Eddie Howe

[The College Dropout]

6 minutes ago, KingArthur said:

Most of these are Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea fans.. It is funny to see how they state something like ”this Chelsea teams has is all, they are cooking” or whatever bs, then they get their asses smacked by Sunderland. 
 

Teams outside top6 never get any credit from these clowns. One account said Howe will get us relegated. 

Tacticos are too frequently on overlook the mental side of the game.  And the PFMs get ignored when they talk about it.  The pundits are right when they say Chelsea lack leadership and experience.  

[Menace]

15 minutes ago, The College Dropout said:

Has nowt to do with anything tbf

It absolutely does. Look at the interest and standard of football there. Who's hiring these guys to do data analytics whilst they reside there?

 

They do it for Twitter payouts nothing else

[Holloway]

1 hour ago, The Butcher said:

Interesting take. Our possession play, or lack of, has been mentioned on here plenty. Eddie will have to improve on that if he wants to be World Class.

Immediate reaction to this was Brian Clough. Followed by Mr Logic.

[KingArthur]

12 minutes ago, The College Dropout said:

It’s not true though. 
 

A team or player can ride a crest of a wave for an entire season or more.  
 

Overachieving Xg isn’t luck either.  Players like Son regularly over achieve Xg because they are elite finishers. And a team can over achieve Xg for a season or longer due to team spirit, belief, confidence, determination etc.  a David Moyes team might have comparable Xgc stats to a Marco Silva team but the Moyes team will get more clean sheets when that’s the case 9 times out of 10.  That’s not luck. 
 

We’ve become a weak side that under performs Xg in both directions.  It’s not bad luck. We’ve rarely had our defensive leaders fit together in Trippier, Burn, Schar and Pope (can include Joelinton too) and we lost a clinical striker in Isak.  The players that have replaced them might not be technically or physically inferior but they are inferior mentally which means we lose in the tight margins. 

It can go on for a maybe a season or half, but eventually if you dont create, toi will not score. It really is that simple. 
 

Of course you also count xG against. Many reasons for us this season of course. 

[bobbydazzla]

15 minutes ago, KingArthur said:

It can go on for a maybe a season or half, but eventually if you dont create, toi will not score. It really is that simple. 
 

Of course you also count xG against. Many reasons for us this season of course. 

You only have to create enough chances to score more than the opposition. 
 

And if you’ve got a mean defence and ruthless attack, that means you don’t need to create many chances. 
 

And that can go on for many seasons and lead to much success and trophies.
 

Hence the celebratory terrace chant “one nil, to the Arsenal” in the late 80’s and early 90’s. 
 

Or Mourinho and his treble winning Inter side. Then he took a low xG approach to Real and was successful there. 

 

 

Edited December 28, 2025 by bobbydazzla

[timeEd32]

1 hour ago, The College Dropout said:

I wanted to see us Tonali-lise the squad. Stil have physical monsters but get players technically a level above what we had. Wingers like Mbeumo or Semenyo.  Midfielders like he Ederson or Gallagher. A attacker the profile of Etikite. Let’s see what we look like then.  I think that squad has us in the chase for 4th-5th.  
 

We didn’t do that. We only bought 1 arguable upgrade from 6 signings.  Of course we’ll go backwards. 

What frustrates me with the criticisms of our recruitment or players we wish we had is that in many cases we were linked with them. And they are, with very few exceptions, very good players. Some of those players were seen as incredibly underwhelming to many on here at the time. We, unfortunately, can’t sign everyone usually because of money or sometimes lack of prestige, but time and again Eddie has proven he has an eye for a player (also why I’m willing to give Elanga and Ramsey more time).

 

The best argument against Eddie in terms of player trading is stubbornly holding onto his guys. This is where another voice in the room is needed, but also where maintaining mentality / leadership is often overlooked, so it’s a tricky balance.

[The College Dropout]

1 minute ago, timeEd32 said:

What frustrates me with the criticisms of our recruitment or players we wish we had is that in many cases we were linked with them. And they are, with very few exceptions, very good players. Some of those players were seen as incredibly underwhelming to many on here at the time. We, unfortunately, can’t sign everyone usually because of money or sometimes lack of prestige, but time and again Eddie has proven he has an eye for a player (also why I’m willing to give Elanga and Ramsey more time).

 

The best argument against Eddie in terms of player trading is stubbornly holding onto his guys. This is where another voice in the room is needed, but also where maintaining mentality / leadership is often overlooked, so it’s a tricky balance.

It’s the job of the transfer team to identify players and convince them to come. They kind of failed on both counts. 
 

Eddie shouldn’t have complete control on whether we keep or sell players. I’m not going to criticism him for having power that he shouldn’t. 

[Kid Icarus]

32 minutes ago, BUJ said:

The shit started last 6/8 games of last season. 

I remember us going into the second last game of the season with 2nd place in our hands.

[The Prophet]

We played well away to Arsenal. Raya was MotM.

[Nucasol]

2 hours ago, Lush Vlad said:

There is also a load of pretentious waffle and made up terms in amongst some good points that have been flagged on here for a long while. 

 

Any good points are lost in the word salad and bullshit smoke and mirrors.

[Danh1]

1 minute ago, The Prophet said:

We played well away to Arsenal. Raya was MotM.

Remember we missed some sitters down there 

[Interpolic]

Yeah I'm just not having this about last season. Everton was a bottle-job we somehow survived, Villa away was pretty bad but other than that results/performances after the cup final ranged from OK to very good. Won 6/10 with 1 draw and tore Man Utd, Palace and Leicester to shreds. 

[Displayname]

2 hours ago, The College Dropout said:

This guy is a dickhead.  He quoted his own tweet from March 2024 when we were fighting to finish 7th. 

Where was he March 2025?

 

Howe has his issues and limitations as a manager - sure. But this team isn’t poorly coached. It’s just not very good or optimal for his style. 

But it's his team that he has spent a lot of money on over a long time?

 

I think tactically we certainly don't look like a well coached team atm. Most of the time we look lost when we don't have the energy needed to play with intensity.

[SUPERTOON]

35 minutes ago, The Prophet said:

We played well away to Arsenal. Raya was MotM.

First half we did, second half we fell off, was a bit of a trend last season tbh. 

[PauloGeordio]

4 minutes ago, Displayname said:

But it's his team that he has spent a lot of money on over a long time?

 

I think tactically we certainly don't look like a well coached team atm. Most of the time we look lost when we don't have the energy needed to play with intensity.

Intensity was our identity. Bound to look lost without our identity. Not sure what we are transitioning into. Hope we start to see it sooner rather than later. Plenty of games to go HTL.

[TRon]

1 hour ago, bobbydazzla said:

You only have to create enough chances to score more than the opposition. 
 

And if you’ve got a mean defence and ruthless attack, that means you don’t need to create many chances. 
 

And that can go on for many seasons and lead to much success and trophies.
 

Hence the celebratory terrace chant “one nil, to the Arsenal” in the late 80’s and early 90’s. 
 

Or Mourinho and his treble winning Inter side. Then he took a low xG approach to Real and was successful there. 

 

 

 

 

 

It has definitely worked in the past, but not been so successful in recent times. You really do need a manager with 100% belief in his methods, and really high class forwards for it to come off week in week out. 

[The College Dropout]

35 minutes ago, Displayname said:

But it's his team that he has spent a lot of money on over a long time?

 

I think tactically we certainly don't look like a well coached team atm. Most of the time we look lost when we don't have the energy needed to play with intensity.

Didn’t sign anyone of note for a year and then spent £200m without a DOF or a proper transfer committee so that was largely wasted. 
 

Howe has made mistakes aye. But this isn’t a situation where we could go and grab another manager and surge up the table. The team is within 3 points of where it should be. It’s not bad coaching that is the root cause of the performances.  

[Lucky]

Think it’s fair to say that Eddie Howe is far superior to a vast majority of our recent managers with the exception of Rafa. We took to him as well.

 

But that doesn’t make him elite. Doesn’t mean he’s going to take us to the level we all crave.

 

It’s not a knock on the manager, he’s done wonderful things for this club and will forever be thought well of here regardless of what happens this season.

 

My point always has been that football is a fickle game at times and if someone else were to come in and kick us on to that next level, the current debate will soon seem like a distant memory.

 

The club should always come before any individual.

[Vinny Green Balls]

7 hours ago, The Prophet said:

 

There has been...

 

Reasonable criticism of Howe

Unreasonable criticism of Howe

Those who want Howe to be sacked 

Those who have become entitled or spoilt 

Those who love to moan, all of the time, regardless of circumstance

 

The dissent has varied quite widely. I'm not sure why you've grouped it all together to turn yourself into some kind of e-martyr.

the self martyrdom of some people online is so fucking ridiculous.  

[bobbydazzla]

12 minutes ago, TRon said:

 

 

It has definitely worked in the past, but not been so successful in recent times. You really do need a manager with 100% belief in his methods, and really high class forwards for it to come off week in week out. 

With the way long throws and set piece routines have risen like an unwanted phoenix from the flames, there’s a strong possibility that we see teams reverting to the way George Graham and Mourinho approached games. 

[Vinny Green Balls]

52 minutes ago, Interpolic said:

Yeah I'm just not having this about last season. Everton was a bottle-job we somehow survived, Villa away was pretty bad but other than that results/performances after the cup final ranged from OK to very good. Won 6/10 with 1 draw and tore Man Utd, Palace and Leicester to shreds. 

yeah it's this weird rewriting of history by a fair few. And when you bring it up, there's a constant changing of the goalposts. 

[timeEd32]

 

Sometimes we struggle to create much of anything but we also fail convert time and again. Our season depends on Wissa IMO.

[The College Dropout]

17 minutes ago, timeEd32 said:

 

Sometimes we struggle to create much of anything but we also fail convert time and again. Our season depends on Wissa IMO.

We also need to start Barnes more.  Barnes and Wissa are the best finishers and players around the box at the club.  
Wolte is still learning to be a 9 and Gordon isn’t a great finisher 

[bobbydazzla]

28 minutes ago, timeEd32 said:

 

Sometimes we struggle to create much of anything but we also fail convert time and again. Our season depends on Wissa IMO.

What if you mainly score or concede small chances ? 
 

And why have they excluded the bottom 3 clubs from the analysis ? Those clubs are just as relevant as all the others in the league. West Ham battered us, for example. 

 

 

Edited December 28, 2025 by bobbydazzla

[wong989]

2 hours ago, Vinny Green Balls said:

yeah it's this weird rewriting of history by a fair few. And when you bring it up, there's a constant changing of the goalposts. 

I’m still in the camp of give Howe more time. I do remember those matches though last season and we didn’t tear Leicester to shreds. We forced them into mistakes and scored a good counter goal. Aside from that we looked inept the odd occasion we tried to make something happen. Since Trips isn’t there to make plays on the right we’ve got very little other than goals from pressing. Haven’t added the creativity we needed. And now we aren’t or can’t press.