I fail to see who would be a better candidate? Took a team who had 6 points after 12 games, no wins in 14, no side who has that few points at that point of the season has survived, and has made us maybe a top 10 side, who has only been surpassed by Liverpool in regards to their 2nd half of the season performance.
Liverpool is a whole club effort though. It's not just Klopp; he gets to spend £50m on Jota, £40m on Diaz, £75m on van Dijk alongside other superb recruitment and youth development. They should comfortably be 1st or 2nd, and that's where they are. The difference is they're fighting for four trophies, which is completely unique, so he's probably edging it. Guardiola's not even going to be considered for manager of the year. Only Lage has done anything else of note, everyone else is more or less where they should be, or lower. Newcastle, however, should be relegated, yet Howe has achieved safety with 5 to play. We'd be top 6 already if Howe had delivered this form across the entire season, I think we'd be on something like 56 points or more? And that's with a team that has to play the likes of Shelvey, Murphy, Wood, Almiron, Krafth on a weekly basis. If Liverpool end the season with just the League Cup then it's Howe. If Liverpool win another trophy or three, it's Klopp.
I actually think that Howe has over delivered more than ANY manager in the PL this year. Sadly the media love in with Klopp and Pep won't allow Eddie to get the plaudits.
I'm sure fans of West Ham and Wolves will say their managers deserve a shout too, but Howe really has done well. If you take our average points per game under Howe and apply that across all 33 games we've played this season, we'd currently be on 52 points. Competing for top 7. Compare that to pre-Howe points per game ratio and we'd currenrly be bottom on just 15 points. And that's doing Brucey a favour! 2 of the 5 points we gained before Howe took over were in the 3 games after Brucey left. If you apply Brucey's points per game ratio, then we'd only be on 12 points now. I know it's not as simple as that and rhere are lots of other factors, but the contrast between our form under Howe vs our form under Bruce is quite simply ridiculous.
With another 6 points we'll better than last season's points total - if that comes off it's pretty magnificent when you consider what we had on the board when he came in. EH has proven himself - again - as a great manager.
Actually I don’t think it is ridiculous. It just reinforces what a lot of us were saying for most of Bruce’s tenure here. Even before the January buys a distinct improvement could be seen in the team’s performances even if that, at that time, it hadn’t translated into results. Bruce also reinforcing the differences by his continued ineptitude at WBA.
No surprise at all those stats. Plain as day to everyone with a slither of knowledge we were the worst in the league under that slug. Club destroyer him
