Eddie Howe

[Holmesy]

14 minutes ago, La Parka said:

Mourinho feels inevitable. 

 

And after catastrophic defensive failures I can see the board seeing him a nice fix.

 

Til they get bored and sack him for someone playing more exciting football and the cycle shall repeat. 

 

 

 

 

 

I can't see them going anywhere near Mourinho. I think the team we have in place are too intelligent and considered for that.

I don't see them being knee-jerk at all tbh. I think Eddie will get the rest of this season, the summer and at least half of next season (if things still don't improve). And it will be the right call. 

[Upthemags]

3 minutes ago, TRC said:

The fact is he hasn't adapted well to the injury crisis and weaker teams are above us, some with their own injury crisis.

 

There was a clear break down between Howe and recruitment this summer too, how much of that is on him I don't know. Changes are needed though.

Recruitment has been a disaster, to be honest. We needed immediate upgrades for the here and now, and we landed 2 youth players worth 50 million, a redundant squad-player winger for 40 and a genuine upgrade who can't play until next season (hopefully).

 

All in all, that was around 150 million pound without a single upgrade in the squad. Some of that is down to poor luck, sure. But in any case, it was a misstep to not take that 150 million and pour it into assets for the here-and-now. PIF/Howe thought the squad was good enough as-is after a purple patch of a season last year, and it's come back to bite us.

 

With all of that said, though, Howe deserves another bite at the apple this summer and next season. Some portion, large or small, of our struggles has to be attributed to a shocking run of injuries, and Howe deserves a crack with a fully fit and upgraded squad.

[The Prophet]

3 minutes ago, Upthemags said:

Recruitment has been a disaster, to be honest. We needed immediate upgrades for the here and now, and we landed 2 youth players worth 50 million, a redundant squad-player winger for 40 and a genuine upgrade who can't play until next season (hopefully).

 

All in all, that was around 150 million pound without a single upgrade in the squad. Some of that is down to poor luck, sure. But in any case, it was a misstep to not take that 150 million and pour it into assets for the here-and-now. PIF/Howe thought the squad was good enough as-is after a purple patch of a season last year, and it's come back to bite us.

 

With all of that said, though, Howe deserves another bite at the apple this summer and next season. Some portion, large or small, of our struggles has to be attributed to a shocking run of injuries, and Howe deserves a crack with a fully fit and upgraded squad.

 

We spent circa £100 million on the here and now and invested around £35 million for the future.

[Upthemags]

4 minutes ago, The Prophet said:

 

We spent circa £100 million on the here and now and invested around £35 million for the future.

Barnes was not a buy for the here and now - was never going to start. That brings it to around 100 million.

 

We needed starters.

 

 

Edited March 12 by Upthemags

[Ikon]

Barnes and Hall is 75m. One is backup/rotation and one is for the future apparently. Should have used this money to strengthen the 1st team properly. For me Gordon starts every time when fit and rested (on the left)

 

[Optimistic Nut]

1 minute ago, Upthemags said:

Barnes was not a buy for the here and now - was never going to start. That brings it to around 150 million.

 

We needed starters.

 

I reckon he was signed as the starting LW to be honest, but Gordon's summer and start to the season earned him the shirt. 

[TRC]

2 minutes ago, Upthemags said:

Barnes was not a buy for the here and now - was never going to start. That brings it to around 150 million.

 

We needed starters.

Barnes is starting caliber, but we bought a LW 6 months after buying a LW while we have 2 champo level RWs.

[The Prophet]

9 minutes ago, Upthemags said:

Barnes was not a buy for the here and now - was never going to start. That brings it to around 150 million.

 

We needed starters.

 

He's an 26 year old Premier League starter. How was he not for the here and now?

 

 

Edited March 12 by The Prophet

[Stottie]

Can we blame Harvey Barnes for not starting in place of our player of the season?

Someone who many fans themselves thought was a "waste of money" or "not a priority" when we bought him?

[Upthemags]

Just now, Optimistic Nut said:

 

I reckon he was signed as the starting LW to be honest, but Gordon's summer and start to the season earned him the shirt. 

He was redundant, is the point. We had 3-4 other spots that needed immediate upgrading. Almiron, Burn, Longstaff were never going to cut it.

 

100 million pound without an upgrade on any of extant squad is a massive miscalculation, and it's showing this season.

[Shearergol]

Barnes and Gordon were going to rotate. That includes in games, not just week to week. It would also allow Gordon, Wilson and Isak to rotate. It would also allow Gordon, Almiron and Murphy to rotate.

 

There's a reason none of this "squad rotation" people use as a stick to beat Howe with hasn't happened. We all know that. 

[The College Dropout]

8 minutes ago, Upthemags said:

Barnes was not a buy for the here and now - was never going to start. That brings it to around 100 million.

 

We needed starters.

 

 

 

Barnes transfer doesn’t make sense. 

[Dokko]

Worst thing we can do is give him the start of the season to see if he can get it going after investing more money in his style signings.

 

We either sack him in the summer or offer a new deal and believe in his project. Halfway house commitment never works. It's the sunderland way.

[Shearergol]

Just now, The College Dropout said:

Barnes transfer doesn’t make sense. 

 

It depends on whether or not you see Joelinton as a left winger.

[Gallowgate Toon]

Would anyone really have suggested Gordon should be starting over Barnes before the season started? It's a huge credit to Gordon how well he's done this season but let's not be revisionist - he was a massively unknown quantity before the campaign kicked off, while Barnes was (and still is) a proven PL player.

[Optimistic Nut]

5 minutes ago, Upthemags said:

He was redundant, is the point. We had 3-4 other spots that needed immediate upgrading. Almiron, Burn, Longstaff were never going to cut it.

 

100 million pound without an upgrade on any of extant squad is a massive miscalculation, and it's showing this season.

 

Were those players available within our budget? We had to sell Maxi to free up the space to sign a replacement plus Livramento for example. 

[Ikon]

1 minute ago, Shearergol said:

Barnes and Gordon were going to rotate. That includes in games, not just week to week. It would also allow Gordon, Wilson and Isak to rotate. It would also allow Gordon, Almiron and Murphy to rotate.

 

There's a reason none of this "squad rotation" people use as a stick to beat Howe with hasn't happened. We all know that. 

 

Our options for the left were much better than for the right, it's as simple as that. Signing Barnes who is limited in general play and only plays on the left is poor when you consider our right hand side. What we should have done is signing a left footed RW that is more of a creative wide man than Gordon on the left. This would give us much better balance and quality overall. Both the starting 11 and squad wise.

[simonsays]

I have a feeling he will get the England job after the Euros - as much as I hope he will stay I think him taking over from Southgate could let the owners get the higher profile manager many think they want without the indignity of sacking Howe.

[The Prophet]

In terms of Barnes. We were on the verge of selling ASM, leaving Joelinton and an unproven Gordon as our left wing options. We bought a proven goal scorer, something we lacked out wide and in midfield.

 

Tonali was very obviously brought in to replace Longstaff.

 

We lost both for a long time due to a ban and a freak injury.

[Shearergol]

Just now, Ikon said:

 

Our options for the left were much better than for the right, it's as simple as that. Signing Barnes who is limited in general play and only plays on the left is poor when you consider our right hand side. What we should have done is signing a left footed RW that is more of a creative wide man than Gordon on the left. This would give us much better balance and quality overall. Both the starting 11 and squad wise.

 

Maybe that left footed RW just wasn't available? Maybe we actually tried? Maybe the Barnes signing was opportunistic because he became available at a decent price (which if he'd stayed fit, we'd have seen). 

 

We wouldn't be having this conversation if Barnes, Joelinton and Willock hadn't been out for so long.

[Optimistic Nut]

Just now, Ikon said:

 

Our options for the left were much better than for the right, it's as simple as that. Signing Barnes who is limited in general play and only plays on the left is poor when you consider our right hand side. What we should have done is signing a left footed RW that is more of a creative wide man than Gordon on the left. This would give us much better balance and quality overall. Both the starting 11 and squad wise.

 

Chances are, if we'd kept Maxi, we'd not have signed Barnes or Livramento. Howe pretty much alluded to this at the time. It gave us some wiggle room.

 

Short-term this season it might have made us better, but what about when the time came to replace Trippier for instance. Would a player like Livramento have been available to us? 

[The Prophet]

2 minutes ago, Ikon said:

 

Our options for the left were much better than for the right, it's as simple as that. Signing Barnes who is limited in general play and only plays on the left is poor when you consider our right hand side. What we should have done is signing a left footed RW that is more of a creative wide man than Gordon on the left. This would give us much better balance and quality overall. Both the starting 11 and squad wise.

 

Speculating, I think we wanted two capable players in every position. We had that on the right, but if we wanted to use Joelinton primarily as a CM, we didn't on the left.

[Ikon]

Just now, Shearergol said:

 

Maybe that left footed RW just wasn't available? Maybe we actually tried? Maybe the Barnes signing was opportunistic because he became available at a decent price (which if he'd stayed fit, we'd have seen). 

 

We wouldn't be having this conversation if Barnes, Joelinton and Willock hadn't been out for so long.

 

I've been against the signing of Barnes in a way from the beginning. Said he's a good effective player but not the type we need or for that side either. 

[Chris_R]

Fucking crazy that people are talking about moving Howe on. Give your heads a shake.

 

Still 100% backing from me. 4th last year, and the escape the year before, were miracles. This year, 4th was always going to be much harder than last year just because of the extra games, and other teams strengthening around us. 7th would've always been an "OK" season this year.

 

Throw in Tonali's ban and an injury crisis the likes of which we've never seen before and the season is a write-off. We just need to limp home and try again next year. If 7th was decent coming into this season, 11th isn't sacking level when you consider the above too. It's barely even disappointing. If anything, it's inevitable given what's happened.

 

I'd be gutted if he left, and absolutely devastated if some dinosaur like Mourinho came in to replace him.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

5 minutes ago, simonsays said:

I have a feeling he will get the England job after the Euros - as much as I hope he will stay I think him taking over from Southgate could let the owners get the higher profile manager many think they want without the indignity of sacking Howe.

 

So wrong.