Eddie Howe

[J7]

I’m not having this ‘give him to the end of the season’ talk. I personally don’t want him to go now, but you assess as you go along. We can’t just throw away months if something isn’t working. He needs to get a grip and improve things very soon. It feels like a Pardew season at the moment where you wonder how we’ve even got the results we’ve got and we just keep ploughing on regardless.
 

If Hopkinson and Wilson aren’t looking for alternatives yet, they’re not doing their job properly. We don’t want to do a Spurs and just start looking after a sacking or at the end of the season. You don’t know when the suitable candidate becomes available. Eddie has to prove he’s still up to it.

[Weezertron]

Im not a ‘it’s Europe or he’s out’ fan. I would just like our football to be fun to watch again. 
 

I’m not sure how we attack a Jan window in a worse position than we were in the summer window. We’re less attractive. no one sells in January. We need an entirely new list of targets, cause the same list we’ve been working from for the past 4 years is gone. 

 

[Whitley mag]

Give him to the end of the season for me and hopefully we’ll find our next level manager. We were lucky to beat  Wolves and Burnley at home this season the writings on the wall.

 

Someone mentioned Ashworth earlier and it’s spot on the transfer policy went to shit once he left.

[Kanj]

I don't even care about having all this possession like City, i do not care if we play pressing and intense football where we go for leather and put teams out of sight and then play proper defensive shapes and kill games off. I just think there a ton of players who have seriously let the manager down. If you're incapable of keeping the ball in play on a dribble, receiving the ball to lay off, making a run and completing a pass, tracking a man, etc. and you're a professional footballer making a ton of money you can get in the sea, like. 

[huss9]

8 minutes ago, Theregulars said:

Victim of his own success at the moment. 

not really.

that display would have been unacceptable under any manager including Bruce.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

3 minutes ago, J7 said:

I’m not having this ‘give him to the end of the season’ talk. I personally don’t want him to go now, but you assess as you go along. We can’t just throw away months if something isn’t working. He needs to get a grip and improve things very soon. It feels like a Pardew season at the moment where you wonder how we’ve even got the results we’ve got and we just keep ploughing on regardless.
 

If Hopkinson and Wilson aren’t looking for alternatives yet, they’re not doing their job properly. We don’t want to do a Spurs and just start looking after a sacking or at the end of the season. You don’t know when the suitable candidate becomes available. Eddie has to prove he’s still up to it.

If they’re looking at replacements now I want them mentally assessed. Not doing their job FFS. 

[HaydnNUFC]

6 minutes ago, Cf said:

 

- Lack of time on the training pitch. Just a fact of life with this new CL structure but a lot of Howe's ability is maximising what he gets from players in training and he's just not had as much chance of that. 

 

Thing is with this, if he’s unable to manage 3 games a week regularly then he’s not going to be here very long and rightly so tbh. As a club aspiring to challenge the top clubs we can’t afford to keep writing off 1 season in 2 because he can’t cope with it.
 

Villa under Emery managed fine last season with CL football which they were playing until the QF stage in April, should’ve still probably finished ahead of us with those refereeing decisions on the final day coupled with the aids we serve up against Everton and are flying currently playing Thursday/Sunday, the lesser quality of their opponents this season in the EL taken into account obviously.

 

 

Edited December 15, 2025 by HaydnNUFC

[jackflap]

Sorting out the Howe succession is going to be crucial for the club. They can only do it when they have stability and structure behind the scenes which they don't have at the moment. It can't be a knee jerk decision as the odds of getting someone in that could do as good a job is very slim. It will need to be planned with a successor lined up in advance but Howe is such a strong figure at the club that he would surely get wind if they were identifying replacements for him and would most likely walk away rather than risk being undermined. I think it'll be a Klopp like scenario where it's mutual and communicated well ahead of time with Howe even having a role in identifying his successor 

 

Think the season after next will be his last. Think there'll be an acceptance that we're not brushing the gap between the top sides anytime soon and he'll accept he's taken them as far as he can.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

3 minutes ago, Weezertron said:

Im not a ‘it’s Europe or he’s out’ fan. I would just like our football to be fun to watch again. 
 

I’m not sure how we attack a Jan window in a worse position than we were in the summer window. We’re less attractive. no one sells in January. We need an entirely new list of targets, cause the same list we’ve been working from for the past 4 years is gone. 

 

I think most people are the same ultimately, we just want good performances. 
 

I wouldn’t expect much in Jan as you say, hopefully a couple of players in to tip the balance a bit and maybe a sale of some deadwood. 

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Just now, HaydnNUFC said:

Thing is with this, if he’s unable to manage 3 games a week regularly then he’s not going to be here very long and rightly so tbh. As a club aspiring to challenge the top clubs we can’t afford to keep writing off 1 season in 2 because he can’t cope with it.
 

Villa under Emery managed fine last season with CL football, should’ve still probably finished ahead of us with those refereeing decisions on the final day coupled with the aids we serve up against Everton and are flying currently playing Thursday/Sunday, the lesser quality of their opponents this season in the EL taken into account obviously.

But don’t you think it’s the squad that struggle with the extra games too? Like, if you gave Howe Man City’s squad I’m sure he could handle any number of games you want.  

[Yorkie]

6 minutes ago, HaydnNUFC said:

Thing is with this, if he’s unable to manage 3 games a week regularly then he’s not going to be here very long and rightly so tbh. As a club aspiring to challenge the top clubs we can’t afford to keep writing off 1 season in 2 because he can’t cope with it.
 

Villa under Emery managed fine last season with CL football, should’ve still probably finished ahead of us with those refereeing decisions on the final day coupled with the aids we serve up against Everton and are flying currently playing Thursday/Sunday, the lesser quality of their opponents this season in the EL taken into account obviously.

 

I do agree with this tbh. The fact he can't seem to juggle it - by his own admission in one of the pre-match pressers recently - makes me think the execs would side on this poll's minority. If four competitions is his breaking point then unfortunately the reality is that his ceiling is below where we want to be.

 

The mitigation is in PSR and the inability to shape the squad in the ideal way, but that's never gonna be a reality for us. Maybe he'd get there in time, and I would love to see us go a campaign in the Europa League (where our existence wouldn't be defined as something between fodder and also-ran), but that probably won't cut it for Hopkinson et al.

[The College Dropout]

12 minutes ago, KaKa said:

 

Eddie needs to go back to the style of play we originally played under him, with far more energy and intensity.

 

I'm not convinced he is capable of coaching a more possession based style and he hasn't signed enough players capable of playing that way.

 

We have a much better guy in Bunce now that can help tailor training for that style of play so we hopefully don't suffer as much injury wise, and we also have more of a squad to help with that also, and should continue to build up the squad further so it's even stronger.

 

We just sit off teams way too much now and invite them into us and then struggle to play out from the back. He really needs to change things.

Worst of all. I don’t think we even try to play possession based. It’s just a slower version of what we were doing before with the same profile of player.  

[HaydnNUFC]

1 minute ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

But don’t you think it’s the squad that struggle with the extra games too? Like, if you gave Howe Man City’s squad I’m sure he could handle any number of games you want.  

The squad that he’s built? It’s clear imo from the passive and insipid nature of our performances and set ups this season that he hasn’t been able to evolve how we play to cope with 3 games a week. We needed and still need better ability on the ball to help us keep and pass it efficiently, so we don’t exert ourselves physically in every match we play but we revert to a watered down version of what’s worked in the past assumably out of fear of a repeat of the injuries of 2023-24. Which is an absolute dream to play against as we’ve seen.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Just now, Yorkie said:

 

I do agree with this tbh. The fact he can't seem to juggle it - by his own admission in one of the pre-match pressers recently - makes me think the execs would side on this poll's minority. If four competitions his breaking point then unfortunately the reality is that his ceiling is below where we want to be.

 

Maybe he'd get there in time and I would love to see us go a campaign in the Europa League (where our existence wouldn't be defined as something between fodder and also-ran), but that probably won't cut it for Hopkinson et al.

 

But what is it about a manager that would mean they can't handle more games? I mean the manager specifically, rather than the club. 

[El Prontonise]

8 minutes ago, HaydnNUFC said:

Thing is with this, if he’s unable to manage 3 games a week regularly then he’s not going to be here very long and rightly so tbh. As a club aspiring to challenge the top clubs we can’t afford to keep writing off 1 season in 2 because he can’t cope with it.
 

Villa under Emery managed fine last season with CL football which they were playing until the QF stage in April, should’ve still probably finished ahead of us with those refereeing decisions on the final day coupled with the aids we serve up against Everton and are flying currently playing Thursday/Sunday, the lesser quality of their opponents this season in the EL taken into account obviously.

 

 

 

 

Yeap, it's a big flaw on him if he's unable to get a team working when they are playing 3 games a week in terms of being a top top manager.

 

 

Edited December 15, 2025 by El Prontonise

[Andy]

5 minutes ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

If they’re looking at replacements now I want them mentally assessed. Not doing their job FFS. 

 

There should always be a succession plan to be fair, Howe could resign next week for personal reasons or to go to another club (unlikely, but still), it would be amateurish if we didn't have a plan in place at all times for him leaving given how quickly things can change in football. 

[AyeDubbleYoo]

3 minutes ago, HaydnNUFC said:

The squad that he’s built? It’s clear imo from the passive and insipid nature of our performances and set ups this season that he hasn’t been able to evolve how we play to cope with 3 games a week. We needed and still need better ability on the ball to help us keep and pass it efficiently, so we don’t exert ourselves physically in every match we play but we revert to a watered down version of what’s worked in the past assumably out of fear of a repeat of the injuries of 2023-24. Which is an absolute dream to play against as we’ve seen.

 

Yeah of course, but we're not suddenly going to become a squad of 22 class technicians in one transfer window. 

 

I do think we've been quite poor, there's no doubting that. But it's like people are saying playing more and harder games is meant to be easy with basically the same players. After losing your only world class forward. 

 

I think it's possible we've rated ourselves a bit too highly and thought we can get by a bit too much by lowering the intensity. Maybe we just have a squad where the only way to play is to run ourselves into the ground and outwork everybody. If so then Howe will need to go back to that, at least for a while. 

 

 

Edited December 15, 2025 by AyeDubbleYoo

[AyeDubbleYoo]

1 minute ago, Andy said:

 

There should always be a succession plan to be fair, Howe could resign next week for personal reasons or to go to another club (unlikely, but still), it would be amateurish if we didn't have a plan in place at all times for him leaving given how quickly things can change in football. 

 

Sure, fine, but that's not really 'looking at alternatives'. That's more like just having an eye on managers you could go to if you had to. 

[Wallsendmag]

6 minutes ago, J7 said:

I’m not having this ‘give him to the end of the season’ talk. I personally don’t want him to go now, but you assess as you go along. We can’t just throw away months if something isn’t working. He needs to get a grip and improve things very soon. It feels like a Pardew season at the moment where you wonder how we’ve even got the results we’ve got and we just keep ploughing on regardless.
 

If Hopkinson and Wilson aren’t looking for alternatives yet, they’re not doing their job properly. We don’t want to do a Spurs and just start looking after a sacking or at the end of the season. You don’t know when the suitable candidate becomes available. Eddie has to prove he’s still up to it.

 

Another thing is that this season they've asked us supporters to pay through the nose for tickets. £58-£97 for standard tickets for the majority of games so far this season. ST holders paying well over £750 to sit behind the goals, nearly a grand in the East Stand and Milburn Paddocks. Well over a grand for a seat behind the Paddocks.

 

When you're asking people to stump up ridiculous money for tickets you can't just go writing off seasons. You need to be able to justify why you are charging people these crazy prices to watch your product. Football stopped being merely a sport a long time ago, and became very much a business. The money men did that. Their "customers" won't blindly fork out silly money week in week out to watch drivel. There's more pressure than ever to deliver on the pitch. That's on the club. 

 

If this time next month we're still in the bottom half and out of both Cups the club need to be proactive. In this day and age there isn't the time just to keep kicking the can down the road.

[HaydnNUFC]

Just now, AyeDubbleYoo said:

 

Yeah of course, but we're not suddenly going to become a squad of 22 class technicians in one transfer window. 

 

I do think we've been quite poor, there's no doubting that. But it's like people are saying playing more and harder games is meant to be easy with basically the same players. After losing your only world class forward. 

No one was expecting that in one window. Even just the addition of 2 players good technically at RW and at CM would’ve done wonders but he’s chosen not to go for that. Why that is is anyone’s guess, he had the funds to do it and it wasn’t dependent on the Isak saga.

 

And I don’t get what you mean by this. We needed upgrades on what we had and only Thiaw has been that so far. We’ve seen little of Ramsey but Willock gets the nod ahead of him. I’ve been astounded at how bad Elanga has been. We aren’t set up to get the best out of Woltemade and we sorely lack technicians throughout the team. It honestly feels like we only have 3 or 4 in the whole squad.

[Kid Icarus]

29 minutes ago, Dokko said:

 

Credit in the bank applies to him staying though, not his legacy. 

 

and him staying applies to the incredible legacy he's had right up until now, if it didn't he wouldn't still be here. 

 

The expectation from some seems to be that if he drops below the incredible standards that he's set for the best part of 4 years for a 4 month period then no ifs, buts or maybes, there's a question mark over his head. I don't think that's a misrepresentation either and as someone said earlier that's about as clear cut an example of being a victim of your own success as it gets. 

[HayDen Traces]

I love Eddie, but he's under pressure now (not because of yesterdays result), because this season has been awful. The wins (when they've fleetingly come) have been the exception to the rule.

 

Gone are the patterns of play we had a couple of seasons ago. Gone is the intensity.

 

Is this symptomatic of what happens to an Eddie team (i.e. they burn out physically after 2/3 seasons)? This might be part of it, but some questionable recruitment added to some hopeless football played this season makes you wonder what's going on.

[Groundhog63]

16 minutes ago, huss9 said:

not really.

that display would have been unacceptable under any manager including Bruce.

 

Luckily Howe has got a bit more in the bank than Bruce otherwise you'd have ungrateful cunts calling for his head 😉

[J7]

17 minutes ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

If they’re looking at replacements now I want them mentally assessed. Not doing their job FFS. 

It’s literally their job, at all times. The good and the bad.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

We honestly wouldn't even be talking about this if we'd drawn 0-0 yesterday like we should have. 

 

Obviously we'd still be unhappy with the season but it wouldn't have anywhere near the level of intensity. 

 

Even if we'd won in Germany, you could at least say that Howe prioritised that game and it was arguably the right call. But sadly both went against us.