So, what happened?

It will all be speculation but I have a number of thoughts:

Eddie has always wanted control of the buying and selling of players. Max allowed him to do that. The team that has just been relegated was his team, his players and his staff, not people parachuted in by a director of football.

Eddie knew we had a choice of spending money on players or infrastructure, we couldn’t do both. Rightly in my opinion, we spent it on players to try to stay in the PL

One of the reasons Eddie hasn‘t appeared to consider other roles previously could well be that no other club would give him that control.

The reality is Eddie has overseen the relegation of the most talented squad we have ever had. That squad should not have ended up in the bottom three. Eddie took us to places we never dreamed of, for which we will be forever grateful, but we cannot hide that for the past 18 months more of the performances have been poor rather than decent. We can blame the players but he has the responsibility to get that out of them. you cannot fail to view this (season) as failure.

The fact we don’t have a ready made replacement would suggest a Max wasn’t expecting this. Max has proven himself to be supportive of Eddie numerous times in the past. Most owners would have sacked him several times over given recent form. Max stood by him.

Tactically, Eddie has been found to be less brilliant than we thought at this level, his stock has dropped. Did he want to risk it declining further if he couldn’t get us back up?

My guess is Max is prepared to bank roll the club still but wanted some changes, perhaps adopting a more “first team coach” rather than old school manager. Perhaps he wanted him to off load some of the “old boys” coaching staff? They have responsibility too. Perhaps it was team or infrastructure and Eddie didn’t like it?

Regardless, we are where we are largely because of Eddie but that would have been impossible without Max’s money so I think talk of doing more to keep Eddie needs to be put in the context of we have just been relegated, poor football, his team & his players. Wenger. Went on too long, did Eddie too?

As I think on this the more that I think you may be right here and that clearly Max is looking to become more “hands on” thus his recent communication to the fans.

I suspect he is looking to split the role into a coaching position and a director of football. One of these was offered to Eddie. The DF perhaps?

100% conjecture on my part but makes sense of what we know.
 
By mutual consent: Thanks for your service but in view of the disappointing way that the season has unfolded despite the resources at your disposal I have concluded that it would be in the best interests of the club for there to be someone new at the helm to face the challenges of the forthcoming season. I would like to wish you all the best in your future career.
 
By mutual consent: Thanks for your service but in view of the disappointing way that the season has unfolded despite the resources at your disposal I have concluded that it would be in the best interests of the club for there to be someone new at the helm to face the challenges of the forthcoming season. I would like to wish you all the best in your future career.

Is that how they let you go from KFC?
 
I would say with the heavy plant still on site it means 1 of a few things like
the groundworkers are really quiet and dont need the plant elsewhere which to me is strange as if work wasn't going ahead then the plant would be moved fast and secured rather then have it on a empty site screaming to be nicked
or
like someone posted phase 1 of the works is done and phase 2 will be starting soon enough
I wouldnt rule out some sort of training ground being finished or like I said the plant would of been moved on by now
 
I would say with the heavy plant still on site it means 1 of a few things like
the groundworkers are really quiet and dont need the plant elsewhere which to me is strange as if work wasn't going ahead then the plant would be moved fast and secured rather then have it on a empty site screaming to be nicked
or
like someone posted phase 1 of the works is done and phase 2 will be starting soon enough
I wouldnt rule out some sort of training ground being finished or like I said the plant would of been moved on by now
I'm sure I heard that the guys carrying out the work pre lockdown weren't local. It may be something as simple as them or their employers not being comfortable with them travelling or staying in B and B's or hotels. They may even be furloughed.
 
God so much crap on here, why would max after all these years want to suddenly be more hands on.
Players or training ground, who knows, at the end of the day our income is now substantially reduced.
Everyone has a view but no one knows what really was said
 
...the thing is Eddie Howe has taken a massive blow to his ego and in relegating us I think that he was already falling into his sword by publicly admitting it was his fault to the media. Max probably saw that he couldn’t lift him up and it was mutually agreed that a break was required?...whether any of the other reasons being said on here are correct then perhaps we will never know as Max is a private person and Eddie to his credit never shows any disloyalty to his board.
 
I'm with fritter......something happened to make him suddenly announce it on Saturday, nearly a week after the end of season.......will the truth ever come out ,who knows ?

I don’t see it or see any point overthinking it. Meetings were scheduled Thursday and Friday of last week, obviously trickled into Saturday morning. He probably took Mon - Wed off to talk to his family and have a few days off
 
I'll wait for the inevitable autobiography. The truth is out there. Published just as Eddie takes over as England manager... 2025!
 
The people who know what happened aren’t saying. Nor, given the characters involved, are they ever likely to. Time to move on.
 
I don't think we can underestimate the impact of lockdown and the extra time he got to spend with his boys. We all know Eddie put in astronomical hours at the club - I think the stress of the relegation battle put a lot of things into perspective for him. Wouldn't be surprised if he just fell out of love with the job, if not the club.
IMO, I think Eddie fell out of love for the job, not the club.

It has been a difficult 18 months, but no one will take away from what he achieved for us, and i truly believe no manager in football league history will repeat it.

However, he does look tired, and liked what has been said before, I imagine he did enjoy lockdown with his family.

Whilst we remember the incredible things this man has achieved, we have to remember his most expensive, costly squad, got relegated so there must be a problem somewhere.

An internal appointment would be a disaster in my opinion
 

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