Eddie Howe

[Lucky]

1 minute ago, Cf said:

 

We’ve got a good squad. It’s massively underperforming. Yes a few duds but they are firmly on the manager.

 

Bruno, Tonali, Gordon, Thiaw, Tino, Hall, Pope and Woltemade would probably get into many of the top 6 sides.

 

Thy have a deeper squad but on first 11, it can and has competed.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

People’s fetishisation of villa is a bit weird IMO. 

[KingArthur]

I think we have been a lot better than last season. Year ago we got results in games when we were totally shit and were about the same as now in December. We played 3-4 games without a striker, and our new players have been underperforming. We will be better in the 2nd half of the season. Enough to save Howe’s job? Dunno. 

[The Prophet]

3 minutes ago, Jesse Pinkman said:

Lol he’s already had a full season. How many seasons will it take for him to adapt? 

 

23/24 was an absolute write off (in terms of learning potential) due to the sheer volume of injuries we had. You can't really develop patterns of play when you have a revolving door of injuries.

 

This season is a learning curve for him. He's an exceptional coach, but he needs to learn how to effectively communicate his ideas factoring in reduced training time. There's been some green shoots of late, but he'll need patience.

[Dokko]

3 minutes ago, Kid Icarus said:

 

You'd have sacked Pep last season then presumably. 

 

He's a massive fraud. 

[HaydnNUFC]

8 minutes ago, The College Dropout said:

That squad (they ended with, not from the start of the season) is stronger than the squad they have now which has them on 33 points after 16 games.

 

-Guessand

-Sancho

+Rashford

+Asensio

 

The club haven't given Howe the squad. We had an opportunity to build and we squandered it.

Howe isn’t blameless for that. He’s got the influence, the people around him he’s wanted, he had the money to spend and we look the poorest we’ve been under him.

 

 

Edited December 15, 2025 by HaydnNUFC

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Just now, Dokko said:

 

He's a massive fraud. 

Is any manager good?

[dcmk]

The shit show of the summer transfer window has caught up with us.

 

Eddie is the best manager in my lifetime, every time there is heat on him, he's always turned it around for us.  He knows how to solve this slump.

 

Don't understand anyone who wants him gone.  Villa fans wanted Emery gone earlier in the season, ditto with Arsenal and Arteta and look how they have both rebounded.  Eddie has always done the same.  

 

 

 

 

[Cf]

2 minutes ago, Lucky said:

We’ve got a good squad. It’s massively underperforming. Yes a few duds but they are firmly on the manager.

 

Bruno, Tonali, Gordon, Thiaw, Tino, Hall, Pope and Woltemade would probably get into many of the top 6 sides.

 

Thy have a deeper squad but on first 11, it can and has competed.

 

I don't think Gordon gets into a top 6's first 11. Certainly not Pope. Others potentially do but not shoe ins.

 

Besides, it's the "deeper squad" part that's important. Our first XI can't play every game at 100% intensity with the extra games we now have. That's the long and short of it.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Just now, HaydnNUFC said:

Howe isn’t blameless for that. He’s got the influence, he had the money to spend and we look the poorest we’ve been under him.

Villa mismanaged PSR in quite a similar way to us when we had to do desperation sales. Difference is Anderson played well where Ramsey has done nothing. 
 

I don’t think we would have the wage budget to gamble on CL with expensive loans like Villa did. 

[dcmk]

3 minutes ago, Dokko said:

 

He's a massive fraud. 

Er no

[Heron]

We're still in all 4 competitions and "competing". Might not be the prettiest at times but we're trying to reestablish ourselves. We've only just got Wissa back and the Isak debacle has definitely set us back. Howe has proven previously he can string results together and I have every faith that he will do so again.

[Ginola14]

do we have another big game this week by any chance?

[HaydnNUFC]

Just now, AyeDubbleYoo said:

Villa mismanaged PSR in quite a similar way to us when we had to do desperation sales. Difference is Anderson played well where Ramsey has done nothing. 
 

I don’t think we would have the wage budget to gamble on CL with expensive loans like Villa did. 

They did yet they sit on 33 points from 16 games despite contending with Thursday/Sunday Europa League matches.

 

I don’t think we would either. Whether that’s a positive or a negative depends on the lens you look at it through, I suppose. We have the wage structure to contend with the rules which is savvy but when one of our highest earners is Joelinton I’m not too sure it’s all sunshine and roses.

[Dokko]

4 minutes ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

Is any manager good?

 

Depends on the club.

 

Pep can only do it spending money. Howe seems to struggle when he has money to spend. Howe works best with average players playing out of their skin. I've not seen him manage technical players. Pep must have an army of technical players he coaches into robots. 

 

It's a hard job for a reason.

[Kid Icarus]

11 minutes ago, HaydnNUFC said:

And they were 9 points clear of us at this stage the last time we had European football to contend with. They then finished the season ahead of us.

 

Last season they brought in players to improve the first team and were extremely unlucky not to finish above us and only didn’t on GD despite refereeing decisions they were on the end of despite remaining in the CL until April. Even if with their PSR issues in the summer and playing Thursday/Sunday they currently sit 11 clear of us.

 

We were in the Champions League while they were having training sessions in the Conference League, likewise this season. I think you're making the point for me considering what happened to them last season and what happened to us in 23/24, them in 24/25, and us again in 25/26. There's a consistent line to draw there with the teams that's in the CL. 

 

They weren't extremely unlucky at all all like, the big picture is that they went on a Howe-style mad run of winning 9 games in 12 going from 10th to 6th in the process. We did the same, going from 12th to 5th - if you're being consistent then what's good for them is good for us.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 15, 2025 by Kid Icarus

[Kid Icarus]

6 minutes ago, Dokko said:

 

He's a massive fraud. 

I rest my case

[AyeDubbleYoo]

1 minute ago, Heron said:

We're still in all 4 competitions and "competing". Might not be the prettiest at times but we're trying to reestablish ourselves. We've only just got Wissa back and the Isak debacle has definitely set us back. Howe has proven previously he can string results together and I have every faith that he will do so again.

We only just got Hall and Tino back as well really. And we’ve had to burn Tino out already because of other injuries. 
 

It’s really annoying Botman and Burn are now injured because formation changes are very limited with only 2 CBs to pick. 

[Mike]

16 minutes ago, Cf said:

 

 

Almost screamed in the gym.

[The College Dropout]

1 minute ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

People’s fetishisation of villa is a bit weird IMO. 

Slightly smaller budget but similar size of teams and issues.

 

People forget thought that Villa's transformation pre-dates ours by 4-5 years. So they've built better infrastructure.

 

We are fundamentally different though. We had a good leadership team early that led to big quick success. That has been disbanded and we are facing problems from that (our issues all stem from Ashworth and then Staveley leaving, it's been a mess since Ashworth left and worse since Staveley left). Villa are the opposite, been getting better on and off the pitch.

Just now, AyeDubbleYoo said:

Villa mismanaged PSR in quite a similar way to us when we had to do desperation sales. Difference is Anderson played well where Ramsey has done nothing. 
 

I don’t think we would have the wage budget to gamble on CL with expensive loans like Villa did. 

Key difference is Villa leveraged the workarounds way better than we did. Trading valuable kids with Everton and Chelsea. We waited until the last minute and got the worst deals out of everyone. They sold Ramsey for next June not the one just gone. Sold the womens team - that loophole has closed.

 

I've said it for over a year. Their ownership and structure is working far better than ours. We got the league cup and 5th from the fumes of the Staveley era. We've not built on that foundation. 3 windows, £250m, we've signed 1 player that improves on the best Staveley era team. That's piss poor.

 

These are the chickens coming home to roost I warned about for the last year. Poor leadership is why we have such a bang average squad.

7 minutes ago, HaydnNUFC said:

Howe isn’t blameless for that. He’s got the influence, the people around him he’s wanted, he had the money to spend and we look the poorest we’ve been under him.

 

 

 

He's not blameless for the squad but it shouldn't be his responsibility so I can't blame him too much. No functional transfer committee signs Elanga for £55m. That is a baby-Antony Man U type signing. And even they have fixed that issue now. It's almost identical when you think about it. A manager-driven signing and the price is crazy. Obvious from day one - this is a terrible signing. Literally worth half the money max. No functioning club let's that happen.

[mouldy_uk]

9 minutes ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

Is any manager good?

[AyeDubbleYoo]

I see all those points but we can’t judge Howe now for the lack of a decent structure in the past. There was nobody else to sign the players before. 
 

Hopefully now we’ve filled the key jobs we’ll see a better running system. 
 

I still think Elanga is the only clear bad signing and even that’s a surprise given how well he did for Forest. 

 

 

Edited December 15, 2025 by AyeDubbleYoo

[HaydnNUFC]

7 minutes ago, Kid Icarus said:

 

We were in the Champions League while they were having training sessions in the Conference League, likewise this season. I think you're making the point for me considering what happened to them last season and what happened to us in 23/24 and 24/25. There's a consistent line to draw there with the teams that's in the CL. 

 

They weren't extremely unlucky at all all like, the big picture is that they went on a Howe-style mad run of winning 9 games in 12 going from 10th to 6th in the process. We did the same, going from 12th to 5th - being consistent what's good for them is good for us.

 

 

We haven’t exactly played the most startling CL opposition this time around though yet still look regularly awful in the league. They haven’t blown sides away in the Europa League either, still winning the games yet still able to be on a run of 10 wins in 11 in the league. More inclined to say it’s an Emery style run than a Howe one given he’s now on 2 of them.  

 

Saying that they weren’t unlucky at all is like saying we weren’t unlucky at all to not progress from the CL in 23-24 and I imagine you don’t take that view of it.

 

 

Edited December 15, 2025 by HaydnNUFC

[The College Dropout]

4 minutes ago, Kid Icarus said:

 

We were in the Champions League while they were having training sessions in the Conference League, likewise this season. I think you're making the point for me considering what happened to them last season and what happened to us in 23/24, them in 24/25, and us again in 25/26. There's a consistent line to draw there with the teams that's in the CL. 

 

They weren't extremely unlucky at all all like, the big picture is that they went on a Howe-style mad run of winning 9 games in 12 going from 10th to 6th in the process. We did the same, going from 12th to 5th - if you're being consistent then what's good for them is good for us.

 

 

 

 

 

Where they were unlucky is that they did really well and fell just short at the last.

 

CL top 8, CL Quarter Final, 66 points. 6th. That was a great effort. 

 

I don't expect we'll get close to any of those. But we might win a cup though.

5 minutes ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

We only just got Hall and Tino back as well really. And we’ve had to burn Tino out already because of other injuries. 
 

It’s really annoying Botman and Burn are now injured because formation changes are very limited with only 2 CBs to pick. 

Let's be honest - we barely have any cover for him. We. have 3 first-team fullbacks. We never play the kids. We were always going to run Tino into the ground. 

 

9 minutes ago, HaydnNUFC said:

I don’t think we would either. Whether that’s a positive or a negative depends on the lens you look at it through, I suppose. We have the wage structure to contend with the rules which is savvy but when one of our highest earners is Joelinton I’m not too sure it’s all sunshine and roses.

I love Big Joe and we wouldn't be in the CL or have won the League Cup. But we should've sold him that summer as Ashworth planned. We either have Anderson at the club or we don't sign Elanga for £55m + keep Minteh.

[Lush Vlad]

22 minutes ago, Lucky said:

Some on here would argue that Howe is a better manager than Arteta, and have done.

 

So we had this excuse that the amount of games leaves little time for actual training.

 

Yet it doesn’t affect Arsenal. They have as many games as us and their effectiveness as a team is far superior.

 

So then the counter arguments, they have better players and a bigger squad. Perhaps.

 

But honestly, if you dropped Rice or Saka into this team, I don’t think we’d be doing much better. The patterns of play are just not there.

 

For Eddie, I think it’s fair to say he massively overachieved with less and has underachieved with more.

 

If as a club the plan is to be more, how can we confidently say he’s the one to take us forward?

 

You can't be serious with this?  

 

Look at their wage bill and what they have spent.  With it also being from a far stronger base, with quality youth players coming through here and there. 

 

They have 2 quality options for basically every position on the pitch, sometimes even 3.  Of course they have better players and a bigger squad.  How is that even remotely debatable FFS?!  They have the strongest squad in the league IMO, maybe even Europe.  Only City come anywhere close.

 

They've not lost anyone as integral to their team as Isak, either.