Eddie Howe

[HaydnNUFC]

13 minutes ago, Kanji said:

Needs to fix the counter attacking vulnerability ASAP. Needs to sign a 6 and he needs to give minutes to Krafth and Hall. 

 

Need a RW as well. Needed one for years now tbh.

[timeEd32]

2 hours ago, Wullie said:

Liverpool brought on Jota, Gakpo, Gravenberch and Mac Allister. Harvey Elliott didn't get on. They have injuries too, Matip, Robertson, Tsimikas, Thiago. Both their quality left backs are fucked and they still have Joe Gomez to play there.

 

That's what rotation is meant to look like when you play a CL campaign, two elite XIs plus cover even for them. We're squabbling over whether Lewis Hall and Matt Ritchie should have been given an extra 20 minutes, it's deckchairs on the Titanic stuff.

 

The problem for any club that qualifies out of the blue like we did is that all the other clubs in it, especially in England, have built CL capable squads up over a decade. FFP stops us doing that in one go or even several.

 

Amen. I know this is not new information, but I feel like people have lost some perspective on where we sit largely due to how quickly we closed the gap in the table last season and our very rich owners.

• Our wages are the 9th highest in the Premier League, behind the six you'd expect plus Villa and West Ham.
  • We are as close to Everton in 10th as we are to West Ham.
  • Our wages are about £50m higher than Sheffield United's (19th), which is roughly the same gap from us to Liverpool. Chelsea's are another £16m higher from there and then Arsenal takes it another £16m higher. The Manchester clubs are another £35m+ above them.
• Our last officially reported revenue was less than the wages paid by the Manchester clubs. Even with the increases over the last couple years Manchester United's and Manchester City's wages are still closer to our revenue than our wages. The gap is astronomical.
• There are ~42 players in the Premier League on higher wages than Bruno, our highest paid player.
  • There are another ~23 before our next highest paid (Isak)
  • That means you can create almost six starting XI's of the highest paid players and we'd only have one player included.
• We have gotten 450 or less league minutes from Tonali, Targett (despite Burn being injured), Willock, Murphy, and Anderson. Just those players account for 21% of our wages and as everyone knows that is far from the end of our injury problems.

 

All of the above is not to absolve Eddie of any blame. He's made some mistakes and I think he'd be the first to recognize that. But so much of the angst in this thread and elsewhere seems driven by ballooning expectations. We overachieved last season based on our revenue, wages, talent, and depth, plus a very good injury record. We are now (currently) underachieving in the midst of a horrific injury record and compounding fatigue problems (and we were still moments from the CL knockout round and a second straight LC semifinal). It's frustrating and the derby is huge, but some patience is in order.

[Ronaldo]

Great post timeEd and quite right. I’ve said it before but we’re too emotional as a fanbase and, particularly, those of us who grew up, like I did, in the Keegan years are predisposed to idealism. We don’t want to buy superstar-inspired success; we want a team of uniquely talented relatable characters that functions under a likeable, forward-thinking idiosyncratic manger who grows with us. A lot of us thought we were already there and evidently (though we have many of the raw ingredients) we are not, and we’re frustrated.

 

5 points from 10 games away from home is very difficult to defend. As abysmal as we’ve been on the road, results and performances, I’d find it a lot easier to brush it off as part of the journey etc if I had confidence that the ownership will give this time. It’s a great irony that for well over a decade we all longed for a regime that wouldn’t tolerate managerial failure / mediocrity and now a lot of us fear impatience or impulsiveness from the top.

[Taylor Swift]

Liverpool had a lot of injuries last year and couldn’t make up the gap when their players got back. Even with Klopp, they finished outside the CL spots. Then, they spent heavily and are now top. 
 

I hope Howe gets the same chance. Let’s see if we can get on a run when everyone’s fit, even if we finish outside the CL spots. 

[Groundhog63]

8 hours ago, Wullie said:

Liverpool brought on Jota, Gakpo, Gravenberch and Mac Allister. Harvey Elliott didn't get on. They have injuries too, Matip, Robertson, Tsimikas, Thiago. Both their quality left backs are fucked and they still have Joe Gomez to play there.

 

That's what rotation is meant to look like when you play a CL campaign, two elite XIs plus cover even for them. We're squabbling over whether Lewis Hall and Matt Ritchie should have been given an extra 20 minutes, it's deckchairs on the Titanic stuff.

 

The problem for any club that qualifies out of the blue like we did is that all the other clubs in it, especially in England, have built CL capable squads up over a decade. FFP stops us doing that in one go or even several.

 

4 hours ago, timeEd32 said:

 

Amen. I know this is not new information, but I feel like people have lost some perspective on where we sit largely due to how quickly we closed the gap in the table last season and our very rich owners.

• Our wages are the 9th highest in the Premier League, behind the six you'd expect plus Villa and West Ham.
  • We are as close to Everton in 10th as we are to West Ham.
  • Our wages are about £50m higher than Sheffield United's (19th), which is roughly the same gap from us to Liverpool. Chelsea's are another £16m higher from there and then Arsenal takes it another £16m higher. The Manchester clubs are another £35m+ above them.
• Our last officially reported revenue was less than the wages paid by the Manchester clubs. Even with the increases over the last couple years Manchester United's and Manchester City's wages are still closer to our revenue than our wages. The gap is astronomical.
• There are ~42 players in the Premier League on higher wages than Bruno, our highest paid player.
  • There are another ~23 before our next highest paid (Isak)
  • That means you can create almost six starting XI's of the highest paid players and we'd only have one player included.
• We have gotten 450 or less league minutes from Tonali, Targett (despite Burn being injured), Willock, Murphy, and Anderson. Just those players account for 21% of our wages and as everyone knows that is far from the end of our injury problems.

 

All of the above is not to absolve Eddie of any blame. He's made some mistakes and I think he'd be the first to recognize that. But so much of the angst in this thread and elsewhere seems driven by ballooning expectations. We overachieved last season based on our revenue, wages, talent, and depth, plus a very good injury record. We are now (currently) underachieving in the midst of a horrific injury record and compounding fatigue problems (and we were still moments from the CL knockout round and a second straight LC semifinal). It's frustrating and the derby is huge, but some patience is in order.

 

What these guys said 👏👏👏

[Orphanage]

5 hours ago, Stottie said:

 

Have any of the players been injured in training? Murphy was a freak fall in a match, Pope was an innocent dive for a blocked shot, Barnes was a toe injury when not fatigued, ....

 

It is key to manage injury prone players like Wilson, but I don't think that applies to most of the lads.

Head physios just left

[TheBrownBottle]

23 minutes ago, Orphanage said:

Head physios just left

Yeah, just saw that.  An Ashworth appointment.

 

There is something very wrong in that dept at the moment.  Hopefully this is the beginning of getting it fixed. 

[Guest reefatoon]

9 hours ago, The Prophet said:

 

1) Other than Sheffield United, when has he had the opportunity to do this and not taken it?

2) With Tonali banned, Willock, Longstaff and Joelinton in and out of the side due to injury, along with general fatigue in thr ranks. I'm not really sure how a midfield four helps.

He thinks he knows it all but he’s fucking clueless  I wouldn’t even waste your time trying to talk sense to the moron.

[Guest reefatoon]

9 hours ago, Matt1892 said:

It seems like he has lost the support of the players in terms of them having discipline in following his tactics, which could be due to him having no plan B and continuing to run people in to the ground despite the small group of players fit.

 

7 losses in 8 could easily be 10 losses in 11 come the end of the month, I don’t see how he survives that if it does happen.

[Wallsendmag]

My main issue, other than the obvious results and performances is that we don't appear to have any style of play or game plan anymore apart from let the opposition have the ball and hope they've left their shooting boots at home.

 

Everything that defined our team last season has gone. The high press, high intensity, shithousing, the super organised defence, the never say die attitude. We seem to have lost everything.

 

We're 2nd bottom of the league on away form. 19th out of 20! It's pitiful.

 

[Guest reefatoon]

9 hours ago, Geordie Ahmed said:

 

You've said the target is a European spot so how on earth is the season over if we lose on Saturday? 

 Exactly. We are 4 points off 6th. Absolute flappers all over the place.

[gbandit]

Lost the support of the players? Pretty sad the lens some people view us through. What possible scrap of evidence could be used to go towards that theory? Are we pressing less than last season? Yes. Is there a good reason for it? The players have largely been fucked. Is there another possible conclusion? Yes, the players hate Howe very very much and they’re planning to poison him

[Kid Icarus]

10 hours ago, Smal said:

I’m not even slightly Howe out or anything but I guess my counter to that point would be why on earth is he playing? It was obvious he couldn’t run weeks ago, let alone after the first half today. That he played the full game today seems absolutely mad to me.

 

That we haven’t really got anyone else doesn’t really change that point either imo. He’s (same applies to Miggy) been struggling for ages… just take him out and play Ritchie for a game and sacrifice that area of the field/adapt to suit. The season is long, and especially this season you can’t just take each game as it comes like we did last season.

 

I would think it's that there's no one else. If the aim is to win, who are you playing left wing instead of him? The only alternative I can think of is the one that's been possible for the last 2 weeks - putting Joelinton out there and having Longstaff, Bruno, and Miley in midfield which means there's no player with Willock or Gordon pace to dovetail with him and defensively the midfield is weakened as well. 

 

The Ritchie point I dunno if I can accept tbh. It's definitely an option but any criticism Howe gets for overplaying Gordon and others would be more than negated by the criticism  he'd get if he played Ritchie.

 

 

Edited January 2 by Kid Icarus

[The College Dropout]

We still have a great attitude imo. It’s one of the reasons we haven’t had the spankings we probably deserve.  
 

But I also think players have lost belief in recent weeks. That goes hand in hand with the loss of confidence. 

 

 

Edited January 2 by The College Dropout

[Miggys First Goal]

Interesting that the fan support amongst certain sections seems to have turned last night against Liverpool of all teams and not when we lost to Forest or Luton. 

[gbandit]

Just now, Miggys First Goal said:

Interesting that the fan support amongst certain sections seems to have turned last night against Liverpool of all teams and not when we lost to Forest or Luton. 

Have fans actually turned in certain sections following last night’s game? There are some cretins and imbeciles on Twitter and a couple on here but they were shouting loudly since Luton. I don’t really pay much attention on Twitter but has it changed at all? 

[TRon]

Just watched his post match interview in the press conference and as usual handled himself brilliantly. He gave Liverpool the credit they deserved for giving us problems all over the pitch, but also refused to blame his players for the result. I did detect a bit of despondency about not being able to compete on a level playing field yet, partly down to injuries, but mostly just being restricted by FFP. Look at the players we had out there man, Miley and Longstaff against the likes of Sbozlai and and TAA. It's so frustrating to know we could have fixed this last summer if we weren't hamstrung by the inherent class system woven deep into English football.

[Nucasol]

1 minute ago, TRon said:

It's so frustrating to know we could have fixed this last summer if we weren't hamstrung by the inherent class system woven deep into English football.

Ironic as Liverpool, like their entitled protectionist red shirted brethren Arsenal, have shown zero class this season.

[ATB]

There is every reason to love everything Howe has done for us. But cant understand this denial that is going on. It has been a tough season in many ways, but Howe has been able to do many things differently. Maybe not always the most fun options, but they are still choices his done that dont sit well with me.

 

However, the biggest and most worrying thing for me is how it looks, not the results. As many have been aware of, everything that was last year is gone and the lates games has looked like a team from the past. Last night was quite frankly embarasing. It´s very very worrying.

 

I take it for granted that the management is looking for alternatives if things don't get better quickly. Howe has made so many mistakes and I am also not impressed with the squad process.

[TRon]

6 hours ago, timeEd32 said:

 

Amen. I know this is not new information, but I feel like people have lost some perspective on where we sit largely due to how quickly we closed the gap in the table last season and our very rich owners.

• Our wages are the 9th highest in the Premier League, behind the six you'd expect plus Villa and West Ham.
  • We are as close to Everton in 10th as we are to West Ham.
  • Our wages are about £50m higher than Sheffield United's (19th), which is roughly the same gap from us to Liverpool. Chelsea's are another £16m higher from there and then Arsenal takes it another £16m higher. The Manchester clubs are another £35m+ above them.
• Our last officially reported revenue was less than the wages paid by the Manchester clubs. Even with the increases over the last couple years Manchester United's and Manchester City's wages are still closer to our revenue than our wages. The gap is astronomical.
• There are ~42 players in the Premier League on higher wages than Bruno, our highest paid player.
  • There are another ~23 before our next highest paid (Isak)
  • That means you can create almost six starting XI's of the highest paid players and we'd only have one player included.
• We have gotten 450 or less league minutes from Tonali, Targett (despite Burn being injured), Willock, Murphy, and Anderson. Just those players account for 21% of our wages and as everyone knows that is far from the end of our injury problems.

 

All of the above is not to absolve Eddie of any blame. He's made some mistakes and I think he'd be the first to recognize that. But so much of the angst in this thread and elsewhere seems driven by ballooning expectations. We overachieved last season based on our revenue, wages, talent, and depth, plus a very good injury record. We are now (currently) underachieving in the midst of a horrific injury record and compounding fatigue problems (and we were still moments from the CL knockout round and a second straight LC semifinal). It's frustrating and the derby is huge, but some patience is in order.

 

 

Great post that.

[Wallsendmag]

6 minutes ago, Miggys First Goal said:

Interesting that the fan support amongst certain sections seems to have turned last night against Liverpool of all teams and not when we lost to Forest or Luton. 

 

Fans will turn more after every defeat in a bad run of form regardless of opposition. It's been that way as long as I can remember. In isolation a defeat at Anfield is neither here nor there as we nearly always lose there, but following on from dismal performances v Luton and Forest, and with it being our 7th loss in 8, it just builds the pressure further.

 

He needs to win on Saturday. A win, even against dross like, that could well be the springboard to kick on again in the league. A loss however is unthinkable.

[Miggys First Goal]

2 minutes ago, Wallsendmag said:

A loss however is unthinkable.

I keep seeing people post this or variations of, and I ask, if we do lose, what do they want to happen exactly?

[The Prophet]

1 minute ago, ATB said:

There is every reason to love everything Howe has done for us. But cant understand this denial that is going on. It has been a tough season in many ways, but Howe has been able to do many things differently. Maybe not always the most fun options, but they are still choices his done that dont sit well with me.

 

However, the biggest and most worrying thing for me is how it looks, not the results. As many have been aware of, everything that was last year is gone and the lates games has looked like a team from the past. Last night was quite frankly embarasing. It´s very very worrying.

 

I take it for granted that the management is looking for alternatives if things don't get better quickly. Howe has made so many mistakes and I am also not impressed with the squad process.

 

Unless a manager is going to come in and implement a completely different style, I'm not sure what switching it up will achieve.

[Scoot]

29 minutes ago, Wallsendmag said:

My main issue, other than the obvious results and performances is that we don't appear to have any style of play or game plan anymore apart from let the opposition have the ball and hope they've left their shooting boots at home.

 

Everything that defined our team last season has gone. The high press, high intensity, shithousing, the super organised defence, the never say die attitude. We seem to have lost everything.

 

We're 2nd bottom of the league on away form. 19th out of 20! It's pitiful.

 

 

Sat at work with the lads having this exact conversation. We don't have any plan whatsoever. We used to be a high pressing side with lots of energy, now we just a team who just hasn't got a clue.

[The College Dropout]

2 minutes ago, Miggys First Goal said:

I keep seeing people post this or variations of, and I ask, if we do lose, what do they want to happen exactly?

I don't think the board will care as much about the Sunderland game as the fans will.

 

It might be make or break with some fans but not leadership.