Newcastle should give Eddie Howe a statue…then sack him | OneFootball

Newcastle United and Tottenham get a right kicking in the Mailbox with Eddie Howe set for a statue and the sack.

Eddie Howe out

In the 86th, I announced, “we are so close to losing this match,” and then we did. 22 points lost from winning positions in the league: that’s the only metric we lead in. By my count, we’ve allowed 16 in the final minute of a half or in stoppage time. Unacceptable. The mackems just did the double on us, and they deserved it. Eddie is out of ways back and he has to go, period. Full stop, if you prefer.

I hope the board has already commissioned his statue, so it can be unveiled at our last home match with West Ham and we can move on the following weekend. Chris C, Toon Army DC [Bruno G has mumps? I’m glad he already has kids, but ffs, get your vaccinations, people.]

Taking the pith

Heres one for Dan G LFC.

WE’RE F**KED.

That is all. TGWolf(.)(.)THFC

Question

If Spurs go down, are they still part of the big 6? Just wondering. Jon, Cape Town (first time for a long time that Utd aren’t the biggest crisis club. Enjoying Liverpool and Spurs being shit while Chelsea will continue to go under the radar as no-one cares. Was a short mail before the brackets, oh well, sorry, not sorry)

Take the armband off Romero

Firstly, well done Forest. They deserved to beat us, even if I’ve seen worse from Spurs.

But once again, we folded when it got tough. No spirit, no heart.

Will someone please walk into the Spurs dressing room with a pair of shears and physically cut the armband off of Christian Romero’s arm?

He is the worst, weakest, most self-centred, most passive ‘captain’ I can ever remember in nearly 40 years following Spurs. Remember Kane geeing everyone up, thumping his fists? Remember his “Is this how you want to be remembered?” speech?

And don’t forget, years ago, Romero was passed over for both Lloris and Son, so they obviously didn’t think he was captain material before.

When Forest scored, Romero looked like a bored schoolboy who thinks he should be playing for a better team. He shambles around looking like he would rather be anywhere than there, and when we go behind he just walks back to the centre dejectedly. No attempt to encourage or rouse the team.

Give it to Gray. Give it to Richi (props to the Forest defence for controlling him so effectively today, by the way). Hell, give it to Ben Davies and let him lead from the bench.

Our captain is a major reason the ship is sinking. It’s not too late to avoid the iceberg. Sam

Bald fraud? Really?

I saw Philip Correa’s mail earlier, and once again I am left with a feeling of despair at the childishness of some people.

Whilst I don’t necessarily disagree with his general thoughts and sentiments regarding Arne Slot and the current situation at Liverpool, is there any need to get all personal and call Slot a ‘bald fraud’?

We can see he has no hair, and I am sure he is also aware of this! And given he won the league at the first attempt, and has had success in the Netherlands he can’t really be labelled a fraud either.

There is no need at all to resort to Trumpian insults. It doesn’t help get a message across, it just gives the impression of childishness, and I think we should be above that here! A, LFC, Montreal

No dive, no penalty

Watching the Spurs Forest match, and there we have proof if any were needed about referees and penalties: Forest defender sticks his leg out, trips the Spurs player who stumbles to his knees but while the Forest player is busy saying “I didn’t touch him ref” – a sure fire sign of guilt if ever there is one – the lad gets back up rather than make a meal of it, and tries to attack again.

So, because he didn’t make a meal of it, take three rolls or clutch his leg, no penalty. Same as Amad, and unlike Evanilson. So what referees are saying is you need to sell the foul, dive if necessary, else they won’t look twice.

Sorry, but if there’s contact on player and not ball that impedes the player, it’s a foul. It’s THAT simple.

It’s still early days in the match, but these decisions can literally decide whether a club stays up or not, wins CL football or not etc. These are decisions worth tens of millions of pounds and literally careers.

It is frankly not acceptable that they get them wrong with video replays *right there*, that they lack the balls to make an unpopular call. I don’t think they are inept, I think they are eunuchs. Badwolf

Picking on Pickford again

An outstanding save from Jordan Pickford from Enzo Fernandez.

From a chance gifted to the Chelsea player by poor goalkeeping from Jordan Pickford.

Unfortunately the footballing world has preferences, not standards, so Pickford is lauded for the fine save rather than highlighted for his woeful handling of the cross.

A fine shot-stopper but absolutely allergic to an incoming high ball. Eoin (stopping shots is their job so at least he’s still better than Sanchez) Ireland

xG is an English invention

Drainer Ice, in reference to xG, “Like what in the world is that moronic idea of a stat?” you ask. Well, I don’t know much about xG calcs, but the guy who invented it does…ask him with the same levels of derision, why don’t you?

His name is Sam Greene and he’s English, so he may live right down the road from you.

Greene developed the modern xG model in 2012 working for a company called Opta, which happens to be – huh – an English company. And while many pro and amateur sports leverage data analytics these days, football seems to be the only one that uses the xG model – it took a 5 second Google search to confirm that…

So, Drainer, it’s funny what you cite you hate about the sport is actually an English invention and only applicable to one sport, football – not NFL, NBA or baseball. Unfortunately, America can take credit for a lot of stupid things these days, just watch the news, but xG is not one of them…

That’s all. Russell, BHM, AL

Inevitable?

The West Ham performance today was so poor and tactically rudderless that I would rather not dwell on it. Even the epic Spurs fail hasn’t cheered me up (well, much…).

Instead…. I submit that perhaps there needs to be a new rule in place for you journos and us mortals alike around the use of the word “inevitable”. I contend that the word is so grossly overused as to render it utterly meaningless. My evidence relates to our collective frequent/constant (fair) comments about managers being sacked.

Just this morning, 2 main headlines here were: “Eddie Howe’s position becomes untenable”; “Rosenior sack inevitable”. Since the afternoon games finished just 3 hours ago I see a new F365 article headed: “Tudor sacking inevitable after shameless……”. That must be at least the third time that Tudor was definitively for certain to be sacked.

For my own part, I’ve used phrases like “well, after THAT he is definitely getting the sack”; “inevitable”; “that’s surely the end”; “untenable”; “unconscionable”; “get that cnt out of here NOW” etc etc and so on very many times, just recently with Potter, Lopetegui and, the world record holder for ‘inevitable sacking’, David Moyes. Amorim and Slot have ‘inevitably’ lost their jobs dozens of times this year

Of course, at least 90% of the time the inevitability of the event turns out to be absolutely nothing of the sort. Is it the case that we use this unequivocal and definitive language because we are somehow trying to materialise into reality something that we morally or emotionally desperately want to happen? Or, as I suggest, are the words themselves used so frequently and flippantly that they now just mean nothing? Also, does anyone care?? I don’t really. Mike (trying to occupy my mind with anything other than my team’s current dire predicament), WHU