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He has exclusively started with Redmond who has COVID. It's like I was saying the other day, Broja doesn't create enough to play alongside one of the other two imo. He'll for sure come on though, he's both a great option if we need a goal and a change of pace and also a great option when holding a lead as his hold up play is better than Armstrong so he can be an out ball.

Athletic have pretty reliably said it is a buyback clause of £50m but as they get a share of sell on they'd only have to pay £38m. It becomes active in 2023.

No I think you are bang on, easily our weakest position right now with Macca having a bit of a resurgence (although we still need a new keeper). Our chance creation stats are very poor.

https://www.hampshirelive.news/sport/football/football-news/ralph-hasenhuttl-tino-livramento-southampton-6164313 Ralph addressing the idea of Tino in midfield.

Burnley are particularly precarious as their two best players (Mee and Tark) both have 6 months left on their contracts. I'd be absolutely bricking it if I were a Burnley fan. Last chance for new owners to cash in and Newcastle are looking...

I imagine the big name players will be attracted by money, but yeah it is incredibly uninspiring. Especially since they missed out on a manager who just won the europa league with villarreal.

There is a lot of sense in this actually, building a squad from grassroots and then testing it against lower league allowing it to gel, battering weaker opposition and then coming up to the prem with that squad full on confidence, nicely gelled, and ready to spend big money to add star power is probably a better starting point than limping on in the prem with a bunch of holes and no confidence. Don't know if the saudi's will see it that way though, would certainly be a little embarrassing for them to be relegated.

Yeah agreed. I think they should be ok though, a number of other bottom teams look quite weak this year. If Burnley lose Tark and/or Mee in jan they will be in real trouble and Watford/Norwich look wank.

Money talks. I think there will be quite a few biters actually. We shall see though. Even if they just poach the best players from other relegation battling teams/mid table sides that will go a long way. If they take Tark then their defence doubles in quality and Burnleys halves, which might be enough on its own. Same, I hate newcastle.

We'll have to see on this one. If he signings are crap I rate him to go down. Right now though, the most reliably linked players (eg. Sule, Tark) would be plenty to keep them safe. Also, a preposterously wealthy conglomerate just bought them, I doubt they cheap out now and let their new investment get relegated. A player will join a relegation threatened side if you double their wage and put in a relegation clause, and it only takes one doing so for others to think "Well, newcastle might not have many points, but they have X, that and me should be enough for them to surpass burnley, plus if they don't I'll leave for pennies due to my clause".

Thats not mutually exclusive... Howe underperformed with a budget of ~£50m a season to be a lower midtable side who got relegated in a bad year. He'd probably also underperform with a ~£150m a season budget with a midtable side who doesn't make europe. Failure means different things when you spend more money. Bournemouth spent a fortune but Newcastle are about to spend a FORTUNE. Heres an example, I believe Potter and Bielsa are better managers than Ole, I think most football fans would agree on that (or atleast one of those). If I bet leeds or brighton would make CL over Ole I'd be an idiot, as Ole has Ronaldo and about 7 other worldclass players and Brighton/Leeds do not. That doesn't make Ole a better manager. Howe will be the same, markedly less talented than Dyche, Ralph, or Bielsa but with enough cash for that difference not to matter. As for Sule, I didn't believe it either but people pretty well placed have linked it. And if not Sule, it shows the range of players they are going for.

Ake was class for bournemouth mostly tbf, but I agree with the rest of it. I also think a number of his players (Danjuma, Solanke, Billing) started playing better after leaving his tenure, which doesn't bode great for his man management. Unfortunately, when you have a lot of money, poor transfers are less likely as you can buy super proven players. If he buys Sule and Tark then that defence is suddenly top 6 level and he barely has to even look at it (and his defences were his biggest weakness)

Nothing changed, its a scale thing. Bournemouth spent like the 8th most in the league over five years and finished on average about 14th over that period 16th, 9th, 12th, 14th, and 18th so on average like 14th ish, with fluctuations up to as high as 9th and as low as 18th (getting them relegated). If Howe repeated his trick at bournemouth at newcastle and spent 8th most in the league he would likely finish about 14th again (maybe a bit lower due to the poor start), which, again, would be pretty poor going with the 8th most expensive team in the league but isn't enough to be relegated. Now I have a hunch that newcastle will spend the 3rd most in the league or more over the next window or two. From that, I suspect Howe should be able to make midtable quite comfortably. But, again, he should be doing better considering the resources. Ralph on the other hand will likely get pennies. Next season if Newcastle spend 3rd most in the league and saints spend 20th and we finish 12th and they finish 11th, one team has succeeded and the other has failed.

Howe is a considerably worse manager than Ralph, yes, but Newcastle are linked with Sule, tarkowski, dembele, coutinho, etc. and have a tonne of money. If one team lines up with Jack Stephens/bednarek and the other lines up with CL level players who start for Bayern like Sule then that evens the odds considerably. Howe could easily finish ahead of Ralph if we spend nothing in Jan and they drop like £100m+. That's the thing, people think "manager A beat manager B, manager A must be better" with no consideration for the resources at their disposal.

Doubt it, they'll drop a tonne in January and just throw money at the problem

Surely you realise a managers ability to succeed is related to the quality of their squad, and if your squad is built on pennies it's less likely to succeed? Like if one manager has a massively pricey squad and finishes 12th and the others is cheap and they finish 13th, would you just flat out say the first manager has done a better job?

"smart people agree with me and dumb people like you disagree, no I won't name the smart people" Pretty poor argument compared to actually discussing the manager and his achievements compared to his resources.

The idea of a manager improving boggles Duckhunters mind "you wouldn't want him after he was doing badly but you do after he's improved" yeah no shit mate. Baffling.

Have you been paying attention at all to Everton? They clearly don't have a pot to piss in. On top of which they lost both forwards to injury for ages. Who cares about context though. Team loses therefore manager is bad is about all you can manage. Atleast it's not about our manager for a while. Sure you'll start whining about that soon too though.

Its almost as if people can change their reputations and standings in the game with sustained success...

I freely admit he is a good manager for lower league football, but he had the chance to prove himself in the prem with a massive budget and got relegated. Armstrong also has the chance to prove himself now, let's see how he does. The difference is both came to the prem with a bunch of promise, one has yet to prove himself and the other proved that even with a big budget the best he could do was survive until eventually he couldn't even manage that. Also, this hipster thing is pure projection of a narrative, I have repeatedly praised Potter and Moyes this season. Just not Howe because he was not prem standard.

That's exciting!

Yeah, but we sold like crazy and they didn't. People do net spend normally as its a fairer metric. If we hadn't sold and had vvd, Mane, Shaw etc. In the last few years and had our league finishes then yeah, we'd be underperformers too

I think the fact they were able to make £100m of sales after going down further shows the quality of side he had at his disposal. I'm not sure sales after relegation and after Howe leaving really show anything, he had those players which were sold when relegated and still couldn't keep them up. I agree it's a great story, Adkins was also a great story and I love the man. But neither of them are really prem level imo.

This is why I struggle with this narrative of Bournemouth as this plucky little side that Howe managed to keep up with immense talent. That side cost an absolute fortune, people only praise him because of his (also financially aided) success in the lower leagues. As a top flight manager he was mediocre at best.