by Valentino's fast feet » Sun Feb 04, 2024 10:44 pm
Bodacious Benny wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 10:19 pm
Agree, more than happy for Howe to have next season. With probably no Europe
(hopefully no ECL) and with new additions and less injuries then no reason why he won’t get us top 4 or 5 again.
I can understand why people wouldn't want it, but I actually disagree. It's a trophy we'd be in real contention for should we qualify this season. Not only that, but it will give us another season in Europe - in theory against "lesser" teams - to allow for the squad to gain much needed experience.
As for the overall Howe issue, I agree with those saying it's all a bit much at this time. He's an excellent manager that's still learning and improving, and has been fantastic for us overall. I wholly agree with the Burn/rotation issues, but there's not a manager out there that doesn't make mistakes, and we don't all see the full picture anyway, so it's easy to judge. Although he does need dropping for the next game haha. Someone mentioned it's Howe's first season in Europe, he's learning how to manage upwards and evolving alongside us, which I think is perfect. This season was always going to be a struggle, it would never be possible to upgrade the squad in one or two windows to be able to deal with four competitions, let alone the elite level with CL. We finished bottom from a difficult group, but didn't disgrace ourselves for the most part. Shown up by more experienced competitors, maybe.
And speaking of the draw, we've had some overall bad luck this season. Tonali's ban absolutely blindsided us, and has had a massive knock on effect. There are those who say we should've done better due diligence, or should've seen it coming etc - but hindsight is 20/20. The long list of injuries is partially bad luck, partially expected to a degree due to our high intensity play style and having much more games to play - many of them at a high level. Sure, some blame can be attributed to lack of rotation at times, I'll acknowledge that. However we are hardly the only team in the prem this season to have such injuries, it's a clear side effect of the longer stoppages and the ball being "in play" longer. Plus the whole intensity arguments, we are playing at a higher level and much of the squad haven't experienced that.
Mild silver lining of the ban and injuries is the emergence of Miley, who is far from the finished product but he's stepping up when given the chance, so fair play lad. My personal theory on Hall, and this is guesswork, that the loan to buy agreement involves appearances and/or % of minutes played, hence the random few minute cameos he got for a bit towards the end. Whether he's not showing enough in training, or the PSR issues are worse than we thought and we don't want to commit the 28m+ in the summer - it seems likely that Hall isn't part of our plans going forward.
For those who want to send Howe on his way in the summer, bring in someone "elite" to take is to the next level, who is that? Mourinho, Potter? I think we have in place a very excellent manager, who has his faults but will continue to grow and improve alongside our team that is growing and overall is improving. It seems easy to forget that it was only a couple years ago we had a manager that didn't believe in tactics, slagged off the fans and was quite happy to keep us "ticking along." Along with his quest to find the bacon, of course.
And yes, our huge improvement since then obviously isn't just to do with Howe, the money has played it's part. I'm sure most if not all of us would rather it be from a less deplorable source, but the money has helped and is needed. But Howe and his team have been just as important to our increasing improvement. Wasn't build in a day, and the fact that people can be almost understandably disappointed by being in europe, a cup quarter final and a current top half standing in the table shows just how far Eddie Howe has taken us. I think he's far from done just yet.
[quote="Bodacious Benny" post_id=916955 time=1707085140 user_id=140]
Agree, more than happy for Howe to have next season. With probably no Europe [b](hopefully no ECL)[/b] and with new additions and less injuries then no reason why he won’t get us top 4 or 5 again.
[/quote]
I can understand why people wouldn't want it, but I actually disagree. It's a trophy we'd be in real contention for should we qualify this season. Not only that, but it will give us another season in Europe - in theory against "lesser" teams - to allow for the squad to gain much needed experience.
As for the overall Howe issue, I agree with those saying it's all a bit much at this time. He's an excellent manager that's still learning and improving, and has been fantastic for us overall. I wholly agree with the Burn/rotation issues, but there's not a manager out there that doesn't make mistakes, and we don't all see the full picture anyway, so it's easy to judge. Although he does need dropping for the next game haha. Someone mentioned it's Howe's first season in Europe, he's learning how to manage upwards and evolving alongside us, which I think is perfect. This season was always going to be a struggle, it would never be possible to upgrade the squad in one or two windows to be able to deal with four competitions, let alone the elite level with CL. We finished bottom from a difficult group, but didn't disgrace ourselves for the most part. Shown up by more experienced competitors, maybe.
And speaking of the draw, we've had some overall bad luck this season. Tonali's ban absolutely blindsided us, and has had a massive knock on effect. There are those who say we should've done better due diligence, or should've seen it coming etc - but hindsight is 20/20. The long list of injuries is partially bad luck, partially expected to a degree due to our high intensity play style and having much more games to play - many of them at a high level. Sure, some blame can be attributed to lack of rotation at times, I'll acknowledge that. However we are hardly the only team in the prem this season to have such injuries, it's a clear side effect of the longer stoppages and the ball being "in play" longer. Plus the whole intensity arguments, we are playing at a higher level and much of the squad haven't experienced that.
Mild silver lining of the ban and injuries is the emergence of Miley, who is far from the finished product but he's stepping up when given the chance, so fair play lad. My personal theory on Hall, and this is guesswork, that the loan to buy agreement involves appearances and/or % of minutes played, hence the random few minute cameos he got for a bit towards the end. Whether he's not showing enough in training, or the PSR issues are worse than we thought and we don't want to commit the 28m+ in the summer - it seems likely that Hall isn't part of our plans going forward.
For those who want to send Howe on his way in the summer, bring in someone "elite" to take is to the next level, who is that? Mourinho, Potter? I think we have in place a very excellent manager, who has his faults but will continue to grow and improve alongside our team that is growing and overall is improving. It seems easy to forget that it was only a couple years ago we had a manager that didn't believe in tactics, slagged off the fans and was quite happy to keep us "ticking along." Along with his quest to find the bacon, of course.
And yes, our huge improvement since then obviously isn't just to do with Howe, the money has played it's part. I'm sure most if not all of us would rather it be from a less deplorable source, but the money has helped and is needed. But Howe and his team have been just as important to our increasing improvement. Wasn't build in a day, and the fact that people can be almost understandably disappointed by being in europe, a cup quarter final and a current top half standing in the table shows just how far Eddie Howe has taken us. I think he's far from done just yet.
