Eddie Howe

[Vinny Green Balls]

1 minute ago, Whitley mag said:

He realised Tonali needed to start last season and it give us a lift.

 

Its might possibly come with Wissa this month but the team looks well short and predictable in attack currently.

It was more that he realized what role Tonali should play to help optimize the team.

[Whitley mag]

4 minutes ago, Ellis H said:

Being really, really good in the Champions League, getting a winnable home game in the quarter finals of a cup and being 6 points off 4th? Woltemade and Thiaw being brilliant? Winning 6 of our last 8 before West Ham? 

I enjoyed the win in Belgium and beating Bradford, but let’s not let that fool us into thinking this has been anything but poor in the league.

 

 

[Conjo]

48 minutes ago, Curva Sud Milano said:

Maybe, and I say MAYBE because I don't know Howe in that aspect, his only weakness might be that in some situations he's not tough enough with his players.

 

Mourinho and Conte, for example, have two opposing philosophies when it comes to their relationships with their players, and both can sometimes work or be disastrous (a few years ago Conte called Lautaro a "shit phenomenon" in front of the cameras after a substitution). Sometimes you have to use the carrot and sometimes the stick. Maybe Howe should use the stick better but some coaches, by nature, just can't do that.

What really surprised me yesterday wasn't the loss or the poor performance against a much inferior team (that happens often in football) but the complete lack of reaction in the second half.

I've been following Newcastle for two years and, for me, technically Howe is an excellent manager even if I can't understand some of his beliefs about 2 or 3 players. In his defense, however, he sees them train every day, I don't... he coaches in the Premier League, I've only coached 14-year-old kids in a small local league... basically, in technical terms, he's God and I'm an asshole.

 

I think Howe can be pretty brutal with the players when they're not performing. He just doesn't do it in front of cameras like the two knobheads you refer to above.

[timeEd32]

16 minutes ago, Whitley mag said:

He got it wrong in the summer so I’m not sure we have a fix for some of our problems at the moment.

 

I keep seeing mentions of this and it's fine if you didn't like some of the business, but this statement also seems to ignore the colossal sized elephant rat in the room.

[Whitley mag]

2 minutes ago, timeEd32 said:

 

I keep seeing mentions of this and it's fine if you didn't like some of the business, but this statement also seems to ignore the colossal sized elephant rat in the room.

Don’t think signing Elanga and Ramsey had anything to do with Isak. They were long term targets and completely wrong profile to take us forward.

 

 

Edited November 3, 2025 by Whitley mag

[Whitley mag]

9 minutes ago, Vinny Green Balls said:

Getting actual fullbacks back will also likely help immensely.

Agree this will help but suspect we’ll still have problems with teams in a low block until we change something fundamentally with our play.

 

The long term plan for Woltemade when Wissa is fit will tell us much more about where this team is heading.

[Lucky]

7 minutes ago, Whitley mag said:

Agree this will help but suspect we’ll still have problems with teams in a low block until we change something fundamentally with our play.

 

The long term plan for Woltemade when Wissa is fit will tell us much more about where this team is heading.

I don’t see him playing both at same time unfortunately.

[Colos Short and Curlies]

1 minute ago, Lucky said:

I don’t see him playing both at same time unfortunately.

 

He really should do though as the plan a.

 

Tino, Thiaw, Botman, Hall

Murphy, Tonali, Bruno, Barnes

Wolt

Wissa

 

Wolt as our Bergkamp

[The Prophet]

The low block stuff is one of the biggest myths in the fanbase. Until this season, we rarely struggled to open teams up.

 

We do need more players who are comfortable on the ball, but we don't need a playmaker.

[HawK]

Just now, Colos Short and Curlies said:

 

He really should do though as the plan a.

 

Tino, Thiaw, Botman, Hall

Murphy, Tonali, Bruno, Barnes

Wolt

Wissa

 

Wolt as our Bergkamp

 

We're married to this flat 4-3-3 until death do we part.

 

Pretty much anything different at this point would be a step in the right direction.

 

Every single time we've played with a proper 6 in front of the back 4 whether it was Miley more recently or Tonali previous we've looked like a breath of fresh air. It gives us verticality to play through the middle that we don't have elsewise because every single opponent just closes the passing lanes (well,. just one lane) and forces us out wide to our non-technical wingers and that's it, we're shut down unless we're on the break.

 

As someone with so much footballing nous as Howe I do find his lack of tactical flexibility disappointing at times. It's like player rock paper scissors and just sticking with the same choice over and over.

[Solitude20]

Transfermarkt shows Wissa’s actually played more games on the left wing than up front. Stick him there instead of Gordon and let Nick keep that deep-lying forward role. Nick needs a winger who can score, and Gordon clearly isn’t that.

[huss9]

didnt he play josh king with wilson?

[Mole]

10 minutes ago, The Prophet said:

The low block stuff is one of the biggest myths in the fanbase. Until this season, we rarely struggled to open teams up.

 

We do need more players who are comfortable on the ball, but we don't need a playmaker.

As someone who only started watching this season I agree with this. The real issue is there has been too many players who don’t treat possession with the importance it requires or just lack the technical ability to be able to be consistent with it.

 

Luckily there are players in the squad who can do this and I genuinely believe we’ll start seeing them more often, the goal from what I can tell is to maintain pressure and it’s pretty hard to do that if you keep being sloppy with the ball and giving it away.

 

Howe is obviously no possession fanatic (nor should he be) but I doubt he’s particularly happy with how sloppy some of the performances have been so far this season.

[janpawel]

29 minutes ago, The Prophet said:

The low block stuff is one of the biggest myths in the fanbase. Until this season, we rarely struggled to open teams up.

 

We do need more players who are comfortable on the ball, but we don't need a playmaker.

 

29 minutes ago, HawK said:

 

We're married to this flat 4-3-3 until death do we part.

 

Pretty much anything different at this point would be a step in the right direction.

 

Every single time we've played with a proper 6 in front of the back 4 whether it was Miley more recently or Tonali previous we've looked like a breath of fresh air. It gives us verticality to play through the middle that we don't have elsewise because every single opponent just closes the passing lanes (well,. just one lane) and forces us out wide to our non-technical wingers and that's it, we're shut down unless we're on the break.

 

As someone with so much footballing nous as Howe I do find his lack of tactical flexibility disappointing at times. It's like player rock paper scissors and just sticking with the same choice over and over.

 

Hard agree to both of these 

[Heron]

Howe's lack of tactical ability and considering Murphy as having a lack of technical ability are both highly incorrect statements for me like.

[janpawel]

Never thought we'd need to, but with out wingers so out of form, Wissa could be a good shout on the LW with Wolte CF

 

Playing more of an inside forward, like a Salah, Wolte dropping deap to create the space in behind. Width coming from Hall / Ramsey supporting in the LCM

[The Prophet]

32 minutes ago, HawK said:

 

We're married to this flat 4-3-3 until death do we part.

 

Pretty much anything different at this point would be a step in the right direction.

 

Every single time we've played with a proper 6 in front of the back 4 whether it was Miley more recently or Tonali previous we've looked like a breath of fresh air. It gives us verticality to play through the middle that we don't have elsewise because every single opponent just closes the passing lanes (well,. just one lane) and forces us out wide to our non-technical wingers and that's it, we're shut down unless we're on the break.

 

As someone with so much footballing nous as Howe I do find his lack of tactical flexibility disappointing at times. It's like player rock paper scissors and just sticking with the same choice over and over.

 

We've played 3-4-3 at least twice this season mind.

[Vinny Green Balls]

43 minutes ago, Lucky said:

I don’t see him playing both at same time unfortunately.

Because he never did with Isak and Wilson in the season when we finished fourth.

[Vinny Green Balls]

38 minutes ago, The Prophet said:

The low block stuff is one of the biggest myths in the fanbase. Until this season, we rarely struggled to open teams up.

 

We do need more players who are comfortable on the ball, but we don't need a playmaker.

And if we can feed Woltemade more, we have a player who appears perfectly capable of acting like one in the opposing half.

[Lucky]

13 minutes ago, Vinny Green Balls said:

Because he never did with Isak and Wilson in the season when we finished fourth.

He never started them together.

[Vinny Green Balls]

He’s played with two strikers before. Stop changing the goalposts. You said “at the same time”

[HawK]

32 minutes ago, The Prophet said:

 

We've played 3-4-3 at least twice this season mind.

 

I disagree, was it not 5-4-1 / 4-5-1 with the same flat lines

 

Edit : can't count

 

 

Edited November 3, 2025 by HawK

[Gottlob]

To me the players we have are more than talented enough to be comfortable in possession, and if we're poor in that regard it's down to our style of play, the gaps between our players or a lack of chemistry among the team as a whole because we don't work on that aspect enough on the training ground.

 

We've been successful utilising a direct style of play with a focus on turnovers and discrete patterns. And while we kept plugging away over the summer and strengthened the squad at substantial cost, I can't believe that we got what we expected to get out of the transfer window because it seems to necessitate a major change of focus.

 

With a player like Woltemade who drops deep to link with the midfielders, you can't stretch teams in the same way. If you're still looking to be direct, you're going to need wingers who are more than support players and who can instead drive inside or make runs over the top before finishing their chances. Right now we're starting to see some slick interplay in the midfield between Woltemade, Bruno and Tonali but no sign in my opinion of a greater focus on possession, even when we're sitting deep and trying to hold onto a lead and could do with relieving some pressure.

 

If we're looking to Wissa as a potential solution, how do we accommodate him into the team? The easiest answer would be to play him out wide, but that takes him away from goal and we have four players in Gordon, Barnes, Elanga and Murphy who would surely expect to feature more often than not. If we were to play both Wissa and Woltemade centrally, we're either scrapping the wingers entirely in a 5-3-2 or more likely going with two in midfield, which changes everyone's role and hardly seems to suit Joelinton or Ramsey. And we'd be back to square one if one of the front two were to get injured.

[Thomson Mouse]

Haven’t really been on here for a bit, but fuck me reading this I’m ashamed 

[Lucky]

2 hours ago, Thomson Mouse said:

Haven’t really been on here for a bit, but fuck me reading this I’m ashamed 

Nobody is calling for him to be sacked. Why can’t his recent performance be criticised?

 

He needs to do better. We all agree on that. What we disagree on is whether he’s the one to really push us on as a club from where we are now.

 

I have doubts but he should still be given time.

 

A lot of posters here have said he’s either the best or one of the best managers we’ve ever had. No disputing that.

 

What I would say is he’s one of the best managers we’ve had yet.