Eddie Howe

[Erikse]

14 minutes ago, Kid Icarus said:

I hate this forum sometimes. So deliberately obtuse.

 

But you get the point.. It's pointless walking about what position we would be if margins had gone our way in the last 2 games, and just ignore all the margins we had on our side in the other games. All in all we've taken more points than what the performances would suggest, so how can we complain about margins? You understand this, right? It's pointless.

 

 

Edited October 21 by Erikse

[Shays Given Tim Flowers]

We are playing better than we did at the start of the season. So not really.

[Erikse]

1 minute ago, Shays Given Tim Flowers said:

We are playing better than we did at the start of the season. So not really.

 

Our league position is not determined on the last 2 games.

[Shays Given Tim Flowers]

1 minute ago, Erikse said:

 

Our league position is not determined on the last 2 games.

No it’s not but generally there has been an improvement in performances Everton, Brighton and City. Which after the way the season started is promising. If we’d have picked up the points in those two games it would have been further indication of this improvement and I think you can see that. 

[Erikse]

8 minutes ago, Shays Given Tim Flowers said:

We are playing better than we did at the start of the season. So not really.

 

Just to clear up any confusion. What I was responding to orignally was:

"It's such fine margins , Gordon scores that penalty against Everton and Isak scores that chance to put us 1 up on Saturday and we are sat joint 3rd with Arsenal and Villa."

 

Now if this would've happened (winning both and being 3rd), we would've been the luckiest team in the league so far. If it wasn't for fine margins, we wouldn't even have a chance to go joint 3rd in the first place. Far from it.

 

 

Edited October 21 by Erikse

[Shays Given Tim Flowers]

I’m more of a big picture guy but cool. 

[Erikse]

2 minutes ago, Shays Given Tim Flowers said:

No it’s not but generally there has been an improvement in performances Everton, Brighton and City. Which after the way the season started is promising. If we’d have picked up the points in those two games it would have been further indication of this improvement and I think you can see that. 

 

Yeah, I know there has been an improvement. But talking about how we could be third is a different matter.

[Shays Given Tim Flowers]

Think people were just trying to encourage a bit of perspective.

[Yorkie]

22 minutes ago, HaydnNUFC said:

 

A very fair post, but from what's been out there across the summer up to now I don't think Howe is totally blameless for the summer. And it's looking increasingly like summer 2023 wasn't a great window either. Mainly in regard to not signing what we needed and regarding Barnes: I don't think Howe knows what do with Barnes particularly with getting him and Gordon in the same side and playing well together. Starting him or bringing him off the bench. He's a good finisher, but it's looking increasingly like an opportunistic buy imo. Made all the more odd by our galling situation at RW.

 

If there's one thing at the moment that I'll directly criticise him for it's this. He's got to get creative with finding a solution to this; we can't just keep expecting Murphy to do something. 

 

Barnes was a good signing based on solid logic; he made a huge difference to us last season when fit and has done this time when allowed. I still think last summer's transfer window was perfectly fine; not adding to it this year totally undermines it, though. 

[Erikse]

8 minutes ago, Shays Given Tim Flowers said:

I’m more of a big picture guy but cool. 

 

The actual big picture is that performances has been pretty bad so far overall, and we were fortunate to not be in a bad position. In the last 2 games we have been much better, but have been a bit both ineffective and unfortunate. As allways, margins usually goes both ways and evens out a bit. "We could've been third" if luck just kept going our way like it has isn't the big picture to me.

 

 

Edited October 21 by Erikse

[Kid Icarus]

14 minutes ago, Erikse said:

 

But you get the point.. It's pointless walking about what position we would be if margins had gone our way in the last 2 games, and just ignore all the margins we had on our side in the other games. All in all we've taken more points than what the performances would suggest, so how can we complain about margins? You understand this, right? It's pointless.

 

 

 

I don't think it's pointless, no. Fine margins is very different to us playing poorly, not having possession, constantly giving up chances or whatever.

 

As things stand we're getting better and are being mainly let down by our finishing.

 

I would agree that over the course of the season it's pointless proposing if, buts and maybes, but when we're talking about how we're actually playing, it's very different. 

[Interpolic]

32 minutes ago, Kid Icarus said:

I hate this forum sometimes. So deliberately obtuse.

 

You're talking to a guy who refused to acknowledge the existence of fatigue as a concept last season. 

[Erikse]

3 minutes ago, Interpolic said:

 

You're talking to a guy who refused to acknowledge the existence of fatigue as a concept last season. 

 

Thanks for bringing it up. I thought the 3-0 loss to Everton at the start of december wasn't just down to fatigue. I was probably wrong, but I also said at the time that IF it's down to that, we're in for a horrible december. People like you refused to accept that, saying things like it varies from game to game. We all saw what happened.

 

 

Edited October 21 by Erikse

[Erikse]

11 minutes ago, Kid Icarus said:

I don't think it's pointless, no. Fine margins is very different to us playing poorly, not having possession, constantly giving up chances or whatever.

 

As things stand we're getting better and are being mainly let down by our finishing.

 

I would agree that over the course of the season it's pointless proposing if, buts and maybes, but when we're talking about how we're actually playing, it's very different. 

 

I think we agree for the most part. The only part I was reacting to was bringing in league position, which is based on all games, and then we should also consider whoever deserved the points in all of them. Ofcourse we deserved to win the last 2 and it's looking better performance wise.

 

 

Edited October 21 by Erikse

[Yorkie]

We've definitely been a weird team so far. 

 

Pre-Fulham, with very dodgy performances, per game we had 1.32 xG, 1.5 goals, and 2 points.

 

Post-Fulham, with much better performances, per game we've had 1.9 xG, 0.33 goals and 0.33 points. 

 

It all feels a bit mid-tabley really. 

[Monters]

28 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

 

If there's one thing at the moment that I'll directly criticise him for it's this. He's got to get creative with finding a solution to this; we can't just keep expecting Murphy to do something. 

 

Barnes was a good signing based on solid logic; he made a huge difference to us last season when fit and has done this time when allowed. I still think last summer's transfer window was perfectly fine; not adding to it this year totally undermines it, though. 

Totally agree!

I also think he needs to find a solution to Bruno and Tonali clicking together... All season there has been something a bit 'off' in midfield that I'm struggling to put my finger on to describe properly never mind fix but I guess that's why I work in IT and not football management 

[TBG]

I'm just glad we've moved on from being angry with the club for making it so easy for the FA to trigger Howe's release clause. 

 

Even though we would now let them have him for nothing.

[macphisto]

25 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

We've definitely been a weird team so far. 

 

Pre-Fulham, with very dodgy performances, per game we had 1.32 xG, 1.5 goals, and 2 points.

 

Post-Fulham, with much better performances, per game we've had 1.9 xG, 0.33 goals and 0.33 points. 

 

It all feels a bit mid-tabley really. 

That's what we are. 

[Yorkie]

1 minute ago, macphisto said:

That's what we are. 

 

We're 8th so we are atm, depending on your definition, but I was casting a prediction re May. 

[macphisto]

2 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

 

We're 8th so we are atm, depending on your definition, but I was casting a prediction re May. 

It's what we'll be come May unless we spend big in January. It is what it is, next summer will tell us all what we need to know about the intentions of the club. 

[Erikse]

5 minutes ago, macphisto said:

It's what we'll be come May unless we spend big in January. It is what it is, next summer will tell us all what we need to know about the intentions of the club. 

 

We can still hit form, like any other team. It's so unpredictable. I'm hoping some of the teams in Europe will encounter some of the problems that we had last season. It would probably start happening in december in that case.

 

 

Edited October 21 by Erikse

[macphisto]

1 minute ago, Erikse said:

 

We can still hit form, like any other team. It's so unpredictable. I'm hoping some of the teams in Europe will encounter some of the problems that we had last season.

We'll see and hope you're right. Quality normally always shows in the end and we don't have as much as other teams in my opinion. 

[Erikse]

7 minutes ago, macphisto said:

We'll see and hope you're right. Quality normally always shows in the end and we don't have as much as other teams in my opinion. 

 

It's hard to tell, as someone has pointed out on the forum we are really unbalanced, probably the most unbalanced team in the league. That makes us even harder to predict imo, as we are relying a lot on a few players.

 

 

Edited October 21 by Erikse

[Kanji]

I'd be more than happy as a fan (and I feel like a lot would) if we were in europe every season, making a good run at the cups, and progressing in every area each season - on pitch, commercial, stadium improvements or new ground, training ground, community, academy, women's team. To me that is success, and I assume you'd have most sane human being fans being very happy with that. 

 

Re: first team, I feel Howe with the current squad should get us between 5th-8th every season assuming we continue to have the key players fit and we continue to add to the first team.

 

 

Edited October 21 by Kanji

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Think it’s important to note that progressing doesn’t mean finishing at least one position higher every season.