Eddie Howe

[alexf]

4 hours ago, TheEntertainer said:

Yeah 100% this. 

 

Also in response to some of the rest of the post this was responding to, I don't think anyone thinks Howe is a shite manager, unfortunately in football most managers have a shelf life at a club and results seems to decline despite the fact we can all clearly see the manager is talented and has acheived fantastic things previously. That's my worry, not that Howe's a knacker and should never have been given the job, I'm worried that through burnout, our style of play not working anymore or whatever it is, we've gone as far as we can under Howe. It's a weird thing about football and I think it's maybe because it's so hard to manage people at the very top level for an extended period of time, but managers who are succesful for extended periods of time are the exception not the rule, even Pep's not seemed at his best the last couple of years, he's just lucky to have infinite money to throw at the problem and Mourinho was the best in the world and now he's really not.  

 

I still want him to turn it around as I've said, it currently doesn't feel like he's going to. Doesn't mean he won't, but the worry is he's taken us as far as he can (which has obviously been incredible, but doesn't mean we should now accept that he can do no wrong). 

 

I'm not really sure what micro penises or aura farming have to do with any of it so I'll just skip that bit. 

 

Man I see these talking points brought up all the time. Especially with Howe. "Taken us as far as he can..." I'm pretty sure people were saying the same thing in 23/24 when we were having the same issues and struggling to balance the amount of games. Then in the first half of last season before we went on a run and won a cup and finished top 5. 

 

So here we are again, in a tricky season with an exhausting schedule, injuries to key players and signings not quite telling with the team. 

 

There was a graph to show the average points posted somewhere else and it showed our two stand out seasons under Howe were when we weren't in Europe.

 

It's clear he needs to learn and adapt and get better at managing a team when juggling multiple competitions. The caveat to that is simply the squad isn't strong enough and clearly neither is our academy compared with the established top 6.

 

Mistakes were made in recruitment but there is so much context to be applied that it's hard to hold too much blame when the you review the difficulties we had landing our first choice targets. 

 

Eddie has proven multiple times he can turn around bad form and get us achieving heights I didn't think I'd see again. He's entitled to an average season given the circumstances that have affected it. If this was to be prolonged and deep into next season then maybe a refresh would be beneficial, but I have no doubts we will be better next year, especially when it's likely we will have no Europe.

 

People just need to get used to the fact we will have these up and down seasons when in and out of Europe until we are able to get revenues up and bolster the squad to adequately managed more games. I'd rather stick by Eddie than torch the whole thing due to one average season. 

 

[cubaricho]

1 hour ago, alexf said:

He's entitled to an average season given the circumstances that have affected it.

Absolutely this. 

[r0cafella]

To those who are staunch Eddie stays no matter, aren't you at all concerned by how poor we've been?  What kind of solutions are you expecting in terms of our playing style?

[ffs]

5 hours ago, TheEntertainer said:

Yeah 100% this. 

 

Also in response to some of the rest of the post this was responding to, I don't think anyone thinks Howe is a shite manager, unfortunately in football most managers have a shelf life at a club and results seems to decline despite the fact we can all clearly see the manager is talented and has acheived fantastic things previously. That's my worry, not that Howe's a knacker and should never have been given the job, I'm worried that through burnout, our style of play not working anymore or whatever it is, we've gone as far as we can under Howe. It's a weird thing about football and I think it's maybe because it's so hard to manage people at the very top level for an extended period of time, but managers who are succesful for extended periods of time are the exception not the rule, even Pep's not seemed at his best the last couple of years, he's just lucky to have infinite money to throw at the problem and Mourinho was the best in the world and now he's really not.  

 

I still want him to turn it around as I've said, it currently doesn't feel like he's going to. Doesn't mean he won't, but the worry is he's taken us as far as he can (which has obviously been incredible, but doesn't mean we should now accept that he can do no wrong). 

 

I'm not really sure what micro penises or aura farming have to do with any of it so I'll just skip that bit. 

Yep I was totally wrong on the Emery thing and that was a nice crisp clarification from TRon 🙏

 

Wrt the other stuff, a lot of these bits of conventional wisdom ("most managers have a shelf life", "managers who are successful for extended periods of time are the exception") are self-perpetuating. Yes, almost every club fires a manager if the results and performances are bad enough. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the manager could never have turned things around. It feels like more of a truth about how it feels to be a club owner or director when things aren't going well and you feel tons of pressure and that you have to do *something*. 

 

It's definitely super hard to manage people at the top level for an extended period of time. I couldn't even begin to do it. But there are lots of examples, in football and elsewhere, of great managers being given time to work their way through mistakes, problems, stress, fatigue, and coming out the other side as good or better than they were before. From Alex Ferguson's first three seasons (I know the man u board came very close to the end of their rope) to e.g. Sundar Pichai at Alphabet getting badly blindsided on AI and being given time, space and support to correct that mistake. 

 

Your point that "it currently doesn't feel like he's going to [turn it around]" is exactly right. And it feels fucking *terrible* to watch the team (who in some way are an extension of each of us and part of our own identity and self-worth) not fight, seem clueless, seem tactically naïve, seem tired. It feels awful and that feeling persists. When we're winning and playing well, or even just outshithousing other teams, my whole life is intangibly better in every aspect. When we're limp and losing, and particularly when we lack resilience, can't hold a lead, are jittery and nervous in the late stages of most games, I feel in some way personally diminished by that.

 

But those powerful feelings are sometimes a bad basis for making decisions. Because we just want those feelings to stop, and it almost doesn't matter what happens to make them stop, we just *need* them to stop. And that can push anyone into prioritising that short-term pain relief at the expense of longer-term cool head thinking. Maybe particularly football club directors who are often vain and brittle.

 

So I guess I'm saying that if none of us thinks Howe is, or has become, a shite manager, then we should behave like that and grudgingly accept that this season has felt generally bad (although far from catastrophic, really - and for me a lot of the bad feeling has just been that we've seemed so *weak*, nervy, not up for it) but that we've got lucky with Eddie and given that he's not a shite manager, with time and space he'll figure it out.

 

(Don't worry about the micropenis stuff that's a dogwhistle for the Howe Out Now crowd. If you didn't hear it you're safe 😎)

[Mattoon]

This speaks volumes to me and why the pressure in the media is ramping up: A Man Utd supporting "friend" of mine (I know!) said, it doesn't look good for Howe, I think he'll be gone by the end of the season. To which I staunchly supported him whilst also admitting by his own standards this season wasn't good enough. His first reply was that he would have him at "yanited" in a hot minute. Even other supporters see how good of a manager he is, he is still revered from afar despite this difficult period. 

 

As has already stated, he hasn't gone poor over night, he's not a bad fit for the club or a dud employ, he's got himself stuck in a rut and is struggling to see the forest for the trees. He absolutely has earned the right to put this right, I have the upmost confidence that he can reset and turn this around, maybe not this season but in the long run and I feel like if we jettison him off this one bad season we will regret it and not just in a "be careful what you wish for" kind of way, but when someone else snaps him up and he proves us wrong for letting him go.

 

In a world of instant gratification and the clamour for the next best thing we need to stay rocksteady in our support for a manager that has shown us nothing but respect, commitment and loyalty, he has earned that right with success we could never have imagined 4 short years ago. Yes it's frustrating and emotional going through the motions of turning up for the inevitable and I'm as guilty as anyone else for vocalising the frustration after yet another loss. But let's not be another "City", Chelsea or "United" and buck the trend of the managerial merry-go-round. Howe has earned the right to decide for himself if he has "reached as far as he can go" with us.

[Menace]

29 minutes ago, r0cafella said:

To those who are staunch Eddie stays no matter, aren't you at all concerned by how poor we've been?  What kind of solutions are you expecting in terms of our playing style?

 

My question also. I can see it getting ugly if he does get backed this summer and we start next season bad. Imagine if he loses to Sunderland at home as well, I'd imagine a lot will turn.

[Yorkie]

3 minutes ago, Menace said:

 

My question also. I can see it getting ugly if he does get backed this summer and we start next season bad. Imagine if he loses to Sunderland at home as well, I'd imagine a lot will turn.

 

Some fans can watch a manager go six defeats in a row to the mackems and not consider giving him any stick. It would be absolutely ludicrous if that was the tipping point for anyone, such a relatively short time into a difficult period.

 

36 minutes ago, r0cafella said:

To those who are staunch Eddie stays no matter, aren't you at all concerned by how poor we've been?  What kind of solutions are you expecting in terms of our playing style?

 

For me it's just about faith. I don't have the football brain of some on here to consider what the solution is, I just believe he's got it in his locker to suss. 

[St1pe]

It’s a bit early to get on one but I’ve seen a few clips like this after the Boro game last night. A few Newcastle fans saying we should go and get this guy:

 

We did something similar 3 times at the Etihad but Wissa, Gordon and Willock completely spurned their chances. Get this random guy from Boro though. 

[Zero]

I want him to stay but seriously if he cannot turn this around before the end of the season he will either be sacked or receive no transfer fund this coming summer. No way PIF would double down the gamble after seeing such a trend

[r0cafella]

5 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

 

Some fans can watch a manager go six defeats in a row to the mackems and not consider giving him any stick. It would be absolutely ludicrous if that was the tipping point for anyone, such a relatively short time into a difficult period.

 

 

For me it's just about faith. I don't have the football brain of some on here to consider what the solution is, I just believe he's got it in his locker to suss. 

Yorkie, I respect this answer tremendously. As any sane fan is in immensely grateful for Eddie and what he's done he is a club legend regardless of what transpires in the future I just personally don't have that level of faith in my DNA. 

 

God I hope he proves me wrong. 

[Yorkie]

1 minute ago, r0cafella said:

Yorkie, I respect this answer tremendously. As any sane fan is in immensely grateful for Eddie and what he's done he is a club legend regardless of what transpires in the future I just personally don't have that level of faith in my DNA. 

 

God I hope he proves me wrong. 

 

Fair dos. I'm not gonna be wanky enough to quote my own post from the other day, but the other thing beyond 'evidence-based faith' (keen to make the distinction between that and blind faith), is that I don't believe he's the main reason why we're struggling. I'd put him at like reason 5 or 6.

 

I appreciate that a manager doesn't have to be the principal reason for a slump to justify a change (bad fit, club going in a different direction, whatever), but in this case I do still think he's the right fit. 

 

The other thing is that I love the guy and I like loving the Newcastle manager. This might trigger certain people but, after those 14 years, I've come realise that results aren't necessarily the be-all-end-all for me. Of course there would be a tipping point eventually, but I'm not there yet. 

[r0cafella]

2 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

 

Fair dos. I'm not gonna be wanky enough to quote my own post from the other day, but the other thing beyond 'evidence-based faith' (keen to make the distinction between that and blind faith), is that I don't believe he's the main reason why we're struggling. I'd put him at like reason 5 or 6.

 

I appreciate that a manager doesn't have to be the principal reason for a slump to justify a change (bad fit, club going in a different direction, whatever), but in this case I do still think he's the right fit. 

 

The other thing is that I love the guy and I like loving the Newcastle manager. This might trigger certain people but, after those 14 years, I've come realise that results aren't necessarily the be-all-end-all for me. Of course there would be a tipping point eventually, but I'm not there yet. 

Just to be clear, my blind faith comment was more referring what it would take me to believe  wasn't meant to be a reference to your own faith.

[Optimistic Nut]

I think we muddle through the next month dropping to around 14th. We settle down once the fixtures improve and more gaps between games and finish in and around 9th spot.

 

We should then go and have a strong season next year, and by time he next has to manage a domestic and European campaign, we'll have had 3 more transfer windows. That'll have been 5 full seasons which I think is a more than realistic and decent timespan from us going from the likes of Clark, Hayden & Gayle, to a squad that should be able to manage on all fronts. 

 

 

[Optimistic Nut]

We've clearly got something good with Howe, pathetic the way some have turned after the first real sign of trouble. The day Howe goes is the day we become a club who replace the manager every 2 years or so because the first dip, we call for the sack and the board acts. 

 

 

Edited February 10 by Optimistic Nut

[barton]

He’s not had his settled back 4 all season. Not to the extent of previous seasons. At the moment we are missing Schar and Tino badly, but those are just the latest injuries. We are leaking goals we’ve rarely done previous seasons.. Pretty sure Eddie will steady the ship and we can scratch this season off as forgettable, might be after this tricky run of games though 

[500bhp]

Looking ahead this being a WC year will also fuck with Howe's meticulous pre season planning. How late after the tournament do players arrive back after having a couple of weeks holiday post tournament. We could have maybe 8-12 players at the WC. They'll miss a big chunk of pre season. 

[Yorkie]

3 minutes ago, barton said:

He’s not had his settled back 4 all season. Not to the extent of previous seasons. At the moment we are missing Schar and Tino badly, but those are just the latest injuries. We are leaking goals we’ve rarely done previous seasons.. Pretty sure Eddie will steady the ship and we can scratch this season off as forgettable, might be after this tricky run of games though 

 

You must be able to count on one hand the amount of games Hall and Tino have played together this year.

 

We also know beyond all reasonable doubt that he's not had the keeper he wanted this season. 

[Groundhog63]

1 hour ago, r0cafella said:

To those who are staunch Eddie stays no matter, aren't you at all concerned by how poor we've been?  What kind of solutions are you expecting in terms of our playing style?

I'm not concerned at all. I've got a grasp of the mitigating factors in our, somewhat, frustrating season. As it stands, given all those issues, the semi finals of the League Cup and CL play-offs isn't too shabby. I might twist a bit if we don't get to meet Barca in the 16, tho but. 😳😂

As for what "solutions do I expect?" 😂 I haven't got my head so far up my own arse that I think I know better than Eddie Howe. I'll let him provide those. Which he will.😉

 

 

 

 

Edited February 10 by Groundhog63

[Nucasol]

8 hours ago, timeEd32 said:

We're in the middle of playing 7 away games (8 total) in 24 days. Games in bold are against clubs top 15 globally in revenue. 

 

Nov 22: Man City (h)
Nov 25: Marseille (a) - 2 days rest
Nov 29: Everton (a) - 3 days rest

Dec 2: Tottenham (h) - 2 days rest
Dec 6: Burnley (h) - 3 days rest
Dec 10: Leverkusen (a) - 3 days rest
Dec 14: Sunderland (a) - 3 days rest
Dec 17: Fulham (h) - 2 days rest
Dec 20: Chelsea (h) - 2 days rest
Dec 26: Man Utd (a) - 5 days rest
Dec 30: Burnley (a) - 3 days rest

Jan 3: Crystal Palace (h) - 3 days rest
Jan 7: Man City (h) - 3 days rest
Jan 10: Bournemouth (h) - 2 days rest
Jan 13: Leeds (h) - 2 days rest
Jan 18: Wolves (a) - 4 days rest
Jan 21: PSV (h) - 2 days rest
Jan 25: Aston Villa (h) - 3 days rest
Jan 28: PSG (a) - 2 days rest
Jan 31: Liverpool (a) - 2 days rest

Feb 4: Man City (a) - 3 days rest
Feb 7: Brentford (h) - 2 days rest
Feb 10: Tottenham (a) - 2 days rest
Feb 14: Aston Villa (a) - 3 days rest
Feb 18: Qarabag (a) - 3 days rest
Feb 21: Man City (a) - 2 days rest

Feb 24: Qarabag (h) - 2 days rest
Feb 28: Everton (h) - 3 days rest
Mar 4: Man Utd (h) - 3 days rest

 

 

 

It’s been totally fucking relentless. Never ever been a point in watching Eddie’s NUFC where I’ve felt I’d be happy for a couple of weeks break but definitely the case now.
 

Presuming if we been FC Ballbag in the CL, we’ll get another two midweek games shoehorned if after Man Utd, to take us right up to the mackems at the end of March. Nearly 4 months solid of weekend-midweek games.

[Groundhog63]

3 minutes ago, Nucasol said:

It’s been totally fucking relentless. Never ever been a point in watching Eddie’s NUFC where I’ve felt I’d be happy for a couple of weeks break but definitely the case now.
 

Presuming if we been FC Ballbag in the CL, we’ll get another two midweek games shoehorned if after Man Utd, to take us right up to the mackems at the end of March. Nearly 4 months solid of weekend-midweek games.

But "Booooo"

[SteV]

1 hour ago, r0cafella said:

To those who are staunch Eddie stays no matter, aren't you at all concerned by how poor we've been?  What kind of solutions are you expecting in terms of our playing style?

The solution is to have patience with the man who is our best manager in a generation. Given enough time he will sort things out.

 

The problem is there is no patience nowadays, everybody wants everything to be exactly how they want it NOW. And that’s not an NUFC-specific thing, it’s not even a football-specific thing, it’s just how society is.

[r0cafella]

Just now, SteV said:

The solution is to have patience with the man who is our best manager in a generation. Given enough time he will sort things out.

 

The problem is there is no patience nowadays, everybody wants everything to be exactly how they want it NOW. And that’s not an NUFC-specific thing, it’s not even a football-specific thing, it’s just how society is.

I appreciate yourself and many people feel this way which is fair enough.

[Nucasol]

7 minutes ago, Groundhog63 said:

But "Booooo"

Definitely no boos, just give us a fucking week’s breather!

[Dr Venkman]

Yeah. I already posted about it a couple of days ago, but patience is a choice. I can’t relate to not being patient with Eddie, given how far he’s improved the club from where we were.

 

The point about other clubs admiring him should give the Howe outers pause for thought, as well. Liverpool and Man United likely both looking for managers at the end of the season.

 

 

Edited February 10 by Dr Venkman

[Chicken Dancer]

I can’t imagine Man Utd and especially Liverpool going for Howe tbh. Could be wrong.