Listening to [this AFC Bournemouth podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/pt/podcast/back-of-the-net-the-afc-bournemouth-podcast/id1085537528?l=en-GB&i=1000527548227) from the week Howe got sacked in August 2020.
Skip to 7 minutes in and listen from there, striking similarities to where we’re at. I’m paraphrasing a little, but:
“The players we came up with were overachieving stalwarts, and embodied Eddie’s hardworking ethic… But as the seasons went on, those players became less effective, and the players Eddie has brought in haven’t had the same work ethic and don’t look like Eddie Howe players.”.
“The past 18 months, the new players that Eddie has brought in don’t fit us tactically, and Eddie seems reluctant to change his tactics around the new players.”
“We’ve been tactically stale for the past 18-months, no new ideas or trying anything different, just rinse and repeat”.
“He’s persisting with too many out of form players, playing our key players out of position, and can’t keep a settled side (bringing in players who don’t deserve to start, dropping players who deserve to start”.
It’s literally like listening to any of the NUFC fan podcasts/YouTube folks from this season
by RelationBig7368
20 Comments
Someone could have said this yesterday and you’d agree.
Yes but who would replace him?
I wish he’d improve. I love that our club have such a nice, well-spoken, PR-friendly, home-grown manager (i.e. English) who loves the game and one that the players really respect and like. I’m also immensely proud that we’ve had him for several years. Through all the 30 to 40 years as I’ve been a Newcastle fan, I’ve always been envious of clubs who stick with a manager for many seasons and build. I don’t want him gone, but I want him to step aside 30 mins before each match and let Emery or someone was tactical nous take over until full-time.
Whatever happens, I want to stick with him til the end of the season, and see if England come knocking. He deserves a shot at the big job and I guess it would be good for us to get a change too. The ideal scenario would be mutual parting of ways at the end of May, giving him enough time to sit-in with Tuchel during the world cup to know the ropes.
But we need to also realise that if he goes, then we might start losing the likes of Bruno, Sandro and our young defenders too. Don’t underestimate how much Eddie’s personality, his player management and coaching are keeping some of these world class players from moving south or abroad.
Bit unfair on Howe to assume he hasn’t evolved as a coach. He took time out of the game to travel and study.
Yes all of that stuff may well be true but he deserves this season and the start of next (depending on how these few months go) to show he can adapt.
This view from Bournemouth fans has been on of my concerns about Eddie the last couple of seasons, but we won a cup and got 5th/CL and are still competing on all fronts going into February. When Eddie took time of to educate himself on the ways of other clubs, notably Athletico Madrid, it seemed like he was open to changing things. But not this season. A lot of new forward players, key injuries, the loss of one of the best forwards ever in August in such a disruptive manner plus the need to replace aging players such as Trips, Schar, lascelles, Kraft, BDB, Murph, possibly Joelinton and Pope, whilst trying to keep hold of Tino, Hall, Gordon, Tonali, Miley and Bruno from the clutches of the ” top 6″ minus Spurs. The perfect storm….
Is this not the story of 90% of managers
The 10% remaining top of the prem hide the shortcomings behind half a mill wage deals for new signings where raw talent pulls you through
Let’s not pretend we are some exception to the rule.
Ffs how can our fanbase be so bloody stupid. Our current issue is the same that hit Klopp’s Liverpool after a few seasons; we’ve ran dry. We’ve been playing high pressing, high intensity football for multiple seasons as our squad has aged. Klopp had the backing to revamp their medical and fitness teams, bring in a few younger players to revamp the squad. It’s not a coincidence most of our better consistent players have been on the younger side; Hall, Tino, Miley. This seasons the dip, we’ve just been lucky that it also coincides with the rest of the league being crap.
Back Eddie, I’m fed up of this “get him out” brigade that can’t remember life before this ownership.
Great find. F365 also recognising that tactics aren’t appropriate ( crossing), signings are shit and he won’t change anything.
Rightly point out that Emery is getting way more out of similar quality players at Villa. Buendia looked like someone who’d they get rid of yet he has been key for them. And that has to be thanks to their manager.
It’s the long slow goodbye stage
Two champions league qualifications. Wins a trophy and the greatest escape ever from relegation.
Some of you fans will never be happy!
The man is an incredible manager. We are blessed to have him.
I don’t really agree with this assessment to be honest. What I will say though is Howe is in slightly unfamiliar territory. I don’t think he’s ever been in a position in his managerial career where we are consistently favourites nor dealing with such a volume of games simultaneously in so many domestic and European competition.
I think when you add in the loss of Isak so late and the relative lateness of the signings of Woltemade and Wissa which has completely disrupted our forward play in addition to elanga being slow to get going (although I think he performed reasonable well in his last couple of cameos) and Ramsay also being a clear development player rather than someone who’s going to come in and affect the outcome of matches and the odds are stacked against him this season.
What is really really killing us this season is the same thing that expresses itself in a couple of different ways. Teams are either sitting in which means we can’t press the life out of them and forcing us to try and unlock a deep block. I don’t think our midfield or wingers are suited to this, our midfielders are generalists good in most areas which together makes them exceptional players but we don’t have a Rodgers, a wirtz, a Bruno F or Buendia someone who can consistently create magic and control in the final third. The we have our wingers who don’t really take people on bar Gordon who lacks form and confidence. Barnes is a wide striker, good finisher but he’s not great at carrying the ball past players, same with elanga who is a rapid ball carrier not a tricky winger, Murphy is an excellent orthodox winger but doesn’t often beat his man. Then in our midfield the only player we have that is somewhat creative is Bruno G and even then it’s not the strongest part of his game. This makes an excellent counter pressing and counter attacking team but not a team that can unlock deep blocks consistently.
The bottom line is we are transitioning to a team that can handle multiple completions, and that are viewed as favourites by most mangers in the league apart from the top reaches, even when we aren’t the favourites and teams really come at us our players are tired so can’t maintain the ferocious levels we’ve seen in previous seasons.
The Villa game this weekend was a case in point in the first half we looked knackered, and that’s because we played PSV midweek and pressed the life out of them.
“He’s persisting with too many out of form players, playing our key players out of position, and can’t keep a settled side (bringing in players who don’t deserve to start, dropping players who deserve to start”.
How does this apply to us exactly?
The crosses to noone / ineffective passing in a semi circle around the opposition box does get wearing for sure, but imo ultimately the difference this season is we don’t have Isak. Wissa needs time to bed in, but has the profile to be a reasonable replacement. We have always been a lesser team without Bruno too (as would any team).
There are only two positions where I don’t think our starter is good enough for consistent top 4. Keeper and right wing. Depth is an issue but that’s not all on Eddie it’s just our situation as we grow.
Sign a top keeper in the summer and hope one of our wingers takes a step up, focus any other budget on some depth.
Not end of an era at all
Howe literally has been trying to change the way the team play. Not just playing on the break but now a possession based game to be able ti break down low blocks.
Is it really surprising that the players, who have spent the majority of the past few years playing in transition arent as solid in a possession based system?
Fans complain constantly about injuries so howe changes the style of play to be less intense and more controlled to mitigate that. Now fans cry that weve lost our identity and howe only has 1 formation.
Pick a fucking lane.
He has been amazing, but us fans always want more as we think that the football management game can be tweaked with a drop of the hat. We had an awful summer, which was mentally draining. I would like to see him Push Gordon to play on the right, keep Barnes on the left and play with a double pivot. But he must have tried numerous things.
I still go back to the farce in the summer that’s the catalyst for all of this the more I think about it. Chaos in the boardroom, messing around with the Isak deal, club repeatedly failed to land targets leaving us scrambling around at the end of the window and the players we have brought in haven’t improved the team.
I agree some things with Eddie Howe this season are concerning, we do look lost indeed. However, he’s definitely earned his right to be here and if this is to be a write off season thanks to the summer fuck up, so be it and we’ll go again next season and then we’ll see what happens.
One of the best seasons of the past 30 years, despite the setbacks. Probably a bit of a transition one, given all the boardroom antics last summer. Actually, given the absolute boardroom farces of the past two summers.
What the ‘Eddie bombed at Bournemouth’ bedwetters never say is that apart from one duff season, EH took Bournemouth from the brink of bankruptcy and falling out of the league, to the Prem.
If you look at our wage bill, we’re actually bang on expectations – probs an 8th place finish, after 4 overachieving years.
We’re still raising our ‘base’, let alone the ceiling, after three decades of underinvestment. On every metric the club is on an upwards trajectory: UEFA coefficient, silverware, income, even in the prem, despite this season’s (completely justifiable) dip. And as every investor will tell you, as the Arsenal and City boards would tell you, you don’t cash out in the dip.
We’d be absolutely mental to lose him. Not least because there’s no one else out there who could work his magic under the same constraints/upheavals. Or who could wave a wand and make injured players better. No manager in the world is going to turn a club with our income and recent history, into a consistent City, Arsenal, within the next 5-10 years. It’s a build.
Elite/well performing clubs don’t churn managers. They ride out anomalous seasons.
Jesus why does so much of our fan base have such a hard on for firing Howe. It’s exhausting- every season we have a bad patch and this happens, then a few months later everyone loves him. A few games ago we had about the best form in the league and ONE game ago we thrashed a direct CL rival to qualify for knockouts for the first time ever.
Yes there are problems to fix but it’s like there’s some political movement to get him fired the way this stuff comes out of the woodwork like cockroaches after a defeat – where we were a bit unlucky not to get anything anyway
I really think Howe needs another sabbatical to regather himself. Times are tough, and he’s falling back on past habits. He made a huge political and operation miscalculation on wanting to takeover summer signings responsibilities. It’s what he wanted, and then he started complaining he didn’t get much of a summer break. That annoyed me. Can’t have it both ways.
That’s actually scary and it will end the same way.
This sub is such a doom monger.
Yeah not having best season compared to last for example, but league is all over the place for everyone, still in with decent chance of CL football next season, in two cups, and progression into last knockout stages of CL this season.
We lost Isak, whole team has to adapt to new way of playing while bedding in a new and young striker, some signings that haven’t come good yet and injuries all over.
5 points from 4th considering not bad.