Eddie Howe

[Interpolic]

We spent £260m but we also brought £160m in (Isak, Kelly, Longstaff). The previous 3 transfer windows we only bought Osula in for £12m.

 

Context is unhelpful when you're making a crap, reductive argument though admittedly. 

 

 

[500bhp]

5 minutes ago, Interpolic said:

We spent £260m but we also brought £160m in (Isak, Kelly, Longstaff). The previous 3 transfer windows we only bought Osula in for £12m.

 

Context is unhelpful when you're making a crap, reductive argument though admittedly. 

 

 

Thats not 100% correct. In the summer 2024 window we also signed the Greek keeper for £20m and were obligated to pay £28m for Hall. 

[et tu brute]

I would imagine everyone wants our form to improve. However, the way football is at the moment, if poor form continues over a sustained period then the pressure will reach a point, and then our owners will have a decision to make. I'm hoping the return of Livermento, Hall, Wissa and having Ramsdale in goal, will for one, mean that our ball retention and progression is far better and secondly give us a far better attacking threat than we have seen so far.
 

My opinion is that everyone should be judged on the present season, I don't agree with the people who say that anyone should be given a season or even two as some have suggested. The owners, manager, coaches and players are certainly not producing so far this season. As I said hopefully we will see an upturn.

[Interpolic]

5 minutes ago, 500bhp said:

Thats not 100% correct. In the summer 2024 window we also signed the Greek keeper for £20m and were obligated to pay £28m for Hall. 

 

Hall wasn't a new player in the squad and the Greek was an accounting trick that meant we lost a much more useful player.

 

The point is the squad was arguably weakened over 2 years so saying he spent £260m this summer without any of the other context is purposefully misleading. 

[Whitley mag]

34 minutes ago, Matt1892 said:

The squad is decent, people are only playing it down to take pressure off the manager.

The squad is decent but probably just not decent enough to fight on all fronts. On paper it looks better than last time we were in the CL but in reality the first 11 appears considerably weaker for a variety of reasons.

 

The manager has to take a large part of the responsibility though having presided over the window and spent a record sum for the club. When only 2 of your signings have impacted the first team positively it’s going to raise serious questions.

 

There’s a lot riding on Ramsey, Wissa and Elanga showing just something over the next couple of months to justify their price tags.

[The College Dropout]

1 hour ago, Jewel said:

Didn't we bid 50m for Elanga when Ashworth was still here? The summer when we sold Minteh and Anderson?

 

The fact is Eddie has had a long term interest in signing Elanga, and absolutely has to take 100% of the blame if this particular transfer doesn’t work out. 

 

It's just galling, man. We've been crying out for a marquee signing on the Right Wing for 3 years, a real game changer, only to then go and drop 55m on Elanga ffs.

No Ashworth went on gardening leave about February. 
 

Eddie shouldn’t have so much influence over transfers I agree. 

1 hour ago, Matt1892 said:

These are all players that the manager wanted, unless the argument is that the club is to blame for backing the manager with the players he wanted? People couldn’t believe it when he wanted Elanga the previous summer.

 

I am not convinced they are the back up fullbacks either.

Yes - as I’ve said you can’t name me the well run clubs where the manager signs who they want. Yes I’m blaming the club for not having a proper leadership structure to lead on transfers with Howe being a component not the conductor.

 

Clubs like Man U of yesteryear did that. Thats how they ended up with Onana and Antony from Ajax (via Inter) instead of Kudus and Timber. Amorim wanted Martinez, but they signed Lammens instead better age and wage profile.  It’s not 2002 anymore. Managers shouldn’t be the transfer guru.  
 

This squad has 2 top class players. 3 or 4 others really great.  But a big bunch of our squad could play for Palace or Fulham and a top 6 club wouldn’t come and get them. 
 

We lost a top quality player optimised for our style of play. Haven’t replaced him (or his replacement hasn’t started) and we haven’t supplemented him with players of that level yet. 

[The College Dropout]

It’s not to say that big bunch aren’t good players btw. And can’t contribute to a successful side in the right system manager and star players. But they aren’t the difference. 
 

Take an Isak away. Reduce their prep and rest time relative to the comp. Increase their game time relative to the competition.  Any advantage we have is minimal. Especially when the system needs to change. 

 

 

Edited November 12, 2025 by The College Dropout

[TheBrownBottle]

We’re 5th highest net spenders in Howe’s time - and yes, we were starting from a lower base than some of the other clubs, but more than enough has been spent over enough time to warrant that competing for European places isn’t overachievement but a minimum requirement, with some caveats.

 

Again, Howe deserves time to get things right but PSR or net spend don’t cut it in terms of excuses for poor play at the moment.  The players are better than the sum total of what we’re seeing - they’re playing within their abilities.  If a manager / coach is responsible for anything, surely it’s getting his players to at least perform at ‘par’.  I’m pretty confident Howe will steady and turn us around. 

[Ben]

Im confident in both Howe turning it around and the match day fans supporting him.

 

He can't lose on December the 14th though.

[Thumbheed]

5 hours ago, TheBrownBottle said:

We’re 5th highest net spenders in Howe’s time - and yes, we were starting from a lower base than some of the other clubs, but more than enough has been spent over enough time to warrant that competing for European places isn’t overachievement but a minimum requirement, with some caveats.

 

Again, Howe deserves time to get things right but PSR or net spend don’t cut it in terms of excuses for poor play at the moment.  The players are better than the sum total of what we’re seeing - they’re playing within their abilities.  If a manager / coach is responsible for anything, surely it’s getting his players to at least perform at ‘par’.  I’m pretty confident Howe will steady and turn us around. 

 

It's unfair to relegate the fact we started from a lower base to nothing more than just a sidenote.

 

People are forgetting just how dominant the top 6 were and how far ahead they were (and still are!) in every single element required to run a successful football club and therefore ignoring just how far we have come to not only break that monotony, but also comfortably establish ourselves within a new top 8 ourselves. 

 

Many clubs had invested heavily during that era or domination and became shells of themselves when they ultimately failed to hit the jackpot and its down to Howe and some smart investment to be 1 of only 2 clubs in the best part of a decade to actually break that monopoly on leagues and trophies. 

 

We go through this same cycle of "objective" reflection every single year and up to date, the people that do, have been wrong every single time. 

 

I look forward to making a similar post next year.

 

 

Edited November 13, 2025 by Thumbheed

[The College Dropout]

40 minutes ago, TheBrownBottle said:

We’re 5th highest net spenders in Howe’s time - and yes, we were starting from a lower base than some of the other clubs, but more than enough has been spent over enough time to warrant that competing for European places isn’t overachievement but a minimum requirement, with some caveats.

 

Again, Howe deserves time to get things right but PSR or net spend don’t cut it in terms of excuses for poor play at the moment.  The players are better than the sum total of what we’re seeing - they’re playing within their abilities.  If a manager / coach is responsible for anything, surely it’s getting his players to at least perform at ‘par’.  I’m pretty confident Howe will steady and turn us around. 

Net sales is a useless stat.  What’s Real Madrids over the last 5 years? Maybe less than ours. 
 

Our overall squad cost and wage bill is 7th and 8th and the lowest we’ve finished under Howe is 7th. He’s been overachieving. 

[kingxlnc]

Imagine this squad with Anderson and Minteh still in it. That one summer set back the club like three seasons and although it saved us the points deduction has probably cost us like £250m. It’s like trading your next two years first round draft picks. You sell the future, and worse still there was no benefit in the present. Those two plus Miley Hall and Livramento were all top tier prospects. 

Would have saved 100m on Elanga and perhaps Ramsey this season too for a better result, plus the fact both players could be worth £75m each. Even Joelinton may have been sold by now for £50m or so as Anderson was a ready made replacement. Plus the pointless 20m spent on Vlad. Everyone else let go of Leo Sahar and Harrison Ashby type of prospects for 9m. We let Crown Jewels go cheap.

Not to mention it has also cost us Amanda and Ghoudossi too. The nuclear fall out has been extremely costly we’ve probably been the worst hit from PSR rules. Even Everton and Forest who lost points ultimately survived relegation and got stronger the following season. 
Ironically the season we would have lost points we didn’t get into Europe anyway.

 

 

Edited November 13, 2025 by kingxlnc

[black_n_white]

25 minutes ago, kingxlnc said:

Imagine this squad with Anderson and Minteh still in it. That one summer set back the club like three seasons and although it saved us the points deduction has probably cost us like £250m. It’s like trading your next two years first round draft picks. You sell the future, and worse still there was no benefit in the present. Those two plus Miley Hall and Livramento were all top tier prospects. 

Would have saved 100m on Elanga and perhaps Ramsey this season too for a better result, plus the fact both players could be worth £75m each. Even Joelinton may have been sold by now for £50m or so as Anderson was a ready made replacement. Plus the pointless 20m spent on Vlad. Everyone else let go of Leo Sahar and Harrison Ashby type of prospects for 9m. We let Crown Jewels go cheap.

Not to mention it has also cost us Amanda and Ghoudossi too. The nuclear fall out has been extremely costly we’ve probably been the worst hit from PSR rules. Even Everton and Forest who lost points ultimately survived relegation and got stronger the following season. 
Ironically the season we would have lost points we didn’t get into Europe anyway.

 

 

 

Irrelevant for me, we won a cup that season.

[Interpolic]

Other context to consider is that the deck is still massively stacked in the favour of six clubs, which was evident in the summer when player after player chose them over us when we'd just won a cup and qualified for CL. Yet finishing above some of those clubs is seen by some as the bare minimum. 

[Displayname]

22 hours ago, Slim said:

But how does this table look like for the last two and a half seasons? 

There is no question that Eddie's time here overall has been a major success. But I don't think it's unfair to start to question if we are starting to move backwards or that he has taken us as far as he can. 

Personally I believe that he has enough credit in the bank to be given a lot more time unless we are in a relegation battle after the new year. If we are I'm sorry to say that getting in fresh blood should be something to strongly consider. He certainly can afford one mid-table season.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

2 minutes ago, Displayname said:

But how does this table look like for the last two and a half seasons? 

There is no question that Eddie's time here overall has been a major success. But I don't think it's unfair to start to question if we are starting to move backwards or that he has taken us as far as he can. 

Personally I believe that he has enough credit in the bank to be given a lot more time unless we are in a relegation battle after the new year. If we are I'm sorry to say that getting in fresh blood should be something to strongly consider. He certainly can afford one mid-table season.

 

Actually it is

[Displayname]

5 minutes ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

 

Actually it is

Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

[Interpolic]

1 hour ago, Displayname said:

But how does this table look like for the last two and a half seasons? 

 

 

[Rich]

I’ve learned my lesson from last season about questioning Howe, like, but I do understand why people are wavering based upon what we’ve seen this season. There’s so much negative context around why we’re underperforming, though, and you’d still back him to turn it around.

 

The concern is that we don’t have the Tonali and Bruno switch card to play this season, so it’s probably going to take a greater overhaul of the system and approach to get a similar uptick. He won’t shy away from that at all, I don’t think, but we’re quite limited for changes with the current makeup of the squad.

[Andy]

11 minutes ago, Rich said:

I’ve learned my lesson from last season about questioning Howe, like, but I do understand why people are wavering based upon what we’ve seen this season. There’s so much negative context around why we’re underperforming, though, and you’d still back him to turn it around.

 

The concern is that we don’t have the Tonali and Bruno switch card to play this season, so it’s probably going to take a greater overhaul of the system and approach to get a similar uptick. He won’t shy away from that at all, I don’t think, but we’re quite limited for changes with the current makeup of the squad.

 

This is roughly where I'm at with it. We've seen in the past that Eddie is capable of turning things around and because of that it would be madness to just write him off, but it's also fair to point out that this is the most difficult task he's had given how bad the performances have been and how disjointed the squad looks, so I can see why people have their doubts. 

 

Precedent says that sooner or later most managers go stale at clubs and hit a point where they can no longer turn bad spells around, so berating people for being concerned that we may be seeing that happen with Eddie is almost as daft as outright wanting him out. 

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Well kind of. Most managers get sacked, that doesn’t necessarily mean they wouldn’t have turned things around under a more patient owner. 

[Displayname]

51 minutes ago, Rich said:

I’ve learned my lesson from last season about questioning Howe, like, but I do understand why people are wavering based upon what we’ve seen this season. There’s so much negative context around why we’re underperforming, though, and you’d still back him to turn it around.

 

The concern is that we don’t have the Tonali and Bruno switch card to play this season, so it’s probably going to take a greater overhaul of the system and approach to get a similar uptick. He won’t shy away from that at all, I don’t think, but we’re quite limited for changes with the current makeup of the squad.

Which you have to be fair and say is 100% Eddie's squad, which we have spend a lot of money in building.

[JT24]

https://archive.ph/9dCnV
 

The unfortunate kiss of death from Luke Edwards/LFEE. 

[Checko]

Four years of consistent overachieving and a few bad performances and people have their knives out. Tough being a manager. Any team can go through a bad patch. Give it time.

[LiquidAK]

2 hours ago, Interpolic said:

 

 

 

Love how he just outright ignored this given the answer wasn't what he was blatantly hoping for