Eddie Howe

[The College Dropout]

1 minute ago, Yorkie said:

Explain.

What do you mean by a return?

 

I don't think any of them are meant to be demonstrably better than we have. Coming into the summer, I thought we needed two purples. ANY position, we could do with 2 signing what we expect to be top quality players ala Isak, Tonali. For whatever reason we didn't get close. We also didn't sign anyone with the potential to go up 2 or 3 levels by getting them in early ala Tino or Hall. Everyone we signed - at the time - with the exception of Elanga (funny) - looked like they would be rotation options.

[Yorkie]

Just now, The College Dropout said:

What do you mean by a return?

 

They perform well for us and/or they will provide an acceptable financial return. 

[Ellis H]

5 minutes ago, Sir Joel Inton said:

Those two reasons are given nearly every transfer window.

 

I find it staggering beyond belief that there isn’t a player in the world who would be an improvement on the real potential of one injury, rest or suspension meaning we are playing Dan Burn at LB.

 

If we can’t find that player, or group of players, our scouting system needs a complete overhaul to say the least.

 

The reality is that Howe thinks Burn can fulfil that position, which is despite repeated evidence to the contrary.

 

He said "we can't sign players who don't exist" in the press conference which says a lot.

[The College Dropout]

10 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

 

They perform well for us and/or they will provide an acceptable financial return. 

The second part was always sketchy. Nearly everyone we signed is at close to their peak value. The first part is always a massive risk.

[kingxlnc]

1 hour ago, Sir Joel Inton said:

Those two reasons are given nearly every transfer window.

 

I find it staggering beyond belief that there isn’t a player in the world who would be an improvement on the real potential of one injury, rest or suspension meaning we are playing Dan Burn at LB.

 

If we can’t find that player, or group of players, our scouting system needs a complete overhaul to say the least.

 

The reality is that Howe thinks Burn can fulfil that position, which is despite repeated evidence to the contrary.

Even the player Forest signed, Netz from Germany cost like 2.4m. LB. Decent - 100 appearances + at aged 22. Perfect category for Howe to improve and can give Hall a rest. 

Surely Wilson would have known about him - he only just came from Forest

[timeEd32]

This is probably a highly underappreciated factor in everything that went on in the summer:
 

Quote

'In the summer, we didn’t have a sporting director, which massively impacted our way of working in terms of dealing with agents and dealing with that situation,’ said Howe on Tuesday when pressed about echoes of Tonali and Isak. ’We were in a more vulnerable position than we are now. Ross has filled that position and is showing really good leadership, dealing with transfers and all the things that entails. We’re in a stronger position now to navigate those waters in a much calmer, clearer way.’

 

You could blame Eddie for that if you want to, but I'm not buying that. That's on PIF and Eales for making a number of missteps in the aftermath of Ashworth leaving. 

[Pata]

On 02/02/2026 at 16:13, Froggy said:

 

And you can't claim players like Chris Wood weren't flops/mistakes because you managed to recoup OK money for them. 

 

I know it's impossible for a Man Utd fan to understand the position we were in when we signed Chris Wood. He was garbage but not a flop IMO.

[Pata]

12 hours ago, Jewel said:

 Most of that net positive is thanks to our owners buying their unwanted shite. I know it's been talked about to death, but I will never not find that annoying tbh.

 

And it's a loophole we are not allowed to use due to the related party bullshit. 

[Froggy]

17 minutes ago, Pata said:

I know it's impossible for a Man Utd fan to understand the position we were in when we signed Chris Wood. He was garbage but not a flop IMO.

 

Read that again Pata.

 

I understand the logic behind signing a player from what you expected to be a relegation rival, but he was still expensive and rubbish. If we can't label that a flop then it's a serious relocation of the goalposts. 

 

The fact you ended up nowhere near relegation was nothing to do with Chris Wood. Jonjo Shelvey probably had more of an impact. 

 

 

 

Edited February 3 by Froggy

[Pata]

10 hours ago, Froggy said:

 

Read that again Pata.

 

I understand the logic behind signing a player from what you expected to be a relegation rival, but he was still expensive and rubbish. If we can't label that a flip then it's a serious relocation of the goalposts. 

 

The fact you ended up nowhere near relegation was nothing to do with Chris Wood. Jonjo Shelvey probably had more of an impact. 

 

 

Flip is exactly what we can label him. He was a focal point in the attack and did his job and we got most of the money back. We were desperate for a striker after Wilson got injured and as a plus were able to weaken a direct rival for relegation.

 

I was shocked how bad he was at things I thought he would be at least decent at but still refuse to call him a flop due to the circumstances and getting so much of the fee back from Forest.

 

 

Edited February 4 by Pata

[LiquidAK]

Nah you're way off base there Froglet. Prior to signing Wood we were struggling along trying to play ASM upfront from what I remember, a square peg in a round hole if ever there was one. We just needed an actual striker upfront, didn't have to be prolific or anything, but someone who naturally knew what positions to take up.

 

I'm a paid up member of the "Chris Wood got way too much hate" club but even putting that aside, we looked so much more coherent as a side once we had an actual forward playing up top. Never the long-term answer, and the side quickly progressed beyond him, but for what we needed during that first half a season he was great.

 

Came in, did a job, improved the side in the very short term and we got a lot of the money back. Worth every penny tbh.

[Vinny Green Balls]

12 minutes ago, LiquidAK said:

Nah you're way off base there Froglet. Prior to signing Wood we were struggling along trying to play ASM upfront from what I remember, a square peg in a round hole if ever there was one. We just needed an actual striker upfront, didn't have to be prolific or anything, but someone who naturally knew what positions to take up.

 

I'm a paid up member of the "Chris Wood got way too much hate" club but even putting that aside, we looked so much more coherent as a side once we had an actual forward playing up top. Never the long-term answer, and the side quickly progressed beyond him, but for what we needed during that first half a season he was great.

 

Came in, did a job, improved the side in the very short term and we got a lot of the money back. Worth every penny tbh.

Kept us afloat while Wilson was out, and played his part in keeping us up, despite not finding the net much. not exactly the best example of a signing gone wrong.

 

 

Edited February 3 by Vinny Green Balls

[Conjo]

While he "did a job", he did score quite regularly for Burnley, practically stopped scoring for us, then started scoring again as soon as he left us. Wouldn't that be the definition of flopping? 

[TheBrownBottle]

1 hour ago, timeEd32 said:

This is probably a highly underappreciated factor in everything that went on in the summer:
 

 

You could blame Eddie for that if you want to, but I'm not buying that. That's on PIF and Eales for making a number of missteps in the aftermath of Ashworth leaving. 

No, I think that’s completely appreciated.  The club has a skeleton executive and an absentee ownership.  That doesn’t mean that a PL manager wouldn’t understand what a player is worth or how they should be scouted.  Howe isn’t there just to put the cones out. 
 

I also highly doubt that those who think Howe is completely clean on the summer would be saying that if the signings had worked.  Or maybe they’d be on here saying ‘I know Elanga is ripping the league up, but that’s nothing to do with Howe signing him’.  

[Interpolic]

Wood had scored double figures in all 4 full PL seasons he'd had prior to us signing him, made perfect sense as a signing to get us out of relegation trouble and then be a rotation player. I expected him to score more goals but he seemed overwhelmed by the size of the club. 

 

I never expect us to have a 100% hit rate with signings like Man Utd do, the best I can hope is we look to them for inspiration and dig in and try our best. 

[timeEd32]

8 minutes ago, TheBrownBottle said:

No, I think that’s completely appreciated.  The club has a skeleton executive and an absentee ownership.  That doesn’t mean that a PL manager wouldn’t understand what a player is worth or how they should be scouted.  Howe isn’t there just to put the cones out. 
 

I also highly doubt that those who think Howe is completely clean on the summer would be saying that if the signings had worked.  Or maybe they’d be on here saying ‘I know Elanga is ripping the league up, but that’s nothing to do with Howe signing him’.  

 

That's not what I meant. I'm not saying that if Elanga is terrible it's not Eddie's fault because we didn't have a DoF.

 

But read that quote and then imagine the roles we had various people scrambling to fill. People negotiating with slimy agents with minimal experience. The whole thing was likely a gigantic clusterfuck behind the scenes and who knows what turns out different if it's not. Different could mean many things - different players, same players for different money, same players but sooner, literally anything going better with Isak, etc.

[Erikse]

37 minutes ago, Interpolic said:

Wood had scored double figures in all 4 full PL seasons he'd had prior to us signing him, made perfect sense as a signing to get us out of relegation trouble and then be a rotation player. I expected him to score more goals but he seemed overwhelmed by the size of the club. 

 

I never expect us to have a 100% hit rate with signings like Man Utd do, the best I can hope is we look to them for inspiration and dig in and try our best. 

 

I think he was low on confidence at the time. 3 goals for Burnley for the first half of that season.

[Froggy]

A striker signed for £25m scores 1 goal every 8 games but is somehow not a flop despite scoring double figures literally every season for other clubs for a over a decade. 

 

The double standards are beyond ludicrous IMO. 

[Froggy]

1 hour ago, LiquidAK said:

Came in, did a job, improved the side in the very short term and we got a lot of the money back. Worth every penny tbh.

 

You lost £10m on him in 18 months after he scored 5 goals in 40 appearances. 

 

Again, double standards. 

[janpawel]

8 minutes ago, Froggy said:

 

You lost £10m on him in 18 months after he scored 5 goals in 40 appearances. 

 

Again, double standards. 

 

Did we buy him for 25 and sell for 15?

 

Can't quite remember but that's pretty much breaking even if he was on a 5 year contract 

[LiquidAK]

5 minutes ago, Froggy said:

 

You lost £10m on him in 18 months after he scored 5 goals in 40 appearances. 

 

Again, double standards. 

We paid £10m to plug a gaping hole in our side and probably recouped that and then some solely through improved league positions.

 

I haven't even read whatever point I'm guessing you've been making about your club's transfers, I'm talking solely about one transfer made by my club and the impact I saw it make with my own eyes as I watched every game that season, both before and after he joined.

 

Presumably you think it's double standards because I'm comparing it differently to Man Utd's transfers, but hun, I haven't even gone back a page, I could not care less about how creepy uncle Jim chooses to spend his money 

[Froggy]

1 minute ago, janpawel said:

 

Did we buy him for 25 and sell for 15?

 

Can't quite remember but that's pretty much breaking even if he was on a 5 year contract 

 

That's what the reports say. 

 

Take Hojlund for example. He scored 1 every 3-4 games for us. He won two trophies. We'll be recouping ~65% of what we paid. 

 

Newcastle Online verdict: Flop

 

Chris Wood. 1 goal every 8. Sold for 60% of what was paid. 

 

Newcastle Online verdict: Well he took up good positions despite being absolutely garbage, therefore, not a flop. 

[Froggy]

1 minute ago, LiquidAK said:

Presumably you think it's double standards

 

I don't think. it is shocking double standards. 

[Froggy]

But anyway, enough of this. Wrong thread. 

 

Howe is a great manager.

[LiquidAK]

1 minute ago, Froggy said:

 

I don't think. it is shocking double standards. 

Classic tadpole to avoid the points he can't argue against and try to poke and prod. You used to be better at this, it's like watching Tripps these days