Eddie Howe

[AyeDubbleYoo]

1 hour ago, Terrymac1966 said:

I would like a manager who actually plays new signings instead of this stupid long wait Howe insists on. Also getting players with slight knocks straight back in not this cotton wool rubbish. Joe Harvey played the fuckers whatever and they all seemed to cope.

 

Last season we were hammering him for causing an injury crisis by not resting players

[80]

1 hour ago, TRon said:

 

 

I'll let TCD take this up then since he's the one who has queries about what the board/owners plans are. All he's said is that thinks they are the bigger issue, he wasn't really specific on how this relates to the manager.

 

I had a post but TCD beat me to the punch. Basically, there are serious question marks over whether any manager can get us to where we want to be on a sustainable basis, if the wider club environment isn't offering positivity, sensible ambitions, consistent support and smart, determined thinking to overcome systemic restrictions like PSR.

 

We can kick Eddie Howe out the club, but after a few spins of the wheel we may well end up concluding he wasn't the root cause of our failure.

 

--

 

My post should have ended there, but consider Emery and Villa. It's weird how everything they've done is basically a year behind us. It's plausible that another 12 months of PSR restrictions, fatigue and the dawning realisation for their players that it isn't going to get any better if they stay in Birmingham will drain the life out of them and make them even rockier next season. And that's a club that has a much stronger infrastructure than us overall.

[Erikse]

5 hours ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

I can’t see a situation where we fall so far behind that Howe gets sacked before the end of the season. Therefore we need to do everything to find him a couple of players in January IMO.
 

As hard as that is, a clear injection of fresh quality is our best chance to have a good season. Probably more than getting a new manager. And that’s without thinking of the long term impact of getting back on the manager rollercoaster. 

 

Hmm not so sure. Next 2 are against Leicester and Ipswich. We will probably be fine, but if we somehow mess these up, it will be interesting to see whether our owners will react.

[SUPERTOON]

4 minutes ago, Erikse said:

 

Hmm not so sure. Next 2 are against Leicester and Ipswich. We will probably be fine, but if we somehow mess these up, it will be interesting to see whether our owners will react.

Not sure Ipswich away will be fine tbh.

[Novocastrian]

We’re 4 points off 7th/8th, I think that’s about par for us now. We can’t seriously expect another CL qualifying campaign with our current squad can we? 

[AyeDubbleYoo]

5 minutes ago, Novocastrian said:

We’re 4 points off 7th/8th, I think that’s about par for us now. We can’t seriously expect another CL qualifying campaign with our current squad can we? 

Not expect, no. I do think anything from 5th down is up for grabs for any team that can put some form together. 

[Ben]

9 minutes ago, Novocastrian said:

We’re 4 points off 7th/8th, I think that’s about par for us now. We can’t seriously expect another CL qualifying campaign with our current squad can we? 

 

Our squad is better than 8th IMO

[KaKa]

14 minutes ago, SUPERTOON said:

Not sure Ipswich away will be fine tbh.

 

They are a dangerous team and their style of play will threaten our defence if we keep playing Bruno deep.

 

The thing that has let Ipswich down is their late game collapses. Once they start making subs there appears to be a big drop in quality that costs them.

[Collage]

6 hours ago, Lush Vlad said:

 

Adolf 'Adi' Hutter.

 

Well he'd sort the right wing out, at least. 

Think he’d take us to Europe, really have a go and do well. At first.

[Ronaldo]

1 hour ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

 

Last season we were hammering him for causing an injury crisis by not resting players

I don’t think many said that. It was more targeted at the style of play as happened at Bournemouth.

 

[The College Dropout]

3 hours ago, 80 said:

 

I had a post but TCD beat me to the punch. Basically, there are serious question marks over whether any manager can get us to where we want to be on a sustainable basis, if the wider club environment isn't offering positivity, sensible ambitions, consistent support and smart, determined thinking to overcome systemic restrictions like PSR.

 

We can kick Eddie Howe out the club, but after a few spins of the wheel we may well end up concluding he wasn't the root cause of our failure.

 

--

 

My post should have ended there, but consider Emery and Villa. It's weird how everything they've done is basically a year behind us. It's plausible that another 12 months of PSR restrictions, fatigue and the dawning realisation for their players that it isn't going to get any better if they stay in Birmingham will drain the life out of them and make them even rockier next season. And that's a club that has a much stronger infrastructure than us overall.

I think seeing what’s happened to us has helped Villa prepare.  And they have more saleable assets.   Rather than give their Joelinton a new contract they sold him. 

[Displayname]

2 hours ago, Ben said:

 

Our squad is better than 8th IMO

Especially with no Europe.

[80]

1 hour ago, The College Dropout said:

I think seeing what’s happened to us has helped Villa prepare.  And they have more saleable assets.   Rather than give their Joelinton a new contract they sold him. 

The youth academy is a killer for us. We were most of a decade behind any significant competitor. You can buy a lot of things quickly, but not that.

[r0cafella]

We should stop crying the poor tale when it comes to villa too mind, we do have significant advantages which they don't have as well. Having a state sponsor is still huge regardless of RPT rules. 

[Zero]

We don’t have any genuine financial risk. As long as PIF has patience, we could restart the process again, just sell the purples and rebuild.

 

Recently I have a second thought, that if such a rebuild is inevitable, Howe is probably the best manager for the job.

[The College Dropout]

25 minutes ago, r0cafella said:

We should stop crying the poor tale when it comes to villa too mind, we do have significant advantages which they don't have as well. Having a state sponsor is still huge regardless of RPT rules. 

What have been the practical advantages to date over Villa’s ownership?

 

Think the Sela deal would be larger than we could get otherwise. 
 

Great atmosphere around the club for 2.5 years helped on the pitch. 
 

We assume the stadium won’t be financed by loans but that is all tbc.  
 

Sold ASM to Saudi. 
 

Ladies team is doing brilliantly.  
 

PIF have money and power but they actually have to use it for it to be useful.  PSR means they have to be creative to use the money and we haven’t seen much of that.  They can use their money on infrastructure and academy - no concrete plans there. Academy will take time - Villa already have a top academy. Power? Again actually have to use it.  
 

Ladies team will be serious though.  
 

Innovative, ambitious and committed owners are more important than rich and powerful ones that are not also all 3 of the above for a club like us.  
 

Our owners have higher potential than Villa’s owners - I agree with that.   But not seen the skill, commitment and ability to make things happen.  It looks like they let the minority stakeholders run the club while only providing a budget and bureaucracy. 
 

Early days yet. Villa’s owners let one of the minority stakeholders or even just a pal - give Gerrard the keys to the club for 12 months or so. Our Owners haven’t done anything that silly. 

[The College Dropout]

12 minutes ago, Zero said:

We don’t have any genuine financial risk. As long as PIF has patience, we could restart the process again, just sell the purples and rebuild.

 

Recently I have a second thought, that if such a rebuild is inevitable, Howe is probably the best manager for the job.

If wages become a problem it won’t be resolved by selling 3 players.  The whole structure will need changing. I don’t think we’ll continue to give first team wages to bench players (Barnes and Kelly) and giving super max contracts to the likes of Joelinton though 

[Stal]

11 hours ago, 80 said:

The youth academy is a killer for us. We were most of a decade behind any significant competitor. You can buy a lot of things quickly, but not that.

 

It's been longer than a decade. We haven't had a decent academy at any point in my lifetime. Whilst other clubs seem to churn out prospect after prospect, who have we produced of any first team value? I mean no disrespect to the individuals but players I can remember coming through who have made any impact after Keegan's first reign are negligible. There we had Howey, Lee Clark, Robbie Elliot (the proper one, not the shit keeper) and Steve Watson.

 

Andy Carroll tops the list but then we have Steven Taylor, Ramage, turncoat shola, Chopra, Huntingdon, Matty Pattison, that midfielder that Gullit loved whose name I've forgotten. And hey, I loved some of these even if they weren't quite good enough. Not shola though, he can just bury himself back in mike ashley's arse.

 

I used to joke that our academy might as well just go to Blyth and Gateshead right now as that's where they all seemed to end up. Do I expect everyone to come out of the academy to be Messi level? Of course not, I don't even expect superstar players but we should have a few competent Premier League level performers regularly being churned out.

[TRon]

16 hours ago, 80 said:

 

I had a post but TCD beat me to the punch. Basically, there are serious question marks over whether any manager can get us to where we want to be on a sustainable basis, if the wider club environment isn't offering positivity, sensible ambitions, consistent support and smart, determined thinking to overcome systemic restrictions like PSR.

 

We can kick Eddie Howe out the club, but after a few spins of the wheel we may well end up concluding he wasn't the root cause of our failure.

 

--

 

My post should have ended there, but consider Emery and Villa. It's weird how everything they've done is basically a year behind us. It's plausible that another 12 months of PSR restrictions, fatigue and the dawning realisation for their players that it isn't going to get any better if they stay in Birmingham will drain the life out of them and make them even rockier next season. And that's a club that has a much stronger infrastructure than us overall.

 

Any owner is going to face the same problems with PSR. All TCD has done to date is criticise the current leadership's lack of creative solutions such as academy or new ground to release more cash without actually knowing for sure whether these might already be in the works.

 

This is just pointless speculation IMO. If you think the owners aren't interested then would be better just to say we need new owners because these ones aren't committed if that's what you believe. But really if they are not ambitious, why would they sack Eddie? He's doing a par job. It doesn't add up.

[Zero]

41 minutes ago, The College Dropout said:

If wages become a problem it won’t be resolved by selling 3 players.  The whole structure will need changing. I don’t think we’ll continue to give first team wages to bench players (Barnes and Kelly) and giving super max contracts to the likes of Joelinton though 

Yep, you are right. It’s not just selling those 3. We need to go through a complete rebuild and raise our own youth products (Miley, Sanusi) and likely it’s a 4-5 years project. I expect only Hall and Tino would remain.

 

And that’s why after second thought I hope Howe stays and lead this project. He loves the club and has the passion. We won’t have any relegation risk.

[The College Dropout]

39 minutes ago, TRon said:

 

Any owner is going to face the same problems with PSR. All TCD has done to date is criticise the current leadership's lack of creative solutions such as academy or new ground to release more cash without actually knowing for sure whether these might already be in the works.

 

This is just pointless speculation IMO. If you think the owners aren't interested then would be better just to say we need new owners because these ones aren't committed if that's what you believe. But really if they are not ambitious, why would they sack Eddie? He's doing a par job. It doesn't add up.

Are these not valid criticisms or something?

 

We’ve had 3 years of evidence - including 1 year shit hit the fan and we dealt with it the worst of the 6 clubs involved.  We’ve seen other clubs navigate PSR issues with more nous and creativity. That’s not speculation - that’s evidence. The people involved have been moved on and we unanimously agree we were mismanaged by them. 

 

Sacking Eddie and being ambitious doesn’t mean much.  Ambition without skill and nous isn’t that useful.   Unless they can give the next manager  structure that they can succeed in it’s almost worthless. Increasing revenue is way more important than changing the manager. Being smart in the transfer market is way more important than changing the manager. 
 

Sorry pal but I think your second paragraph is BS. Running football clubs is tremendously difficult x10 one in our position.  I don’t expect Owners to come in and be perfect from day one.  Both City and Villa owners had multiple years wasting money, bad decisions etc. Brentford and Brighton needed years for their transfer approach to pay off big.  Our Owners have made mistakes and I want them to improve and do better as other owners have over time.  You seem to have this attitude that any criticism means I want the owners to leave - that’s a very shallow thought process. 

 

People did the same thing with Howe last season.  I criticised Howe last season because he made mistakes.  People thought I wanted him out and that’s such basic thinking. It’s because if they criticise a manager - they want them out.  I don’t think like that.  
 

Im ok if they don’t ever show the nous and creativity I hope for. We’ll eventually get a new stadium and a great academy which will bring us closer to the top 6 in the long term.  In the mean time we’ll average 7th/8th with the opportunity to challenge for cups.  That’s better than what I’ve experienced for most of my life. But the rhetoric of challenging at the top will misalign expectations. 

[80]

2 hours ago, Stal said:

 

It's been longer than a decade. We haven't had a decent academy at any point in my lifetime. Whilst other clubs seem to churn out prospect after prospect, who have we produced of any first team value? I mean no disrespect to the individuals but players I can remember coming through who have made any impact after Keegan's first reign are negligible. There we had Howey, Lee Clark, Robbie Elliot (the proper one, not the shit keeper) and Steve Watson.

 

Andy Carroll tops the list but then we have Steven Taylor, Ramage, turncoat shola, Chopra, Huntingdon, Matty Pattison, that midfielder that Gullit loved whose name I've forgotten. And hey, I loved some of these even if they weren't quite good enough. Not shola though, he can just bury himself back in mike ashley's arse.

 

I used to joke that our academy might as well just go to Blyth and Gateshead right now as that's where they all seemed to end up. Do I expect everyone to come out of the academy to be Messi level? Of course not, I don't even expect superstar players but we should have a few competent Premier League level performers regularly being churned out.

You're right, but it's especially stupid Ashley didn't show any interest in it when it started becoming really obvious it was going to be critical around about 2010. Before roughly then, youth were often seen as a nice bonus, but after that it became a key industrial process, and we were one of the few to totally ignore it.

[The College Dropout]

Was there a single area of the club that Ashley bothered to invest in?

 

A proper commercial team and academy pays for itself plus profit. 
 

I’ll never forget how the wider footballing world just didn’t care. That’s a main reason I don’t care if we find money hacks and just blow everyone out and dominate like that. They didn’t care when we were being devalued, they don’t care that we are blocked from investing. I won’t care if we ever buy our way to success. 

[TRon]

1 hour ago, The College Dropout said:

Are these not valid criticisms or something?

 

We’ve had 3 years of evidence - including 1 year shit hit the fan and we dealt with it the worst of the 6 clubs involved.  We’ve seen other clubs navigate PSR issues with more nous and creativity. That’s not speculation - that’s evidence. The people involved have been moved on and we unanimously agree we were mismanaged by them. 

 

Sacking Eddie and being ambitious doesn’t mean much.  Ambition without skill and nous isn’t that useful.   Unless they can give the next manager  structure that they can succeed in it’s almost worthless. Increasing revenue is way more important than changing the manager. Being smart in the transfer market is way more important than changing the manager. 
 

Sorry pal but I think your second paragraph is BS. Running football clubs is tremendously difficult x10 one in our position.  I don’t expect Owners to come in and be perfect from day one.  Both City and Villa owners had multiple years wasting money, bad decisions etc. Brentford and Brighton needed years for their transfer approach to pay off big.  Our Owners have made mistakes and I want them to improve and do better as other owners have over time.  You seem to have this attitude that any criticism means I want the owners to leave - that’s a very shallow thought process. 

 

People did the same thing with Howe last season.  I criticised Howe last season because he made mistakes.  People thought I wanted him out and that’s such basic thinking. It’s because if they criticise a manager - they want them out.  I don’t think like that.  
 

Im ok if they don’t ever show the nous and creativity I hope for. We’ll eventually get a new stadium and a great academy which will bring us closer to the top 6 in the long term.  In the mean time we’ll average 7th/8th with the opportunity to challenge for cups.  That’s better than what I’ve experienced for most of my life. But the rhetoric of challenging at the top will misalign expectations. 

 

I'm just looking at a realistic way forward. I think what would be useful is an update from PIF as to what our current ambitions are. Fans might still be going off the Yasir quote about becoming No 1, but that's since been updated to getting into Europe in the short term at least. For that we aren't that much off course, it's quite conceivable that Howe could achieve that even with 8th place.

 

As for other clubs navigating PSR issues, I think all clubs have different headroom, and they probably come under less scrutiny as well. Just have to look at Man U with their Covid allowances to see that. We've hired top class people to oversee all this. What is it you are arguing then? They are bad hires and we should sack them and get others instead?

 

 

[OverThere]

13 minutes ago, TRon said:

 

I'm just looking at a realistic way forward. I think what would be useful is an update from PIF as to what our current ambitions are. Fans might still be going off the Yasir quote about becoming No 1, but that's since been updated to getting into Europe in the short term at least. For that we aren't that much off course, it's quite conceivable that Howe could achieve that even with 8th place.

 

As for other clubs navigating PSR issues, I think all clubs have different headroom, and they probably come under less scrutiny as well. Just have to look at Man U with their Covid allowances to see that. We've hired top class people to oversee all this. What is it you are arguing then? They are bad hires and we should sack them and get others instead?

 

 

The club hasn't been very good with putting its vision down on paper, even at a high level. I realize that you cant publicly say everything, but for instance, the timescale for the feasibility study has been very fluid. No one runs a project like that, so what is going on?

 

 

 

Edited December 10 by OverThere