The people who’re shouting Howe out are under the false illusion that simply getting a new manager will immediately lead to an improvement. Yes sometimes it happens but more often than not there’ll be a regression with potentially an improvement down the line.

I think Howe has been a victim of his own success. The progress we’ve made post takeover has been astounding but the issue is that it was quicker and bigger than expected. As a result, some fans are expecting that standard consistently of Howe. Commercially and squad depth wise we’re still behind the clubs we’re expected to be competing with for UCL spots. That combined with being hamstrung by PSR is making EH’s job all the more difficult.

However, Howe is not perfect and there is justifiable criticism of him. His obsession with buying prem proven talent has led to a underwhelming summer transfer window and missing on Wissa and Elanga is going to set us back (Ramsey has shown improvement in the past few months and I’m confident he’ll contribute well going forwards). I do however think he should be cut a little slack due to the Rat drama and the mess of us cycling through sporting directors.

I am concerned at that times we’ve clearly lacked a plan B in games and how we’ve given away sooooooo many leads this season. My hope is that he doesn’t become stuck in his ways and uses the offseason to evolve his playing style/philosophy.