Down with Eddie....or.....??

Neil Dawson - 18/12/2017 13:43

And also...if we are to be honest... Cork, Hendricks and Defour are all way ahead of Surman and Gosling...Brady is better than Pugh...

SDD? Or am I wrong?
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Brady did cost Burnley £13 million a year ago, and £7 million from Hull to Norwich 18 months before that. I would expect him to be better than Pugh (and he is).

But for me the salient point is that players like Surman and Gosling are perfectly fine and effective in the PL when playing in the formation that suits their abilities i.e. a 3 man central midfield. We never seem to play that anymore - it works for us - use it.
 
Neil Dawson - 17/12/2017 23:16

Interesting point there though Fritter is I think Eddie should change some of his back room staff. Never did Fergie any harm.

To the original post...Eddie should stay if we go down. Every championship club is looking for a manager who knows how to win that league and we have one.
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That was my theme a few months ago. Too many nice guys around him who haven't tasted playing at a higher level. Are any of them brave enough to suggest a different strategy to Eddie or don't they get the opportunity to do so?
 
SlowDownDerek - 18/12/2017 13:56
Personally I think all this failed transfer policy argument boils down to the failure of Jordon Ibe to make any impact so far.
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Ibe has it in him to be a great player. Theo Walcott had a spell like that and came through it. Great runs followed up by poor decisions and a rubbish ball. Ibe needs a lot of work on him and at the moment it seems a luxury we can't afford.
 
afcbmdl27 - 18/12/2017 14:18

Eddie needs to stay and will stay ! Look at what he has done since the -17 days !
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Oh not this again! No one denies the achievement from -17. No one wants to sack him. But if I brought up in my end of year performance review at work “look how many queries I resolved in 2009” I wouldn’t be taken very seriously by my current boss.
 
Tinpot Club - 18/12/2017 14:44

afcbmdl27 - 18/12/2017 14:18

Eddie needs to stay and will stay ! Look at what he has done since the -17 days !
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Oh not this again! No one denies the achievement from -17. No one wants to sack him. But if I brought up in my end of year performance review at work “look how many queries I resolved in 2009” I wouldn’t be taken very seriously by my current boss.
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To be fair, he did say "Look at what he has done SINCE the -17 days !", he's done alright I guess when you look at it from this perspective.
 
I used that list as evidence to show we've progressed year on year since then. Neil can't be bothered to present any evidence to support his theory that Eddies transfer signing are proportionately worse than any other manager.
 
5 changes from a side that deserved a point at
Old Trafford to that dross last night! Questions need
to be asked about the managers mind set! Shocking
management!
 
I'm in the "keep Eddie even if we go down" camp.

We are always going to be in the "achieving way beyond our means" category whilst in the Premier League... and most of that is down to Eddie Howe and the players he has bought, coached and picked each week to play for us. Of couse, Max's money has helped - but there are many more stories of (bigger) teams that have thrown money at promotion pushes and failed miserably - hence the Championship being cluttered with "big" clubs (Leeds, Middlesbrough, Nott Forest, Wolves, Norwich, Sunderland, Blackburn, etc.).

That isn't to say that I don't find some of Eddie's decisions incredibly frustrating - some of this team selections seem obviously wrong (sticking to the old guard too often) and his substitutions can be baffling... but he's still way better than any previous manager we've had (or are ever likely to have). He's coached League 1 players to play in the Championship and then win it outright in the second season... followed by two seasons in the Premier League with largely the same group of players performing week in and week out at this incredibly challenging level of football.

The players we attract and those that have been with us a long time all hold him in high regard... he's often the reason players choose us over other teams. So if things don't work out this year and we end up going down, I'd have more faith in Eddie being able to bring us back up from the Championship than any other manager.

I'd also like us to be different from all the other clubs that fire managers the moment they have 3-4 bad results or slip into the bottom three (Palace, WBA, Swansea, West Ham, etc.) - we do things "the Bournemouth way" and that means sticking by the manager that has brought us more success than I could ever have dreamt of...
 
No question Eddie must stay,but in bringing in young players for the future ,like Ibe ,Mahoney,Hyndman plus Brad Smith who really is'nt pushing for a place against say Burnley whose inputs ,,slot straight into the side and improve it,must be a cause for concern in our present situation.
 
Neil Dawson - 18/12/2017 13:43

And also...if we are to be honest... Cork, Hendricks and Defour are all way ahead of Surman and Gosling...Brady is better than Pugh...

SDD? Or am I wrong?
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Neil, Neil, Neil. I know how much you cream yourself whenever you can trot out the #failedtransferpolicy [ even though this thread was not intended for this discussion again ] - but I will point out again. EVERY club has transfers that don't work out. Fergie got loads wrong!! Watford were lauded on these pages a few weeks ago but they have a revolving door policy, so some stick but many move on.

Even Burnley are not perfect, as you are suddenly claiming.

First of all - comparing players above - Surman and Gosling, free transfers, Pugh 100k. Up against Cork - 9-10m, Brady, around 12/13m, Hendrick, over 10m, Defour 7/8m. [ although apparently Dyche says they never spend any money ].

Arrivals over the last couple of seasons, include such amazing success stories as Jon Flanagan, Gloves Bamford, Johann Berg Gudmundsson, Lukas Jutkiewicz, Ashley Westwood, Anders Lindegaard, Charlie Taylor.....

Our players have proved over two previous seasons that they can ALL hack it at this level. The issues this season are not because the squad isn't good enough but that the players are not playing at previous levels.
 
My view on #failedtransferpolicy is not as strong as Neil's. In fact I think you could look at each individual signing and argue they made sense at the time. There have also been very few complete disasters so simply by naming names we probably aren't too different from other clubs on the hit or miss scale.

The question mark I have is the strategy as a whole. I mentioned above, individually there was logic behind each signing. However, recruitment is not done on an individual basis, it needs to fit in with an overall strategy.

Where I think we've gone wrong is signing a succession of forward players all in a similar mould without much thought of how they would fit into the same team. Easier said than done, but if you can identify a striker or winger that you feel would benefit the team, then you need to consider the players around him that can provide the service.

Ibe, Afobe and Defoe are my main examples.

Ibe needs to play in a front 3 completely devoid of defensive responsibility or involvement in build up play.
Was Afobe signed as a pacy forward like Wilson, a target man or a no. 10? I'm still not sure.
Defoe's pedigree is excellent as a goal scorer. What was the plan to get him scoring? Is our team geared to providing the service he needs?

You could even question Cook and Wilshere and wonder what role Eddie envisaged for them in the side. I'm sure the conspiracy theorists will have a field day debating if these were actually Eddie's signings (I think they were) but thats a debate for another thread...
 
With the players we have right now, if they're all fit, I think we're a top half team in the right formation.


4-4-2 is not the right formation. The sooner EH sees this, we'll rocket up the league.
 
I think Eddie has done well on buys overall as I expect he has to lower his sights on who we wanted vs signed My biggest concern this season though is the 3 quality additions haven’t really added to the team. Begovic, Defoe and ake are all really decent buys but to play them we nullified the top 3 player of the season nominees: Steve Cook (dropped), boruc (dropped) and king (forced wide again where less effective). No doubt this reflects availability but the uplift on last year hasn’t happened. Upgrades on ibe, arter and franno would have had more impact but maybe the players that would improve the team weren’t available.
 
Tinpot Club - 18/12/2017 17:06

You could even question Cook and Wilshere and wonder what role Eddie envisaged for them in the side. I'm sure the conspiracy theorists will have a field day debating if these were actually Eddie's signings (I think they were) but thats a debate for another thread...
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It was common knowledge that he had to be persuaded over Jack. You know Eddie, if he wants someone he never gives up and it doesn't sound like we ever seriously made a move for him after the loan / his injury. The yanks were supposedly happy with their outlay at the time.

I think Cook was his call.
 
Eddie should stay even if we were to be relegated this season (which I don't think we will) because of what he has done in the past & he hasn't become a bad manager over night, he is the best manager we've ever had & are likely to have with our current resources. However their are aspects of his management where he has flaws (like any other manager) which is frustrating.

The main one being too much loyalty to the old guard who he perceives to be good enough when it's evident to most that they've dropped from the levels they were once operating at in previous seasons. Form is temporary & class is permanent may be the phrase some may point to but for some players it definitely doesn't ring true with the extra miles on the clock taking effect it does seem they've come one season too far. Other flaws are at times being naive although less so this season & being tactically unaware on some occasions where he leaves us overrun in key areas making it easier for the opposition.

The biggest question of Eddie is could he build another team moving away from the long serving players with the influx of PL money. Out of the PL signings we have made as a club there are very few he actually trusts to take over the old guard. Only Begovic, Ake & King are regulars consistently in the first team now. Defoe, L.Cook & Afobe have all had periods within the team but haven't been the first names on the teamsheet compared to the other signings mentioned or some of the longer serving players, they've all been in & out of the team.

For me to still be reliant on the amount of longer serving players given the time period we've been in this league going into window 6 this January, considering the amount of money we have received is wrong. It shows we haven't recruited well enough on players that will directly effect the first 11 now & focussed a lot on players who may be good in the future. The problem is the longer serving players are coming/come to an end so we have to recruit first team players which will cost a lot of money. We haven't been proactive in replacing areas that have had deficiencies (e.g. Right side of defence, Defensive midfielder, creative midfielder) in previous windows & still rely on players who you can't get anymore increase in performance level.

Transfers are always going to be a risk & no club in the land will have a perfect record, however we haven't got a very high success rate in our transfers with many being stuck in the reserves, been sold or loaned out. We've wasted a fair bit of money on what seems like to be a lack of collective strategy recruiting some players who simply on the face of it don't seem to fit the requirements for our system of play. I don't know how anyone can trust our recruitment team who don't have much experience and have had a lot of failures in their signings. How we haven't addressed the scouting & recruitment department baffles me & it does seem like to a degree their is a jobs for the boys approach which simply doesn't cut it in my mind.

I'm positive of our chances of staying up this season & would never take any negativity into the ground around these external factors & will support anyone who wears the red & black 100% for 90 minutes but on forums like this we as fans should question certain aspects of the club as we all want one thing and that is the club to do well. Some of these players have to be replaced or we will move backwards which as a club we can prevent from happening with some proper strategic planning and some successful recruiting like with Ake & Begovic this season.
 
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