Over 48 hours after that horror show derby, emotions are rightly still running high after the worst performance of the Eddie Howe era at Newcastle.
Despite what the man himself has said, it was the worst performance turned in by a United eleven during his tenure, and to say otherwise must be a case of publicly protecting his players and putting the onus and pressure on himself, as we have seen countless managers do before.
Questions will be asked and even a cursory glance at any football media, from national to local to fan, suggests that many feel answers are a long way off.
With a mounting defensive injury crisis things could get worse before they get better, but it is also important to attach a little bit of perspective to the position we currently find ourselves in, no matter how unacceptable Sunday’s display was.
The context
There’s context to our underperformance this season, despite how white-hot the glare is from this defeat.
We can all take a step back and admit the summer was a nightmare, perhaps the squad isn’t as strong as we thought, key injuries have hampered our ability to rotate the squad (Tino, Hall, Botman, Wissa etc.), and trying to integrate a new striker who is diametrically opposed to the last one we had (who only signed on transfer deadline day too) without anytime to train has clearly been hugely difficult.
But it is fixable, and Eddie must start using the squad, must go back to playing with the intense press we used to because this new style isn’t working. We have plenty of depth in the key positions you need to press intensely (the wingers, the midfielders and now the striker) and whilst it killed us the last time we were in the Champions League, we didn’t have a squad like we do now.
Additionally, I feel that now we finally have an executive structure in place, they need time to be able to reshape the club and squad, and the manager should be able to treat this season as a transition season, he’s earnt that in my opinion as we’ve achieved so much since he’s been here. Longevity tends to bring success in football, and I still believe in Eddie Howe no matter how much this result hurts.
Move forward, but don’t forget
A waif of a performance, such as yesterday’s, was unacceptable and will leave an indelible mark on Eddie’s reign, but back in 2010/11 after their own derby horror show in the 5-1 defeat to us, Sunderland went on to win four, draw three, and lost just one of their next eight games. We must do something similar.
Thankfully, we have a League Cup QF against Fulham tomorrow and then a huge game at home to Chelsea next weekend to try to move past this game.
Whilst we won’t forget the hurt of Sunday and must ‘put it right’ when they come to St James’ Park in March, we must try to use this as fuel to finally kick on in this consistently inconsistent season.
Beat them both and maybe we can start to move on, but we also need to see some tangible proof that long standing issues are starting to get fixed too.
HWTL. Keep the faith.
Spot on.
Howe the toon(Quote)
“treat this season as a transition season”? WHAT?
I reckon Eddie had the weight of the world on his shoulders over the summer, when, at the end of the season just gone, he must have had such high hopes of early signings, improvement and a top pre-season, and he not only didn’t get any of that he got a nightmare, and had to manage it near enough on his own. Only he can know how broken-hearted he felt, and how much (unconsciously) it has affected him. But the fantastic manager that he is, was dealt a savage hand. From the very first match, when we played Villa off the park but couldn’t score (no proper first-team c/f on the books and available) this season went into very early decline, not helped by more hot-headedness from a severely reduced, previously, magical Gordon immediately after.
This is not a transitional season, it is a disaster of an EPL season. Progress in any of our 3 cups is our only hope. I also hope our 5th-choice c/f signing can produce the miracles we need when he eventually gets fit enough – a pretty tall order.
IEWT
davewallace(Quote)
Definitely not in the Howe to go camp but he has a lot of work to do to turn this around.
There are a few things that annoy me with him, his lack of trust in our academy, his lack of changing the system, his late subs and his favouritism to certain players but i feel he can turn this around.
Stay like this for the rest of the season and i think it’ll be too much for him to stay unless of course he wins another cup.
Absolutely glorious(Quote)
The summer where the manager was our defacto DOF, and was able to spend freely based on his own wish-list is somehow an excuse two weeks prior to 2026? And a transition season after such heavy investment, and with players who demand European football and will be gone at the first opportunity. All while our tickets are now more expensive than that of Liverpool for example, and for what? To what turgid football. The idea that is has to be intense pressing football, or mid-table mediocrity is laughable.
Eddie Howe had his transition season. That was last season after we’d failed to qualify for European football the prior season. Failure to do so again isn’t acceptable. Villa, after a horrendous summer are 11 points clear and on course to qualify for Europe for the fourth consecutive season. There’s your perspective!
Scott(Quote)
I’m going to put some of this on a small subset of fans, maybe they aren’t even fans but plastic fans too. Just a small amount of the blame but you know the ones. Think we should be winning the treble after 2 seasons and dominating everyone. I’m all for ambition, I’m all for a realistic roadmap to continuous improvement. Cup retention was always (as still is) doable. FA cup is doable. **** it, top 4 is still doable though looking more and more unlikely.
I do worry though that there’s this expectation creeping in from some that we should already be unchallenged, unmatched and unstoppable and it’s potentially bleeding through to the owners. They’re not footballers at the end of the day and they’re used to getting whatever they want. Something’s though you can’t simply buy. They take time, careful planning and EXCELLENT management.
Barry(Quote)
The most laughable comment I’ve seen Barry. We’re owned by a nation state, spent £700m and £250m this summer. The football is dross and all trends/metrics are clear for all to see. We’re not good and the buck stops at the manager!
Gallowgate Pigeon(Quote)
Your having a laugh!
Rotobob(Quote)
We don’t have plenty of depth in wingers with the likes of Gordon and Elanga.
Rotobob(Quote)
Agree
kimtoon(Quote)
This is starting to remind me of when Sir Bobby was getting hounded out by some of our fanbase.
I’m not quite sure where some of our fan base think we are at, we will be inconsistent until we have a squad that is as strong as the big clubs and fully fit . There is no divine right to expect a win every game, just look at the table. We are level with Man U, Spurs and Champions and big spending Liverpool , that was dreamland when Eddie first arrived.
So we lose the derby and people act like it’s the end of the world, did we play below par, yes. Did we get hammered, no. We hit the woodwork twice, they never looked like scoring, their goalie played well and we scored an og. It’s more embarrassing for them that they couldn’t score and needed a favor from us to do so. Hopefully we get revenge at SJP, but honestly we need to play the game not the occasion, it’s the points not the bragging rights for me, I hate the Derby.
I do think EH had a nightmare pre season /summer due to the carelessness of our owners to get the right people in place to help him and not getting on top the Isak situation. The same owners who are not sending clear messages about a new stadium and training ground. The same owners who are so slow to sign off on new additions apparently, leaving it to deadline day to sell Isak and sign Wissa when the whole world knew it would happen .
For all we know the players may be starting to ask questions about the clubs direction and that may be in part what’s happening here.
Seeing Isak jump ship, Gordon looks to be wanting away, Tino won’t commit to new contract and has been poor since City starting talking about him and the press saying they want him. Injuries to the back 4, inconsistent displays from Gordon, great for England poor for us . Wissa injured and reliance on big Nick who only just got here with no pre season with us and is now consistently fouled. All this is out of EH control and I’m not sure how you stop all that noise affecting team moral . There have been games where we have lost yet deserved to win, simply because of a lack of concentration and will to get stuck in, that’s on the players not EH.
Let’s say we offload EH like a few want, do you trust the ownership to get in the right man ?, I don’t and if we have no CL games to offer it’s a tough sell.
We need another good forward in Jan to ease the burden on Wissa and Nick, lets see how quickly the ownership offload Osula and replace and get some defenders in too. Good owners don’t leave the manager and squad floundering .
kimtoon(Quote)
‘remember where we came from’
some of you would say that if we lost 10 on the bounce, we have spent a lot on signings Eddie and his nephew insisted upon and have put out multiple awful performances that would be bad under Bruce.
The excuse machine has already started
Chris(Quote)