Eddie Howe

[Stuy_O]

7 hours ago, TRC said:

I just don’t see how next season is any better, we aren’t signing another striker unless we somehow get our money back for one of the ones we signed. We have no goals or creativity in midfield apart from a guy doing the job of 3 people.

 

We have 4 wingers all right footed, one is a confidence player who was surplus to requirements for years. One thinks he is way better than he is, one is a pace merchant, Harvey is cool though.

 

We need 2 fullbacks and a cb and a GK. We will lost most of the leadership in the team too.

 

To fund this we will need to sell Tino or Tonali who will also then need replacing.

 

Ross Wilson has huge pressure and I doubt he can deliver, which just leaves Howe up shit creek.

 

When you flesh out the work needed on the squad it really does, ins and outs, it's a big concern. How many windows excluding the last one have we been inactive? Its showing. 

[The Prophet]

4 minutes ago, TRon said:

 

There were figures of a net spend of £430m+ since Howe's been here. I get that we were a long way behind other clubs like Villa who have a net spend of something like £20m or less in that time but the point is, he HAS been supported. Perhaps you could argue he didn't have much expert help, but then if you are going to use the historical squad value as a comparison then look at what we had in place of a CEO back then as a counterpoint. Lee Charnley. 

 

It's a bit misleading in that it ignore the starting base of the squad, along with inflation.

 

For example, we have the 7th highest squad cost in the league and 8th biggest wage bill.

 

He's had a fair amount to spend, but until we're able to increase that wage bill, we'll always have a ceiling.

[Coffee_Johnny]

19 hours ago, Heron said:

Ner I still believe what I was saying about Keegan. I adore the bloke too and he is truly iconic for us. He's probably done more for the club than Howe overall. But Howe winning Newcastle a cup will mean he surpasses Keegan as (potentially) our greatest ever manager for many, certainly outside of the NUFC fanbase.

I will always love Keegan. That is the feeling I have for him. From meeting him at a school football tournament in Hamburg and him sparing the time and giving our team a guided tour, to him again giving this time to come over to chat to me after a five aside at Gateshead Stadium, to him signing for us and seeing his first game, through the shock of him coming back as manager, through all of the joy and heart ache that followed, to me giving up on NUFC when they fucked him over. I love the man. 
You are right though, H. He was backed in a way Howe could never be. Also, when comparing their records here (which I am prone to do), we have to hold in mind that Keegan started the Premiership years with his team; a bloody good one who had accumulated 96 points and then achieved, what is still, the joint best ever first Premier ship/League season; finishing third with 1.83 ppg. 

Howe picked up a team who were nailed on for relegation, 11 points and 0 wins from 19 games. I still think that the second half of that season competes with cup win or consistency of performance, as his greatest achievement here. Metaphorically, he has proved he can make a silk purse from a sow’s ear. He can’t be expected to get a quart from a pint pot. In that we just don’t have the squad to play the amount of games we have. Either in terms of numbers or quality.
Trying to embed five signings pretty much all of them some way down the list of preferred signings would be a magic trick too far. I defy anyone to confidently believe (realise we can’t set up an experiment here…) that any other manager could have done better. Including Keegan. 

 

 

Edited February 9 by Coffee_Johnny

[Yorkie]

1 minute ago, The Prophet said:

 

It's a bit misleading in that it ignore the starting base of the squad, along with inflation.

 

For example, we have the 7th highest squad cost in the league and 8th biggest wage bill.

 

He's had a fair amount to spend, but until we're able to increase that wage bill, we'll always have a ceiling.

 

It also ignores the market we're forced to operate in. Obviously they're miles apart - but let's say we had the same net spend as Liverpool - we don't have access to the same players they do. That doesn't absolve us of recruitment mistakes outright, but it provides that additional context in demonstrating the challenge we have in catching up to these teams.

[Displayname]

Weird to suddenly see so much talk on sacking him at the end of the season or before. 

I'm still of the opinion that he should get another, what we are seeing unfold now was always "inevitable" when we went for all 4 competitions. 

Really liked his last presser. Getting a bit of a humbling to reflect on his mistakes is exactly what he needs. It's a common view of workaholics to expect the same kind of effort from those around him, I just hope that this time he will have learned that he can't push his players so far, it's not going to end good. 

 

 

He is a brilliant manager at his best and I think he will be among the elite ones if he can learn to be more flexible, less stubborn and more understanding of the need to rest(both him and the players).

[Groundhog63]

I find it bizarre that Howe's tenure is in any doubt, in all honesty. Yeah, you can criticise some of his decisions but, fuck me, he's put everything into it and totally turned it around. If anything he's done too well, too quickly.

 

For my part I think the people who want him gone, period, are just fucking thick 

 

The worse ones, tho, are the ones who give him until the end of the season. As I that's some magnanimous gesture of thanks, on their part, for all he's done. Fuck right off with that fake shite 😂

 

 

Edited February 9 by Groundhog63

[TheBrownBottle]

44 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

 

I would argue the complete opposite tbh.

 

By converting chances you take the pressure off the defensive aspect of things and probably don't shit the bed quite so much in the final stages. 23/24 is a good example of this; there's six games where we scored three without reply. Several more where we scored a hatful but conceded once, twice, three times without it affecting the result.

 

Everything bad about our play this season can be traced back to not putting our chances away imo. Do that and you take the pressure off the defence, build momentum and confidence, and probably start to play better football on the whole.

 

People will gladly lump all of our summer signings into the shitpile, but if just one of the strikers worked out, we're looking at a very different season altogether imo.

Absolutely - the lack of real goal threat has the additional impact of putting pressure on the midfield and defence

[Izakaya]

29 minutes ago, Groundhog63 said:

I find it bizarre that Howe's tenure is in any doubt, in all honesty. Yeah, you can criticise some of his decisions but, fuck me, he's put everything into it and totally turned it around. If anything he's done too well, too quickly.

 

For my part I think the people who want him gone, period, are just fucking thick 

 

The worse ones, tho, are the ones who give him until the end of the season. As I that's some magnanimous gesture of thanks, on their part, for all he's done. Fuck right off with that fake shite 😂

 

 

 

None so blind as those who refuse to see. 

[Gallowgate Toon]

6 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

 

I would argue the complete opposite tbh.

 

By converting chances you take the pressure off the defensive aspect of things and probably don't shit the bed quite so much in the final stages. 23/24 is a good example of this; there's six games where we scored three without reply. Several more where we scored a hatful but conceded once, twice, three times without it affecting the result.

 

Everything bad about our play this season can be traced back to not putting our chances away imo. Do that and you take the pressure off the defence, build momentum and confidence, and probably start to play better football on the whole.

 

People will gladly lump all of our summer signings into the shitpile, but if just one of the strikers worked out, we're looking at a very different season altogether imo.

Agree with this overall but that's too much pressure on just the striker working out, ultimately Big Nick is a few goals off where I expected him to be at this stage of the campaign - a league return of 10 at this stage would've been seen as quite good imo. The entire forward line other than Barnes have been poor/very poor/pathetic in the final third (even Barnes has underperformed his xg (greatest apologies to all reading)). 

 

Midfield haven't been much better with Bruno doing an incredible amount of heavy lifting in terms of output.

 

There will be a combination of factors (tactical, psychological etc.) but:

 

- Murphy - 2 goals

- Gordon - 3 (2 pens)

- Wissa - 1 goal

- Elanga - 0 goals

- Joelinton - 2 goals

- Tonali - 0 goals

- Ramsey - 0 goals

 

8 Premier Legue goals between 7 players who must have about 120+ combined PL appearances between them this season. Absolutely tragic. 

[Mikky]

28 minutes ago, Groundhog63 said:

I find it bizarre that Howe's tenure is in any doubt, in all honesty. Yeah, you can criticise some of his decisions but, fuck me, he's put everything into it and totally turned it around. If anything he's done too well, too quickly.

 

For my part I think the people who want him gone, period, are just fucking thick 

 

The worse ones, tho, are the ones who give him until the end of the season. As I that's some magnanimous gesture of thanks, on their part, for all he's done. Fuck right off with that fake shite 😂

 

 

 

I honestly think our issues are due to a lack of strategy from top down - I don’t see what it is - to have a PSR summer in 2024 and then one without a CEO and DoF in 2025 is unacceptable, leaving you with a manager who looks mentally and physically shot - we’ve basically lacked any form of strategy for circa 5 windows now - leading to where we are now (player contracts, incomings, outgoings etc)

[The College Dropout]

4 wingers all right footed 

[Groundhog63]

Elanga's just scored with his left? 

[Erikse]

17 minutes ago, Groundhog63 said:

Elanga's just scored with his left? 

 

Antony has also scored some goals with his right. He's one of the most left footed players I have seen. What's your point?

 

 

Edited February 9 by Erikse

[AyeDubbleYoo]

I guess we decided that having Murphy-but-better was preferable to going a completely different direction with a left-footed RW who primarily wants to cut in. 

 

I was surprised but I suppose we had a formula that was working to get us lots of goals and we wanted to mainly continue it. 

 

 

Edited February 9 by AyeDubbleYoo

[Loki679]

3 hours ago, Yorkie said:

 

 this fucking schedule. 

 

Wholesale structural changes needed. Thank God we've got approximately five minutes to implement them before the next game.

 

I agree with everything you're saying but it just feels impossible atm. 

 

Aye

 

What we're doing isn't working though so there's little point in persisting with it, hard to imagine worse results if we tried something else.

 

Unfortunately we don't have the luxury of spending weeks or months on the training ground perfectly drilling every aspect and pattern.  In my opinion we'd be better off just getting the basics down and building the plane as we fly, so to speak.  They're professional footballers at the end of the day, it's not like we're asking them to learn a whole new sport.

 

Hell, modify the 5-3-2 we use to have one of the CBs screening the defence as a deep DM and push one of the 3 mids up into the no.10 spot where Woltemade can thrive.  Simplified, obviously, and nobody should probably be taking football or any other kind of advice from me but something like that I'd imagine our lot could adapt to in fairly short order and improve on it as we go. 

 

I trust Howe to be able to come up with something our players could get the hang of without needing months on the training pitch and which would get the best out of them.  I reckon he'll do it too.

[The College Dropout]

54 minutes ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

I guess we decided that having Murphy-but-better was preferable to going a completely different direction with a left-footed RW who primarily wants to cut in. 

 

I was surprised but I suppose we had a formula that was working to get us lots of goals and we wanted to mainly continue it. 

 

 

 

Yes this is the route we went down and Elanga does have a good left foot. 
 

But still it stinks. The balance of the squad is off. 

[SweMag]

1 hour ago, Erikse said:

 

Antony has also scored some goals with his right. He's one of the most left footed players I have seen. What's your point?

 

 

 

He’s right-footed though.

[TRon]

2 hours ago, The Prophet said:

 

It's a bit misleading in that it ignore the starting base of the squad, along with inflation.

 

For example, we have the 7th highest squad cost in the league and 8th biggest wage bill.

 

He's had a fair amount to spend, but until we're able to increase that wage bill, we'll always have a ceiling.

 

But that ceiling has been imposed by the ruling authorities. The point I was making is that he HAS had financial backing as much as the owners were allowed to provide it. Could they have provided a better framework with more expertise at the administrative level. I'm sure they could, but again, we have the same problems in that we are coming from further back ( I mentioned Lee Charneley as an example) and we also are competing for top recruitment talent with clubs with bigger pockets and far more experience and grounding. 

[nufcjb]

Players really need to step up too. As much as I blame Eddie and his coaching team for our dire and predictable tactics and way of playing, some players have really slacked off and played well below their abilities.

 

I don't think it has anything to do with Eddie losing the dressing room or anything like that but rather the players lack of hunger and motivation and perhaps ambitions as well. They are not doing what they can and have done before. Not taking risks, not having shots on goal, not going in for 50-50 challenges, not pressing like they can, these things are players themselves who can make things happen, whatever the tactics and instructions are from the manager, but they simply lacl.the desire to so.

 

 

Edited February 9 by nufcjb

[Whitley mag]

I think he’ll get a reaction from the players against Spurs, hopefully this Brentford result can act as a catalyst.

 

You can’t knock him for the way he’s fronted up after Saturday’s result, but only so many times a manager can talk like that if a reaction doesn’t follow.

 

It’s a results business and it absolutely does count what happens between now and the end of season though. If we crash out of the cup on Saturday and the free fall in the league continues, I think he’d walk in the summer, we wouldn’t need to sack him.

 

He’ll still be backing himself to absolutely turn this around and think he’ll be questioning himself more than anyone if he can’t.

 

 

Edited February 9 by Whitley mag

[GWN]

The Sunderland game looks like it’s his make or break 

[NUFCDoog]

So after all said and done, the Brentford game is going to be our Brentford game moment then

[54]

Howe was asked if there was any doubt in his mind that he was the right man to take the club forward:

"No, there’s no doubt in my mind and that's why I’m sitting here. If there was then I wouldn’t be because the club is the most important thing. I'd never put myself before the club.

"If I didn't think I was the correct man to take the team forward and I could give the players what they need, then I would step aside and let someone else do it."

[Ginola14]

in danger of becoming a victim of his own success 

 

the amount of games we have this season was always going to be unsustainable without greater reinforcements

 

the relentless fixture list is largely thanks to Howe getting us into CL and progressing in domestic cups

 

the only manager I could see maybe doing a better job here is Emery and I believe that ship sailed 

 

he should be able to ride this storm out but the pressure from some quarters is ridiculous 

 

would be nice to see a bit more understanding and appreciation of what he's done for the club 

 

also thanks to Isak for really fucking our momentum from last season

 

 

Edited February 9 by Ginola14

[andycap]

Yeah just keep him as our manager through defeat after defeat until the end of the season. He hasn't got a scooby how to fix it, players aren't playing for him  they seem to have no faith in his ways anymore.

I can see a mass exodus in the summer.

But what do us lot know as where all thick. 😂