Relegationometer (2025/26)

[Chicken Dancer]

1 minute ago, Yorkie said:

 

Who or what is this actually gotcha-ing?

It’s been said by numerous people in numerous threads for the entirety of the season. I totally understand when it’s being said in the infancy of the season but I kept seeing people say it in March, April and beyond and it’s just daft. 
 

Entire thing from June 2025 onwards has been a shitshow, both on and off the pitch. 

[Yorkie]

Just now, Chicken Dancer said:

It’s been said by numerous people in numerous threads for the entirety of the season. I totally understand when it’s being said in the infancy of the season but I kept seeing people say it in March, April and beyond and it’s just daft. 
 

Entire thing from June 2025 onwards has been a shitshow, both on and off the pitch. 

 

What's been said? That the Isak situation has had a huge impact on our season? How is that wrong? At what point did it become irrelevant?

 

Tbf it's the combination of the Isak sale + his replacement being a disaster rather than solely Isak. 

 

There's been other contributing factors but deleting most of our goals has been pivotal, certainly. Everything goes back to that. 

[Chicken Dancer]

1 minute ago, Yorkie said:

 

What's been said? That the Isak situation has had a huge impact on our season? How is that wrong? At what point did it become irrelevant?

 

Tbf it's the combination of the Isak sale + his replacement being a disaster rather than solely Isak. 

 

There's been other contributing factors but deleting most of our goals has been pivotal, certainly. Everything goes back to that. 

Course it has, it was always going to. But teams sell players and they need to either evolve their system or sign a player as close as possible (in terms of style) to make it work. Bournemouth are a perfect example, sold a few last summer and their best player in January and haven’t missed a beat. 
 

We signed a striker for £60/70m who couldn’t be further from Isak if we tried. 

[Minhosa]

Just now, Chicken Dancer said:

Course it has, it was always going to. But teams sell players and they need to either evolve their system or sign a player as close as possible (in terms of style) to make it work. Bournemouth are a perfect example, sold a few last summer and their best player in January and haven’t missed a beat. 
 

We signed a striker for £60/70m who couldn’t be further from Isak if we tried. 

Reality is, we should have emerged from the Isak sale with a weaker centre forward but a much stronger squad. The volume of spend we did should have guaranteed that. Sadly, we’re weaker up top, elsewhere and, in particular, in the bank balance after a disastrous handling of last summers window. 
 

Isak leaving was merely a trigger, our response to it was just terrible. What could have made us stronger, made us weaker and killed a season along with any positive momentum. 
 

This summer will make or break Howe’s future imho. Ross Wilson better be ready. And he better be good. We can’t afford for him not to be. 

[jack j]

Got a bad feeling this thread is gonna be up near the top next season more than the Europe one

 

Crazy this time last year it was probably the highest of highs as a fan to feeling totally deflated about the future now

 

Hopefully i am completely wrong

[La Parka]

Totally depends on the summer business and weather Howe can drop his favourites and find new ones. His old guard are past it for the most part and the new lot don't look to have buy in. 

 

 

Edited May 25 by La Parka

[Slim]

1 minute ago, jack j said:

Got a bad feeling this thread is gonna be up near the top next season more than the Europe one

 

Crazy this time last year it was probably the highest of highs as a fan to feeling totally deflated about the future now

 

Hopefully i am completely wrong

[Yorkie]

35 minutes ago, Chicken Dancer said:

Course it has, it was always going to. But teams sell players and they need to either evolve their system or sign a player as close as possible (in terms of style) to make it work. Bournemouth are a perfect example, sold a few last summer and their best player in January and haven’t missed a beat. 
 

We signed a striker for £60/70m who couldn’t be further from Isak if we tried. 

 

Well yeah but that's Woltemade; a rookie who wasn't designed to be the replacement. I personally don't believe it's a fair criticism to say "yeah we sold Isak but Howe got it all wrong by signing Woltemade so he's reaping what he's sown." He's a project player. 

 

The replacement was Wissa. We spent an entire summer trying to buy a striker worthy of lacing Isak's boots but were blocked by the cartel clubs and the impacts of PSR. Miraculously, by the time Isak went, there was still a very good striker available who had an excellent track record at this level, and was desperate to come here (plus Woltemade).

 

Wissa was too expensive but anyone who predicted this scale of a disaster is lying. Look back at the Brentford forum and he was a perfectly suitable replacement for Isak; a high-conversion workhorse with plenty left in the tank on account of his relatively low appearance numbers. 

 

The summer was a nightmare but I'll die on the hill that Eddie Howe didn't do a lot wrong. Elanga, fine. But the striker situation: we got absolutely fucked by Isak and the cartel, followed by some stinking luck that after finally getting a reprieve, the replacement got injured before stinking the place out. The impact of that on our season has been immense and personally I think it really tips the scales when you're assessing Howe's performance. 

[Chicken Dancer]

6 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

Well yeah but that's Woltemade; a rookie who wasn't designed to be the replacement. I personally don't believe it's a fair criticism to say "yeah we sold Isak but Howe got it all wrong by signing Woltemade so he's reaping what he's sown." He's a project player. 

 

The replacement was Wissa

Are we really in a position to making project signings for £60m + and then in the same breath complaining about PSR? I’m on record on here as defending Woltemade and think he’s a silky player, but somebody at the club should have probably mentioned he looks nowt like a Howe player, never mind a Howe striker. I think he was a desperate signing but also an opportunistic one. 
 

What you say about Wissa is true, he was meant to be the goals but we also should have never paid £55m in a million years. A suicidal move in a world of PSR.

[SUPERTOON]

Even if we continue to be as shit as we are currently, the 3 coming up are absolutely awful.

[Guillaume]

Mackems 4th favourite for the drop

[SteV]

4 hours ago, La Parka said:

Totally depends on the summer business and weather Howe can drop his favourites and find new ones. His old guard are past it for the most part and the new lot don't look to have buy in. 

 

 

 

Who are his favourites?

[La Parka]

40 minutes ago, SteV said:

Who are his favourites?

The old guard. 

 

Murphy, Burn, Joelinton, pope, schar, trips.  Not bad players but definitely on the downturn.

 

Gordon and Tonali too but they are outgrowing the club or have heads turned. 

 

Bruno is the outlier. Full buy in and heads not turned. Yet. 

 

[SteV]

28 minutes ago, La Parka said:

The old guard. 

 

Murphy, Burn, Joelinton, pope, schar, trips.  Not bad players but definitely on the downturn.

 

Gordon and Tonali too but they are outgrowing the club or have heads turned. 

 

Bruno is the outlier. Full buy in and heads not turned. Yet. 

 

Every single one of them, bar Bruno, and to a lesser extent Burn, have been dropped at some point.

 

The issue has been that the players that have replaced them generally haven’t made the team any better. At least not consistently anyway.

 

So the issue is not that Howe has ‘favourites’ and refuses to remove them from the team, it’s that he, or probably more specifically the club, have failed to find replacements that are up to standard*.

 

*probably harsh on Thiaw

[Leemond]

If Howe is still in charge 10+ games into the season, I am calling relegation absolutely nailed on.

 

We are the Spurs of next season.

[TheInfiniteOdyssey]

The three coming up will be nowhere near competitive imo.

 

If Howe is in charge next season, I can see us being lower mid-table mind. 

[Ben]

3 minutes ago, Leemond said:

If Howe is still in charge 10+ games into the season, I am calling relegation absolutely nailed on.

 

We are the Spurs of next season.

 

Pffftt.......daft statement to make considering we haven't done anything to put last seasons mistakes right.

[Superior Acuña]

 

8 minutes ago, Leemond said:

If Howe is still in charge 10+ games into the season, I am calling relegation absolutely nailed on.

 

We are the Spurs of next season.

 

Spurs weren't relegated.

[SteV]

8 minutes ago, Leemond said:

If Howe is still in charge 10+ games into the season, I am calling relegation absolutely nailed on.

 

We are the Spurs of next season.

The same way you’ll called that we were “definitely down” this season?

[AyeDubbleYoo]

17 hours ago, Superior Acuña said:

Spurs weren't relegated.

Fair point

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Not to be too annoying, but this “if we’re still shit next season” argument is a bit pointless isn’t it? 
 

The whole point of supporting Howe is that you think he has a good chance of not being shit next season. 

If anyone thought that our current form would continue indefinitely that we would obviously have to make a change. Probably a few months ago. 

[Wallsendmag]

On 25/05/2026 at 16:40, Leemond said:

If Howe is still in charge 10+ games into the season, I am calling relegation absolutely nailed on.

 

We are the Spurs of next season.

 

Don't think we'll go down like regardless, but speaking to those Bournemouth fans the other week they both said the signs at NUFC are eerily similar to the job he did at Bournemouth. Massive highs, comparatively speaking, followed by the decline that he looked clueless how to stop before relegation. Both said they wouldn't take him back there.

 

Stating the obvious here but we need a fast start next season. 1 extremely unconvincing win in the first 6 like this season won't do and will have the alarm bells ringing that it's more of the same and he hasn't been able to arrest the decline. Sacking or a manager resigning pretty early in the season can pay dividends (Robson for Gullit, Howe for Bruce) but it's not a move you want to be having to make if you can help it. He'll be under massive pressure from August through to the October International break to prove he's found the answers and is on course to get us going in the right direction again.

[Ben]

Howe is here for the start of the season so we need to get used to it, there is two class managers available and we haven't moved for them, I imagine our squad will look a lot different to what it does now.

 

Howe deserves another go 

[kingxlnc]

57 minutes ago, Wallsendmag said:

 

Don't think we'll go down like regardless, but speaking to those Bournemouth fans the other week they both said the signs at NUFC are eerily similar to the job he did at Bournemouth. Massive highs, comparatively speaking, followed by the decline that he looked clueless how to stop before relegation. Both said they wouldn't take him back there.

 

Stating the obvious here but we need a fast start next season. 1 extremely unconvincing win in the first 6 like this season won't do and will have the alarm bells ringing that it's more of the same and he hasn't been able to arrest the decline. Sacking or a manager resigning pretty early in the season can pay dividends (Robson for Gullit, Howe for Bruce) but it's not a move you want to be having to make if you can help it. He'll be under massive pressure from August through to the October International break to prove he's found the answers and is on course to get us going in the right direction again.

The difference though was Howe was spent, he had actually tried to resign the year before at Bournemouth but they convinced him to carry on. 
 

this time he said himself he wants to carry on and believe he’s the right man to do it. Howe has a lot of integrity I doubt he would continue if he had lost his mojo. He’s not a Bruce or McClaren or Pardew

[Groundhog63]

3 minutes ago, kingxlnc said:

The difference though was Howe was spent, he had actually tried to resign the year before at Bournemouth but they convinced him to carry on. 
 

this time he said himself he wants to carry on and believe he’s the right man to do it. Howe has a lot of integrity I doubt he would continue if he had lost his mojo. He’s not a Bruce or McClaren or Pardew

 

I haven't seen many people factoring in his illness, mid season.

I appreciate the number of games... "so did Villa" booooohooo.

The Isak saga.

The signings.

The schedule etc etc, have all been dismissed as irrelevant now. Even turned around as all his fault anyway but the bloke was really ill. Really ill.