howe

[Sibierski]

1 hour ago, Froggy said:

 

I suppose I'm not exactly a neutral, but I see Howe getting top 6 with your squad as a good season. Your first eleven is strong, but the "big 6" sides have better strength in depth. 

 

I read a few posts recently that if Howe didn't get top 6 he should be sacked. Found it a bit mental to be honest. 

 

Think where we are at the moment, I agree. Being in and around battle for top 6 is our level. Like last season, where it's Europe vast majority of time, just we were unfortunate to not end in it after you lot won FA Cup.

 

Until more resources come into the playing squad, both club cant expect top 4, nor the fans. But you do expect building blocks in the squad where you can see with one or two new signings it'll move club forward, which this season isn't looking like the case. Like we could have signed Guehi and Olise, and the same issues in our play would be there IMO. That's what will cost Howe as season goes on if that still looks the same.

 

End of 22/23 season, you could see our team and what needed improving to take it to next level. Now, I couldn't say what type of player we would need as we've lost our way a bit.

[Froggy]

1 minute ago, Erikse said:

Last season we were in group of death in the CL and got an injury crisis as a result. This had a massive impact on us, obviously. 7th would be disappointing with no Europe this season. We also have Tonali at our disposal now.

 

Who are you competing with for Europe though? Villa, Chelsea, Spurs, Brighton and us? A couple of those sides had bad injuries last year too, but have also strengthened in the window.

 

 

[HaydnNUFC]

4 minutes ago, Kid Icarus said:

Don't think we have enough of our form overall or away form to go on to make any season-long judgements yet tbh, especially considering the results have been better despite the worse/same performances. 

 

 

 

 

Maybe, but under Howe in the past there were always green shoots that I was able to see when it got somewhat tough;

- When he first come in and didn't win in the first 10 games, I saw clear improvements tactically. Some of our fans got jittery about Howe after Watford scored that late equaliser at SJP, but I could see all we needed was to sign a CB and CM to execute what Howe was trying to do. We got those in, and were in top 4 form for the rest of the season.

 

- When the goals started to dry up January - February 2023. All he had to do was drop Wilson and bring in Isak. We did and never looked back.

 

- Last season everyone put down to injuries, fair enough.

 

But in terms of away performances that stem back over a year (plus what we've seen generally this season tbh) I see absolutely nothing that suggests we're going to improve or going to arrest this spiral of poor showings. 

 

 

Edited September 23 by HaydnNUFC

[Erikse]

4 minutes ago, Froggy said:

 

Who are you competing with for Europe though? Villa, Chelsea, Spurs, Brighton and us? A couple of those sides had bad injuries last year too, but have also strengthened in the window.

 

 

 

If you compare the squads, we should be finishing above Brighton. Villa has atleast 8 extra CL games, possibly more. But you and Spurs are playing in the Europa League. I find it strange how most people agreed back in may that no Europe would give us a huge advantage, but now everyone has changed their mind and seem to be ignoring that fact all together. We didn't buy anyone special, but we kept our best players and Tonali is back.

 

 

Edited September 23 by Erikse

[lovejoy]

1 minute ago, Froggy said:

 

Who are you competing with for Europe though? Villa, Chelsea, Spurs, Brighton and us? A couple of those sides had bad injuries last year too, but have also strengthened in the window.

 

 

 

Prior to the season starting I fancied us to finish above Spurs, Brighton and Man Utd. Not so sure now, we haven't started well (in terms of performances) and something seems off.

 

We'll know more in the next few weeks I reckon.

 

[lovejoy]

1 minute ago, Erikse said:

 

If you compare the squads, we should be finishing above Brighton. Villa has atleast 8 extra CL games, possibly more. But you and Spurs are playing in the Europa League. I find it strange how most people agreed back in may that no Europe would give us a huge advantage, but now everyone has changed their mind and seem to be ignoring that fact all together.

 

 

 

 

It is a huge advantage IMO.

We need to improve though, we've been pretty awful so far.

[TRon]

1 minute ago, Froggy said:

 

Who are you competing with for Europe though? Villa, Chelsea, Spurs, Brighton and us? A couple of those sides had bad injuries last year too, but have also strengthened in the window.

 

 

 

Yep. Made this point yesterday somewhere as well. I get kind of fed up of people telling us we can aim for top 5 because Chelsea or Man U are a shambles. Eevn if they are, they still have a much deeper squad of more expensive players, so they can usually handle playing in Europe, and are capable of going on long winning streaks even when they aren't clicking. Quality players win matches regardless of what's going on above. Our rivals should be considered teams like Spurs, Villa and Brighton. Finishing above the others should be taken as a bonus.

[Froggy]

2 minutes ago, Erikse said:

If you compare the squads, we should be finishing above Brighton. Villa has atleast 8 extra CL games, possibly more. But you and Spurs are playing in the Europa League. I find it strange how most people agreed back in may that no Europe would give us a huge advantage, but now everyone has changed their mind and seem to be ignoring that fact all together. We didn't buy anyone special, but we kept our best players and Tonali is back.

 

Brighton just spent £180m. Unless we're Kaka or TCD, I think it's hard to say how good Brighton's squad is, as we don't know how good some of those signings could be.

[Erikse]

7 minutes ago, TRon said:

 

Yep. Made this point yesterday somewhere as well. I get kind of fed up of people telling us we can aim for top 5 because Chelsea or Man U are a shambles. Eevn if they are, they still have a much deeper squad of more expensive players, so they can usually handle playing in Europe, and are capable of going on long winning streaks even when they aren't clicking. Quality players win matches regardless of what's going on above. Our rivals should be considered teams like Spurs, Villa and Brighton. Finishing above the others should be taken as a bonus.

 

It does really depend on different factors as to whether a 7th place would be acceptable. But if you look at other seasons, there is usually 1 of the 5 strongest teams in some sort of crisis, and only last year Man Utd was seriously struggling with injuries despite their squad depth.

 

 

Edited September 23 by Erikse

[Erikse]

2 minutes ago, Froggy said:

 

Brighton just spent £180m. Unless we're Kaka or TCD, I think it's hard to say how good Brighton's squad is, as we don't know how good some of those signings could be.

 

That's true, but most of these young players who might need a year or two to really shine.

 

 

Edited September 23 by Erikse

[TRon]

2 minutes ago, Erikse said:

 

It does really depend on different factors as to whether a 7th place would be acceptable. But if you look at other seasons, there is usually 1 of the 5 strongest teams in some sort of crisis, and only last year Man Utd was seriously struggling with injuries despite their squad depth.

 

 

I usually take squad quality as the main factor as to how high you finish. For us that would be 7/8th as it stands. Any higher than that and you have to give credit to the manager. It might well be other highly rated clubs have a car crash season, but that's nothing to do with us, we can only judge our manager on our squad and our results. Expectations should be set accordingly.

[Erikse]

3 minutes ago, TRon said:

 

 

I usually take squad quality as the main factor as to how high you finish. For us that would be 7/8th as it stands. Any higher than that and you have to give credit to the manager. It might well be other highly rated clubs have a car crash season, but that's nothing to do with us, we can only judge our manager on our squad and our results. Expectations should be set accordingly.

 

Again, you have to add Europe or no Europe into the equation aswell. We constanly (and rightly) put our mid season performances last season down to the fact that the CL games screwed our league form, so it seems pretty biased to ignore it as a factor when we are not even in Europe.

 

 

Edited September 23 by Erikse

[Choppy Chop Chop]

Has Eddie taken the blame for the Wimbledon postponement yet? 

[Froggy]

7 minutes ago, TRon said:

Yep. Made this point yesterday somewhere as well. I get kind of fed up of people telling us we can aim for top 5 because Chelsea or Man U are a shambles. Eevn if they are, they still have a much deeper squad of more expensive players, so they can usually handle playing in Europe, and are capable of going on long winning streaks even when they aren't clicking. Quality players win matches regardless of what's going on above. Our rivals should be considered teams like Spurs, Villa and Brighton. Finishing above the others should be taken as a bonus.

 

We finished level on points with you last season, but we've added £180m worth of signings into an already decent squad and got rid of some deadwood. Younger players like Hojlund, Amad, Garnacho, Mainoo etc. are going to be improving every minute. I genuinely think it's madness to hand Howe the same squad and expect him to finish above us because we had a bad season last year.

[TRon]

1 minute ago, Erikse said:

 

Again, you have to add Europe or no Europe into the equation aswell. We constanly put our mid season performances last season down to the fact that the CL games screwed our league form, so it seems pretty biased to ignore it as a factor when we are not even in Europe.

 

 

 

 

 

I think the big spending cartel clubs have big enough squads to cope with Europe. We didn't. So I think we should do better because we are out of Europe, I don't necessarily think the cartel clubs will do worse. I think Villa might struggle though, as they are similar to us, if they get a few injuries they will be stretched.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

3 minutes ago, Erikse said:

 

Again, you have to add Europe or no Europe into the equation aswell. We constanly (and rightly) put our mid season performances last season down to the fact that the CL games screwed our league form, so it seems pretty biased to ignore it as a factor when we are not even in Europe.

 

 

 

 

I think it was more to do with the fact we were trying to manage loads of really hard games while being decimated by injuries. 

[Erikse]

Just now, Froggy said:

 

We finished level on points with you last season, but we've added £180m worth of signings into an already decent squad and got rid of some deadwood. Younger players like Hojlund, Amad, Garnacho, Mainoo etc. are going to be improving every minute. I genuinely think it's madness to hand Howe the same squad and expect him to finish above us because we had a bad season last year.

 

If Man Utd and Chelsea doesn't have a bad season or get an injury crisis, I wouldn't expect top 5 either, that would be unrealistic. But it remains to be seen what happens with Tottenham and Villa when the European games starts having an effect on their squad.

[TRon]

2 minutes ago, Froggy said:

 

We finished level on points with you last season, but we've added £180m worth of signings into an already decent squad and got rid of some deadwood. Younger players like Hojlund, Amad, Garnacho, Mainoo etc. are going to be improving every minute. I genuinely think it's madness to hand Howe the same squad and expect him to finish above us because we had a bad season last year.

 

I mean we might still finish above you, but it's unfair to load Howe with that expectation. So I agree.

[Erikse]

24 minutes ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

 

I think it was more to do with the fact we were trying to manage loads of really hard games while being decimated by injuries. 

 

Didn't we get like 3 injuries in the Dortmund game? This was basically the start of it I think. Fatigue will also impact Villa for example. They have more depth, but they will play atleast 2 more games in this years format. In all likelyhood they will go through aswell.

 

 

Edited September 23 by Erikse

[Kid Icarus]

23 minutes ago, HaydnNUFC said:

 

Maybe, but under Howe in the past there were always green shoots that I was able to see when it got somewhat tough;

- When he first come in and didn't win in the first 10 games, I saw clear improvements tactically. Some of our fans got jittery about Howe after Watford scored that late equaliser at SJP, but I could see all we needed was to sign a CB and CM to execute what Howe was trying to do. We got those in, and were in top 4 form for the rest of the season.

 

- When the goals started to dry up January - February 2023. All he had to do was drop Wilson and bring in Isak. We did and never looked back.

 

- Last season everyone put down to injuries, fair enough.

 

But in terms of away performances that stem back over a year (plus what we've seen generally this season tbh) I see absolutely nothing that suggests we're going to improve or going to arrest this spiral of poor showings. 

 

It can and will change just as it did from good to bad away form in the first place. 

 

I do think we have quite a few factors affecting the way that we play though and it's left us exposed. In terms of players, last season our defense couldn't press up because Dubravka can't do the sweeper keeper stuff. This year it seems that we can't do it because with Botman out Burn can't do the snappy tackles on the halfway line that Botman can. We would have massively overpaid, but that's one of Guehi's strengths. 

 

Then there's just the confidence factor, playing badly breeds playing badly, playing well breeds playing well. If we can get into a bit more of rhythm it'll hopefully snowball. It'd be remiss to ignore the impact the off-the-field stuff is probably having as well tbh, not least on our support. 

[KaKa]

10 hours ago, timeEd32 said:

In fairness you’ve gone from being positive and pro-Eddie to exceedingly pro Mitchell/the structure essentially overnight. It’s pretty jarring. 

 

I am fully on the dark side now.

 

The summer really ticked me off and I don't like where things are going.

 

It's my opinion, from the noises out there, regarding issues previously at Bournemouth, issues with Ashworth and issues with Mitchell, that Howe appears very rigid in the way he works and is not going to be able to work with a highly qualified Director of Football.

 

I do not want any manager that functions like this. Not with the way things are going in football. I do not trust any one man to be able to pull it off.

 

We will lose out on the contacts a DOF has with other clubs, agents and execs that typically helps facilitate transfers and opens up so many more options and possibilities. We will also miss out on being at the forefront of the most cutting edge recruitment data and analysis, that is usually pushed by the DOF. 

 

When it comes to competing for players with other clubs that have such people in place, we cannot afford to have Howe going up against them during breaks in training, or whoever else at the club that doesn't have a strong enough reputation and gravitas with the right people, if we don't have a legit DOF. We apparently don't even have a data driven approach to recruitment yet, according to Howe, and are still relying on traditional scouting only. This is one of the first things that should have been addressed at the club. Why is this still the case? Who was in charge of such things?

 

Things are moving very quickly. We are now seeing the likes of Bournemouth hiring Tiago Pinto, who was previously at Roma, as a DOF, and now being able to sign Porto's number one striker off them in Evanilson. AFC Bournemouth.

 

We have a head start on a number of clubs with some of the talent we have, but how long will that last for. We seem to be going down a very particular road when it comes to the players we are targeting lately. We keep hearing from the manager that there is only a very small pool of players that can improve our team. That is very very hard to believe.

 

For me personally, the alarm bells are ringing. But maybe I am wrong. We will soon see.

[HaydnNUFC]

16 minutes ago, Kid Icarus said:

 

It can and will change just as it did from good to bad away form in the first place. 

 

I do think we have quite a few factors affecting the way that we play though and it's left us exposed. In terms of players, last season our defense couldn't press up because Dubravka can't do the sweeper keeper stuff. This year it seems that we can't do it because with Botman out Burn can't do the snappy tackles on the halfway line that Botman can. We would have massively overpaid, but that's one of Guehi's strengths. 

 

Then there's just the confidence factor, playing badly breeds playing badly, playing well breeds playing well. If we can get into a bit more of rhythm it'll hopefully snowball. It'd be remiss to ignore the impact the off-the-field stuff is probably having as well tbh, not least on our support. 

 

I can't see it changing anytime soon though. I think we're too one dimensional in how we set up & play and don't have the personnel to change that because we didn't sign anyone that allows us to, this summer or last. 

 

Like I say I can't see a logical reason why I can be certain we'll improve other than blind faith.

 

 

Edited September 23 by HaydnNUFC

[Strawberry]

Howe can fix our problems with simply benching our star players. Gordon, Joelinton, Bruno and Isak are not performing. He needs to bench at least two of them Gordon and Joelinton for a start. He also stop leaking to the media whether he is speaking to Mitchell or not. It is childish the club is owned by the Saudis they will put in charge whomever they like he works under Mitchell if he doesn't like then he is in trouble.

[Kid Icarus]

6 minutes ago, HaydnNUFC said:

 

I can't see it changing anytime soon though. I think we're too one dimensional in how we set up & play and don't have the personnel to change that because we didn't sign anyone that allows us to, this summer or last. 

 

Like I say I can't see a logical reason why I can be certain we'll improve other than blind faith.

 

The logical reason is purely just that no form good or bad lasts forever. The irony here of course is that our form is actually good, it's the performances that are the problem. 

[The College Dropout]

1 hour ago, Erikse said:

 

Every team which is more funded than us are playing way more games than us, atleast until christmas. You've said it yourself that this is a huge factor.

 

 

 

They’ve also strengthen. And have better depth than us anyway. 
 

We could finish higher because of those reasons. But 7th can’t be below par that’s exactly where we should finish.