Eddie Howe

[Vinny Green Balls]

Come on. Leverkusen are a good side. Maybe not in the best form, but they are good. Are we just going to to downplay every decent result now? 
 

yes our holding onto leads has not been good enough at all, but there is a bit of hyperbole going on.

[Vinny Green Balls]

Right after another blown lead mind you, so there is some justification for hyperbole.

[Theregulars]

Just now, r0cafella said:

Pissing away points at the last minute is unacceptable. I mean once or twice you accept it, it happens but with the alarming regularity we've been doing it isn't acceptable imo. 

 

Obviously it's a few factors, lack of concentration is pretty high, I think we have to make subs earlier and use our squad. Also what happened to our street smarts? We'd have pope going down every game 18 months ago so we can organise that's gone now. 

 

Fwiw Bayer played well but they are nothing special imo. It's a decent point but nothing more. 

The bit that stands out for me here is street smarts, we’ve definitely lost that knack of shithousing leads home this season. Wonder whether it’s because Schär hasn’t been playing much. Just some snide fouls, time wasting, winding the opposition up, tactical subs like we used to. 
 

I think you’re underrating Leverkusen, that was a good football team we just played. Some of their movement tore us up (bodes ill for PSG). 
 

Still think unacceptable is too strong im afraid. Think it’s more plausible to accept that your team is going to have flaws; provided they work hard and take action to address them that’s all I can ask. I think the late goals in Brentford and West Ham games aren’t really the same thing as conceding an equaliser or single losing goal late on, as you’re chasing the game. So actually it’s happened 5/6 times, which is still too many. There are some games where we did hang on as well, albeit fewer of them. 

[SteV]

33 minutes ago, Danh1 said:

This isn’t luck. And it isn’t going to stop without action.

 

 Very concerning. 

Clearly, it needs rectifying asap, but in the long run, it’s far easier to stop conceding late goals, than it is to continue to score them, so you’re probably closer to being a good team in this scenario, than if you’re constantly pulling it out the fire late on.

 

Granted, shortly after having conceded late again probably isn’t the best time to argue this.

 

 

Edited December 10, 2025 by SteV

[Vinny Green Balls]

3 minutes ago, SteV said:

Clearly, it needs rectifying asap, but in the long run, it’s far easier to stop conceding late goals, than it is to continue to score them, so you’re probably closer to being a good team in this scenario, than if you’re constantly pulling it out the fire late on.

 

Granted, shortly after having conceded late again probably isn’t the best time to argue this.

 

 

 

Good point overall. Apart from Marseille, we have been in winning positions late in the game recently. Is it great? Obviously not. But that’s  a lot less grim than being behind and conceding late, like at Brighton and West Ham. 

[Pata]

1 hour ago, Vinny Green Balls said:

I think some of it is certain football orthodoxy ingrained into them. But on the other hand, some in here would use all the subs at halftime if it hasn’t gone quite right. It takes some nerve to not pull the trigger when you’re down, believing that your game plan may still work.

 

Had a quick peek at HT and most seemed to want to take Gordon off. Howe didn't yet now he's shite at subs. 

[Pata]

1 hour ago, midds said:

Genuinely think his refusal to sub tired players is now costing us points on a regular basis. His lack of intervention in the last 20 minutes was embarrassing, he just stood there and watched us give up the lead yet again, drop points yet again, didn't change formation, refused to sub off players who were obviously wrecked until it was clearly too late. He watched it all happen yet again. 

 

I love the bloke but he's got to take some blame at some point. It's his team 100% and if there's a constant issue then it's his job to fix it, that's why he's there. This issue has been there for months now and he's not even close to fixing it. He can't play the games himself but he's the one at the top of the tree and he needs to do a 180 on the mentality of his squad. Repeating the same mistakes game after game is going to get embarrassing, if it's not already. Thought Howe was shocking tonight

 

This just isn't true. We scored the 2-1 goal at 74', Thiaw almost scored at 81', Murphy came on at 78' and hits the post at 82'. We were having a really good spell, why would he need to make an intervention to stop that?

[Dyeyzzon]

Miley off for Joelinton would have been a game-winning move - it's exactly the kind of run we needed from the middle.

The Wissa/Murphy/Ramsay subs would have been the fresh legs needed had it been done earlier. Though I understand that the team had good chances for a third and he probably did not want to disrupt that momentum in the hope that we get it.

[TheBrownBottle]

3 hours ago, Jamesmcc222 said:

Respectfully I think that’s a bit over the top. It’s frustrating but we just drew in Germany. That’s crazy based on 5 years ago 

It’s crazy if we’d been operating within Ashley’s NUFC for five years.  We’re not. 

[Menace]

I mean they beat Man City 2 weeks ago

[PauloGeordio]

The woodwork. Small margins. Role on Sunday. Wissa time (hopefully).

[SUPERTOON]

The frustrating thing is Howe coming out each time and saying we need to learn from it, only for it to then happen again.

[Sibierski]

Across this run, it’s a good set of results on paper. But across the games, there are glaring issues (repeated) that are looking like no sign of changing, and with games every 3 days up to like mid Feb (if we beat Fulham in League Cup), it’s something that’s not going to be sustainable and the results will revert back to defeats.

 

Just don't know what to make of it anymore. Everyone is pinning their hopes on Wissa and I’ve been of the stance that people are kidding themselves if they think he’s going to be a magic formula. 
 

It’s not even just this season, last season similar issues were there which we are seeing here. Us being ruthless against like the bottom 6 which I’m sure was like 12 wins was what saved our domestic season. We can turn it on for a big game, but our consistency across the rest is worryingly lacking. 

[Sibierski]

7 hours ago, Jamesmcc222 said:

Respectfully I think that’s a bit over the top. It’s frustrating but we just drew in Germany. That’s crazy based on 5 years ago 

But we have spent like £600m+ since then, and Leverkusen have blown up their squad where they have jokers like Flekken in their XI. 
 

Eventually we need to shift our mentality away from plucky underdogs, because for the sums we’re spending, we’re not that now in 95% + of the games. 

[SteV]

28 minutes ago, Sibierski said:

But we have spent like £600m+ since then, and Leverkusen have blown up their squad where they have jokers like Flekken in their XI. 
 

Eventually we need to shift our mentality away from plucky underdogs, because for the sums we’re spending, we’re not that now in 95% + of the games. 

30% of the league we’re competing in spend just as much if not more.

[SUPERTOON]

Despite the disappointment of the late goals, it’s encouraging to see a big improvement in performances. Win on Sunday and we are really well set.

[r0cafella]

1 hour ago, SUPERTOON said:

The frustrating thing is Howe coming out each time and saying we need to learn from it, only for it to then happen again.

I wouldn't read too much in to Eddie's comments tbh. He will protect the lads and his man management is top notch. 

 

Let's hope we can get through this season and qualify for Europe again. I imagine this summer will be a bit of reset as we have a lot of players ready to collect pensions and I imagine it's the last we see of Sandro and possibly tino. Let's hope we handle this coming summer better than we did the last. 

[Mikky]

1 hour ago, SUPERTOON said:

The frustrating thing is Howe coming out each time and saying we need to learn from it, only for it to then happen again.

The common theme in all of this is we are defending too deep - an extra 10-15 yards upfield and we don’t concede at least half of these goals - every single one of them has been soft 

[r0cafella]

Just now, Mikky said:

The common theme in all of this is we are defending too deep - an extra 10-15 yards upfield and we don’t concede at least half of these goals - every single one of them has been soft 

We need a keeper who can sweep and a left sided centre back who can run to give us the confidence to push up and squeeze teams. 

[TRon]

7 hours ago, Vinny Green Balls said:

Come on. Leverkusen are a good side. Maybe not in the best form, but they are good. Are we just going to to downplay every decent result now? 
 

yes our holding onto leads has not been good enough at all, but there is a bit of hyperbole going on.

 

They are a good side, but that was what was of more concern. They made us look very average in the first half, and we were within a whisker of going 2-0 down with that penalty shout, or getting a man sent off. 

 

I don't know how good they are exactly, but I would imagine our squad was probably put together at a lot more cost than theirs. So that's something to think about. 

[Mikky]

26 minutes ago, r0cafella said:

We need a keeper who can sweep and a left sided centre back who can run to give us the confidence to push up and squeeze teams. 

And why not set up with a 6 in front of the back 4 , then a line of 4 in front - when defending leads - Howe just isn’t learning I’m afraid 

[Dokko]

I'd have a app your hands off for a draw before and at HT. Good point, even with another late concede.

 

Lose to the mackems though and I'm done with him. Time for a change. Hopefully we can scrape a draw. Will need to be 2 up though for that to happen. 

[Vinny Green Balls]

Jesus Christ. This is you every season. You’ve been done with him since 2021.

 

 

Edited December 11, 2025 by Vinny Green Balls

[Gawalls]

1 hour ago, SteV said:

30% of the league we’re competing in spend just as much if not more.

30% still puts us in top third of spenders which still takes us out of the plucky underdogs category.

[Dokko]

9 minutes ago, Vinny Green Balls said:

Jesus Christ. This is you every season. You’ve been done with him since 2021.

 

 

 

 

Imagine setting the bar at not losing to a promoted team after spending 100s of millions. I'm asking a lot I know. So ungrateful.