Don't push your luck I think that's why you ended up with that bulbous arse of yours in the 1st place.
It's all a bit weird at the moment. Some idiot on Talksport this morning - Dean Saunders? - saying "the first thing Eddie will do is sort the defence out". Ok, so how do we sanction £70m on defenders, on top of a solid record last season, then go on to have just 4 or 5 clean sheets so far in the league? He (Saunders) did say that Eddie gets "the biggest defence in the league" - is that really a tactic? Big defenders?! It's the repetition of things that aren't working. Does Eddie manage Bruno, or does Bruno manage Eddie? The Isak isolation is strange as well - our only attack came from Gordon 'doing an ASM' by just making something happen, but that again isn't a tactic. Isak is clearly not someone who should be playing as a target man. Is it the management, or is it the recruitment, or is it both? Howe seems very downbeat about new signings. Is that a lack of faith in him specifically? Or is it that genuinely we've no money, or are we struggling to attract/find the right players all of a sudden? I just feel last Summer was such a failure. We get into UCL, have guaranteed earnings, a bit of prestige and that was the moment to upgrade - in particular - Burn, Almiron, Longstaff, Wilson and Schar. But someone, somewhere, felt this lot were good enough for a CL tilt. I wonder if that's why there's "no money" this month?
Howe and the recruitment team appear to think we just need 23 slow good lads and 2 strinters up top that can't dribble.
Howe sounded like an idiot in the post match. "I thought we had some really good passages of play", "we looked really dangerous at times" and "the second penalty was probably the turning point". Holy moly. If Liverpool had Haaland instead of Nunez, they'd have won by at least 8. I mean Salah missed a penalty and Dubravka was comfortably our best player.
Managers all do this when trying to keep their jobs. Bruce was the same. If they say the truth they'd have to admit they're just not doing a good job and have no idea how to fix it.... other than chuck me more signings.
I don't have a lot of faith that Howe recognises the issues. I mean, Burn vs Salah was an interesting decision, particularly given the shambles that was Burn vs Elanga. I think there's an overall plan - a bit like Ashley and his "purple players" - where we have a first choice, a solid backup and a young player in each position. RB. Trippier - Krafth - Livramento. Fine. LB. Burn - Targett - Hall. Crap. CB. Botman/Schar - Lascelles - Murphy. Crap. CDM/6. Bruno. Top player but this role is not working. RCM. Tonali - Longstaff - Miley. Fine. LCM. Joelinton - Willock. Fine. RW. Almiron - Murphy - Minteh. Awful, mainly because Minteh's unavailable. LW. Gordon - Barnes. Decent. CF. Isak - Wilson. Not good enough. So we need a LB, CB, CDM, RW and CF plus a GK. It's kinda really obvious. Not saying it's therefore easy to sort it but our focus in recruitment should be first XI player every time (alongside bringing more youth in) until we're at an acceptable level. Our first XI recruitment has been Gordon and Tonali in an entire year, one per window. We're spending entire budgets on 2nd and 3rd choice, which is fine if the first XI is that strong, but just plain stupid when you have Longstaff, Burn, Schar and Almiron.
But, but, but Eddie said we had "really good passages of play" and "looked really dangerous". Our xG was, what, 0.42?!
He's just boring mate and the polar opposite of the likes of klopp... Eddie Howe is a dull nerd.... a nerd will do well until a bit of fight is required.
