Eddie Howe is starting his fourth full season in charge after being appointed in November 2021.
He has overseen three successive top seven finishes and led the club to their first domestic trophy in 70 years. It has been an impressive period of success and you could be forgiven for expecting a decline in the near future. Many in the mainstream media will have been predicting one for 2025/26.
That isn’t a slight on Howe. It is just modern football. The time for tenured managers like Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger is in the past. Attention spans have shortened and the need for instant gratification grows. People are less patient in general, whether that be in the stands or in the boardroom.
In 2012, the average length of a Premier League manager’s reign was close to four years. In October 2022, this had dropped to around two years. The most recent study completed by Issuu in February 2025 stated that the average had dropped even further to 1.42 years.
In November, Howe will be ready to celebrate his fourth anniversary at St James’ Park. That will have been around the average in 2012. Now, he is proving to be a huge anomaly.
Only Pep Guardiola, Mikel Arteta and Marco Silva have been in charge for longer from the current Premier League clubs. It wouldn’t be a surprise if Howe tops this list one day. He shows no sign of wanting to leave and the club are clearly delighted with him.
That brings me nicely onto Monday night. It was a defeat in name, but anybody who watched will have seen a performance full of commitment, aggression and quality. It was the embodiment of an Eddie Howe team and despite now being in his fourth full season, there isn’t a sign of staleness.
Liverpool are the current champions. They are the predator trying to take our best player. However, on Monday night, they were outplayed. We had ten shots to their five. They only had two shots after the break, which bookended the second half. Unfortunately for us, they both went in.
Oh, and we played with only ten men for the majority of the match. It was a display that underlined the close-knit group that Howe has built. Some he has signed. Others he inherited. It shows how good the manager is to maintain that after a turbulent summer.
We only have one point from a possible six available, but that isn’t the story. It is rather one of hard luck and misfortune.
Howe is a special manager and he is ours. In the modern game, he’s a unicorn. We need to give him the tools that he needs. If we do, the sky is the limit.
Managers don’t last this long in the modern game. Howe isn’t done yet though, far from it.
It would be a bigger disaster to lose Eddie than Isak, he is a superb manager who should of been backed with a full team upstairs this summer instead of being left to do everything after Mitchell left.
As it stands we have no forward in and I’ll bet he is tearing his hair out knowing we are fighting on 4 fronts.
I can see another club or England try to tempt him away, just hope he isn’t let down by the bosses after such a great season and cup win.
kimtoon(Quote)
Wholly agree with Jake’s article and also kim’s comment, except Jake’s erroneous comment that having one point out of 6, when we could have , clearly, had all 6 “isn’t the story”. Sadly, oh yes it is, as we shall see when the points are totalled up in May: just see what these 5 dropped points due to unbelievable transfer incompetence will cost us (and that assumes we have the situation rectified by Saturday, which is vanishingly unlikely).
IEWT
davewallace(Quote)
Kimtoon:-
I think the club have backed him and will continue to do so, things haven’t always panned out due to PSR and FFP, Villa are having similar issues.
The septic six are certainly taking full advantage of the corrupt rules that favour them with regards to the salaries they can offer etc.
We are indeed fortunate to have Eddie Howe as Villa are with their manager who could have been ours.
Joseph(Quote)
Ridiculous !! Joseph is right .,The club have backed him to the hilt .. so far spending about £130 million and if it goes well with larsen another £60 million and possibly wissa £45 million ,, ., this blame those upstairs is silly when they have tried to buy top players and funded transfers ..if any to blame it was saint Howe not getting along with Mitchell and he shared some responsibility for that .., I think we are in very good shape with or without isak if we can get in one hopefully two strikers mentioned
Mike(Quote)
If you look at it even spurs have struggled. It’s a cartel of 5 really, I get some of that is due to their stadium cost and Levy obviously but its true. They were humiliated on eze and MGW, if that had been us people would have been in total meltdown
I don’t think we have been that bad. We tried to buy top players in a rigged system it’s that simple
East Stand(Quote)
The club backing him isn’t just a transfer window thing – it’s about putting the right people in around him to ensure he has the right support.
Ashworth was a good appointment but was one of the first numpties to have his head turned by Man U.
The delay in replacing him cost the club & put an additional strain on Howe. It then took far to long bringing Mitchell in and despite the drawn out process they still managed to get that wrong.
Howe has still had most of this summer without anyone in that post – as well as a CEO this summer.
That’s not supporting Howe.
I know this point is hypothetical, but with the right people in those posts – might we have landed 1 or 2 of the targets we’ve missed out on?!.
Howe wanted the signings in early and with those people in place maybe that would have happened.
Sharpy17(Quote)
A big responsibility let’s with the foundations of football management from the very top, who are very silent on the topic of FPP and PSR, but quick on changing rules; Eddie is a winner as are many of the players on the pitch, those not on the pitch are desperate to be involved, side from Issac, I think his downfall maybe youth, and inexperience, football players aren’t politicians and take what is said to them as what it is, it’s black and white, pardon the pun.
It is no longer enjoyable, football should be equal all round, Clouthy would agree and say so plain speaking, now football is immersed in bureaucracy and people afraid to speak out. Sadly the beautiful game is getting very ugly.
Larry(Quote)
I won’t get tired of repeating it – Howe is not a top manager. Time will prove it.
He is inconsistent; he can deliver a series of brilliant matches, followed by a series of poor performances. This was the case at Bournemouth, and it has been the case in every season at Newcastle. Last year, they collapsed in the final stretch again and only miraculously remained in the Champions League spots. Howe is very poor when it comes to in-game substitutions.
But most importantly, Howe doesn’t know how to compete in multiple tournaments and can’t rotate the squad properly. This is unacceptable for a club that aims to consistently play in European competitions. And he isn’t very good at adapting either.
hmd(Quote)