100% No doubt Ashley had some deluded idea that by signing a Japanese player he imagined 80 million Japanese people parading around in Sports Direct tack during the Olympics…..you just know that’s the way his mind works
He was shopping at poundland no doubt, but look around his career. His transfer record is at best patchy. He has a unique approach and players to go with it. I still think Muto and Ki were signed for commercial reasons so I think I'll give Rafa a pass on them. I have nothing to back this up because Rafa spoke about both as his signings and good players. But I just think its weird Ashley was trying to break Asia at the time. I always said that Rafa's obsession with numbers and spreading the little money we had thin would catch up with us. I preferred the Pardew approach of spending all we had on good players and accepting the drop off when you got injuries. Both have their pitfalls because Pardew's approach meant injuries led to big lows, which meant slipping down the table and struggling to keep the good players you did have. Rafa's was really bad for the long term future of the club. Obviously Ashley is the overall problem. But that massive spend in the championship was absolute madness. Ashley is gone. We have money. Howe is hamstrung of course by not being able to get good players because of our position. But even if he just rips out the rot, I'll have respect for his approach. Get good players like your Carlos and Haidara for instance (I can't see either), then he has zero excuses of course bar getting them to gel.
If gets a few results I'll credit him, but right now I'm not going to make excuses for him. He's now had 10 games and 37ms, so things shouldn't be getting worse. He's literally only 2 defeats away from people questioning whether he should be sacked. Rafa waits.. I can see him coming back if loses the next 2
One thing I will say about Howe. When Fernandez is back he has no excuse for not picking him. He did well against Norwich when getting the chance. I accept he's been injured and has had long COVID, but he is comfortably the best centre back we have. Shelvey I have no answer for because we don't have a ball player. But just go with Willock if we get him fit enough. Obviously the ideal is we sign players to make this irrelevant, but I mean if we struggle to get players in.
If that happens it'll be disgusting and I'll lose faith in the owners. Not Howe getting the bullet. Just Rafa again, even short term. I'll start to think they are clueless about football.
Bruce had 3 points from 8 Howe has 7 from 9 It is an improvement. It's not enough of 1 to keep us up, but it is better
Always felt Howe was an underwhelming appointment but didn't want to post on here at the time as it could have looked as though it was sour grapes or an attack on NUFC as a club (which i'm sure you've been getting relentlessly since the takeover).
Especially them, they can't stop speaking about us. They blame us for losing whatever monthly contribution they now make to Amnesty International.
