Eddie Howe has been in a place like this before with Newcastle United.
There were abject away defeats at Fulham and Brentford during the autumn of 2024. Earlier in Howe’s reign saw pitiful FA Cup exits to Cambridge United and Sheffield Wednesday. The struggles at St James’ Park against mid-table opposition threatened to derail the Europe push last season. Trauma remains from the Nunez inflicted collapse to Liverpool, and the AC Milan knock-out in 2023.
Social media has a tendency to overreact during tough times. Every defeat is labelled shameful / embarrassing / disgraceful and calls for the manager’s head are never far away.
For once, however, the response was largely justified. There’s losing, and then there’s losing like this, and then there’s losing like this to this version of West Ham United.
The performance at the London Stadium was lazy, lethargic, complacent and an all-round abysmal showing from Newcastle. Howe and his coaching staff had no answers to the disaster that was playing out in front of them. Nothing they did tactically or with personnel had any positive impact on the performance. Confusion and chaos infected the Newcastle team.
Even when they were ahead it was undeserved and always felt a matter of time until West Ham responded. The Magpies never had anything approaching momentum, control or a foothold in the game.
This was a collective failure on every level, and it will reverberate well into the future. This will become ‘that’ game at West Ham in the way last season’s nadir became ‘that’ Brentford game.
Howe has enough credit in the bank for any serious questions about his future to be dismissed out of hand, and he has proven over four years that he invariably finds solutions to problems. But European qualification through the Premier League looks like a pipe dream with a quarter of the league season played, so it will take all of Howe’s coaching ability and experience to get it back on track.
Here are some of the key areas for him to address (two more coming in Part 2):
Away Premier League form
Since they beat a doomed Leicester City in April 2025, Newcastle have won none of eight Premier League games on the road, picking up only 4/24 points in that time.
The draws at Brighton, Villa and Bournemouth were not bad results in this run, but failing to beat Leeds United was poor and losing in this manner to an awful West Ham team verges on catastrophic.
Newcastle picked up 28 away points last season which was joint 6th most in the division. To equal that this time around they need to average 1.78 points per game. It feels extremely unlikely with two of the current bottom five teams already played and all of the traditional big six clubs to visit.
Howe must find a way to get the team performing and picking up wins on the road, or even a top half finish will be a big ask.
Key player form
A number of Newcastle’s senior players are not performing anywhere near their best, particularly in the away league games.
Big talking Anthony Gordon has been outstanding in Europe but hasn’t had a Premier League goal involvement in half a season’s worth of games (19) since he set Tonali up at Southampton in January. He was ignominiously hauled off at half-time at West Ham.
Joelinton has been poor this term and there are questions over his suitability to start regularly in a team that at times is required to play with more possession than previously.
Bruno has played well at St James’ Park scoring some critical goals, but has struggled in the away games, and his form more than any other is reflected in the overall performances of the team. Tonali, too, looks a different prospect at home.
Howe’s task is to coax the best levels out of his key players on a consistent basis, as we all know they are more than good enough when they hit top perform.
Apart from the odd time Howe never seems to want to play a double pivot in midfield, the times he has midfield never has the gaps it does when playing the 433. Give us the option of playing Bruno or Ramsey further forward or play Woltemade off Wissa when he’s fit.
Darren Bebb(Quote)
The notion that Howe always finds solution and that it’s up to his coaching to find solutions is beyond parody. The difference between last year’s pre & post Brentford away form changes and now is that we were playing one game a week with the enormous advantage that brings, as-well as the ability to train sufficiently. 23/24 didn’t improve until long after we’d already been knocked out of Europe. You’re basically saying that because results improved in previous seasons, that a slow start is fine today? So what you’re also saying is that despite spending the GDP of a small country (badly) in the summer, we’ve not progressed at all. Genuinely embarrassing analysis!
Scott(Quote)
I think the only bad signing was one we didn’t make and that was getting in a LB then promoting A Murphy to the squad instead relying on BDB.
Love BDB but at left back just no, yeah he was good when he first covered there but not now
Absolutely glorious(Quote)
With respect. £150m on Elanga, Ramsey & Wissa (not seen him but based on age) was horrendous. We failed to address any of our issues, and in many respects doubled down (e.g. Elanga can only play transitional football). There were players such as El Khannous available for a cut price. You’re correct about LB, but even still I’d rather play Alex Murphy who Howe gave minutes too in 23/24 but now seemingly wants to look the other way. Problems we’re seeing today, are unfortunately baked in, and here to stay as a result.
Scott(Quote)