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10 minutes ago, DC Magpie said:

 

I'll hand it to both of us - you and I are nothing if not predictable. Cheers.

 

There is a fine line between sabotage and ineptitude. Nobody thinks Eddie is trying to lose (though he's doing a damn fine job of it you'd have to admit). But he knows one way of approaching things and it doesn't work any more. Eddie doesn't have an answer, and the players have figured that part out. He's lost the team. (Alternate theory: Howe has a master plan to switch things up, but feels he can't because if it works he'll look even dumber for waiting so long and tanking the season. Ha.)

 

Thing is, we're too sentimental. The big boys don't wait around. If the team isn't performing, the coach goes. Liverpool's about to sack Slot and he won the league last year and looks to be headed back to the UCL. Man U and Chelsea changed mid-season and even City gutted their entire staff under Pep last summer. Admittedly, the grass isn't always greener when you change coaches (hello Chelsea you inglorious twats), but you can't wait around while things get worse and worse and worse.

 

PS - when is the last time you saw Nick on the pitch as a striker? Maybe he's dogging it in practice, but he's not been given a proper chance on the pitch for months. And if it was a mistake to sign Wolt (I disagree), where does that blame lie exactly?


I don't know where the blame lies for signing a striker who doesn't look like a striker, much less a Premier League one, maybe it's Howe, maybe it's the recruitment staff, maybe it's the disorganisation and failure of the powers that be at the club. Maybe it's all of the above.

My point is, and I'll just quote my earlier post to save time, that Woltemade doesn't really look good enough and I don't think the blame is solely on Howe not being able to figure out how to use him.
 

1 hour ago, Infinitely Content said:

I think you need a striker to offer a threat in behind occasionally, especially with so many teams playing with quite high lines these days. Woltemade will never be able to do that, so he has to compensate by being either elite in the box and able to link play up (Harry Kane), or by being brilliant at holding up the ball and fantastic aerially (Olivier Giroud). He's not good at either of them. In fact he's quite terrible at them. He offers one or two decent first touch passes per appearance and some good feet on occasion, it's just nowhere near enough to build an attack around.

I still don't even know if he's got a good shot on him.

The best case I can make for Woltemade is for him to play a Roberto Firmino type role, a facilitator, but there's a huge issue - Firmino was quite quick and had relentless defensive work rate and pressing ability. Woltemade doesn't.

 

 

Edited by Infinitely Content

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10 hours ago, Zero said:

 

Probably you gotta answer this question first: why emphasize so much on pressing? What’s the purpose of pressing? We press for what?

 

 

 

 

I feel like this is a rhetorical question, but since it doesn't support your argument for Wolter to be in the team I'm going to answer it anyways.

 

Pressing is the best way to win the ball back. It puts the opposition under pressure and pressure causes mistakes. All top teams press, the better you are at it the higher up the pitch you can do it and the more effective the press is. Winning the ball back in high areas of the pitch is a massive benefit to both our attacking threat and defensive security 

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1 hour ago, Mills and Boon said:

 

I feel like this is a rhetorical question, but since it doesn't support your argument for Wolter to be in the team I'm going to answer it anyways.

 

Pressing is the best way to win the ball back. It puts the opposition under pressure and pressure causes mistakes. All top teams press, the better you are at it the higher up the pitch you can do it and the more effective the press is. Winning the ball back in high areas of the pitch is a massive benefit to both our attacking threat and defensive security 


Yes you are right

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The second the club decide to go for Nick then there must have been an understanding that this is the end of 433.

Wilson needs to tell EH either;

Eddie goes

433 goes

Or Nick goes and EH covers the transfer loss

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4 hours ago, Infinitely Content said:


I don't know where the blame lies for signing a striker who doesn't look like a striker, much less a Premier League one, maybe it's Howe, maybe it's the recruitment staff, maybe it's the disorganisation and failure of the powers that be at the club. Maybe it's all of the above.

My point is, and I'll just quote my earlier post to save time, that Woltemade doesn't really look good enough and I don't think the blame is solely on Howe not being able to figure out how to use him.
 

 

 

 

 

Fair points all. But why sign him in the first place then? And I think any of armchair experts could agree the way to use him is not in midfield. Why not try a 4-4-2 with him and Osula up top? He seems better when he's got people around him to play off of. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, morpeth mag said:

The second the club decide to go for Nick then there must have been an understanding that this is the end of 433.

Wilson needs to tell EH either;

Eddie goes

433 goes

Or Nick goes and EH covers the transfer loss

 

Rio, is that you?

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1 hour ago, morpeth mag said:

The second the club decide to go for Nick then there must have been an understanding that this is the end of 433.

Wilson needs to tell EH either;

Eddie goes

433 goes

Or Nick goes and EH covers the transfer loss

 

This. But if Eddie stays so does the 4-3-3, so we cannot have Nick and Eddie under the same roof. Depending on what you believe, the Transfermarkt site still has Nick's transfer value set pretty high (very near what we spent). That can only mean Bayern, and it may be bullshit. I'm Eddie Out, but either way, I can't take another year of those two together. It's maddening. 

 

https://www.transfermarkt.us/nick-woltemade/marktwertverlauf/spieler/455661

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Osula should be starting rest of the season.

 

4 goals within 455 minutes of Premier League football as a 22 year old is some going tbh.  12 shots and 4 goals.

 

Woltemade if he's here next season reckon will be a lot better with a pre-season.  Looked livelier in his brief cameos recently.

 

 

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1 minute ago, dcmk said:

Osula should be starting rest of the season.

 

4 goals within 455 minutes of Premier League football as a 22 year old is some going tbh.  12 shots and 4 goals.

 

Woltemade if he's here next season reckon will be a lot better with a pre-season.  Looked livelier in his brief cameos recently.

 

 

 

They should be playing together, they compliment each other massively. I'd also has Wissa on the lw. Barnes and Gordon have done fuck all there for ages. We've got nowt to lose. Something might click.

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Certainly shouldn't be thinking either/or with players as much as changing something a bit more fundemental than that at this point. 

Feels very N'Zogbia for Milner esque otherwise.

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Think he’s finished here tbh. Even if Howe moves on I can’t really see a manager coming in and trusting him to lead the line at a club with our ambitions in the PL. It would be a major risk. 

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4231, Wolte behind Osula with Bruno and Tonali pivot. 
 

Have to keep playing Elanga RW to hope he clicks, maybe even Ramsey on the LW as more of a balanced style wide player who comes inside. Hall overlapping. 

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Randomly popped up on my Instagram feed showing him walking around Soho in New York on Wednesday. Assume it was filmed this week, but I guess it could have been a older footage 🤷‍♂️… 

 

… although it aligns with the players having a few days off at the early part of this week (Bruno was in Paris).

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26 minutes ago, Shadow Puppets said:

Randomly popped up on my Instagram feed showing him walking around Soho in New York on Wednesday. Assume it was filmed this week, but I guess it could have been a older footage 🤷‍♂️… 

 

… although it aligns with the players having a few days off at the early part of this week (Bruno was in Paris).

 

Fairly certain it's footage from when he was there earlier in the month. 

 

Screenshot_2026-04-25-01-59-59-37_1c337646f29875672b5a61192b9010f9.thumb.jpg.111cf0398c1b771579eeeaa0d4176850.jpg

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4 hours ago, Shadow Puppets said:

Randomly popped up on my Instagram feed showing him walking around Soho in New York on Wednesday. Assume it was filmed this week, but I guess it could have been a older footage 🤷‍♂️… 

 

… although it aligns with the players having a few days off at the early part of this week (Bruno was in Paris).

aye did a quick wtf when it popped up on mine.

he is cool as fuck, mind.

and he'll come good as a striker if he gets a proper run in the team without the threat of being dropped.

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5 hours ago, Jaqen said:

 

Fairly certain it's footage from when he was there earlier in the month. 

 

Screenshot_2026-04-25-01-59-59-37_1c337646f29875672b5a61192b9010f9.thumb.jpg.111cf0398c1b771579eeeaa0d4176850.jpg


Aye… that’ll be it. The one I saw was a video dated this week, but he was wearing the same thing 👍

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On 21/04/2026 at 08:52, AJ9 said:

Think he’s finished here tbh. Even if Howe moves on I can’t really see a manager coming in and trusting him to lead the line at a club with our ambitions in the PL. It would be a major risk. 

If he knocks in 3-5 goals for Germany in the World Cup the narrative changes.

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Of all the signings we made in the Summer this is the one that baffles me the most - if he doesn't fit Eddie style of play why did he buy him?

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1 minute ago, duo said:

Of all the signings we made in the Summer this is the one that baffles me the most - if he doesn't fit Eddie style of play why did he buy him?

Guess work here

 

We were desperate after the 5th failed attempt sessko being the last where we seemed to now be willing to shop in the 65/75m bracket. 

 

He was a relatively young and possibly adaptable to the player we could develop him to be.

 

Then we signed wissa with 30 seconds to spare and then he got injured so we went from a slow burn to having to lean on him from the get go. 

 

The longer this went on and the lack of coaching between games the more he looks a fish out of water in the side.

 

Basically we arent getting our money back out of anyone else likely he works given more time at the club or he goes back to Germany for a loss.

 

He seems like such a nice bloke I want it to work the club unless he has a fantastic world cup I suspect also need it to work too. 

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Eddie Howe wanted to ruin Germanys chance of winning the World Cup by absolutely destroying their best striker.

 

Its absolute 4d chess from Howe which he's not getting enough credit for.

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19 minutes ago, TBG said:

Eddie Howe wanted to ruin Germanys chance of winning the World Cup by absolutely destroying their best striker.

 

Its absolute 4d chess from Howe which he's not getting enough credit for.

Started playing Osula once Denmark was knocked out.

 

The Wire Roland Brice GIF

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