Eddie Howe’s position at Newcastle United has been a hot topic this week after our third straight away defeat last Sunday left us 14th in the Premier League.
It’s been a poor start, our league form must improve, and the boss is under pressure to find results, but any talk of him being even close to the sack seemed incredibly premature to me.
On that subject, The Telegraph’s Luke Edwards has released an in-depth piece on Howe’s standing at the club after last weekend’s 3-1 defeat at Brentford.
Having spoken to sources close to the club, Edwards insists that Howe retains the ‘full support and backing’ of the Newcastle United hierarchy, who ‘strongly believe’ he has the managerial qualities and work ethic to turn our season around, along with the experience of bouncing back from bad runs in the past.
Those same sources have also told The Telegraph that there is a ‘sense of calm determination behind the scenes’, with the board not swayed by ‘outside noise’ and some on Tyneside baffled by growing talk of Howe’s job being at risk.
The piece does state that there is a collective acceptance that our results haven’t been good enough, although ‘senior figures’ did fear this could be a tough season given the nature of a summer that only saw the Alexander Isak saka (and his two replacements) wrapped up on deadline day.
Instead of discussing a potential sacking, the club are looking at backing Howe this winter and supporting him through this rough patch, with January signings one consideration if the right players become available in the New Year.
Slightly disingenuous title as it sounds like an Eddie Howe source which would’ve been very interesting to read. As it’s Edwards it lacks any credibility
GR(Quote)
OK.
Direct question for Olly.
One more loss and we could be in the relegation zone.
I appreciate that the league is bunched up in the middle with 4th to 12th covered by 3 points, so a good 3 or 4 games could have us back in contention for for a Champions league place.
But I’m curious to know, considering the cost of relegation to the club, and the owners desire to get back into Europe, and also the requirement for the club to improve…..
It’s all very well playing to the crowd and backing Howe, but if you owned the club and it was your money, at which point would you say Howe has to go?
Jordi Plato(Quote)
For now, I would have complete faith that Howe will get us well away from the relegation zone, back into the top 10 and beyond, especially when Hall and Tino are back.
Even if we lost next Saturday to Man City and momentarily moved into the bottom three, I would say with near-enough certainty that we aren’t going to end up there.
But still, I understand that Newcastle have ambitions of being regulars in the top 4/5/6 conversation, so I accept anywhere well below that isn’t good enough.
The thing propping up our season right now is the UCL, the QF of cup and the hope Howe will turn it around then. I think he deserves time.
Olly Hawkins(Quote)
Hopefully things will improve soon. I still believe the Isak saga has caused a lot of the problems. Any club that this happened to would be affected. Then to be rushed into buying quickly wasent easy.
Michael(Quote)
we cannot keep losing games in the premiership to team that we should be beating still think the backs are to old and are struggling every week trippier schar burn pope krafth laselles plus the bench is not great but again eddie has his favourites and will not look past them if it keeps up he must go plus he should forget about anderson need some one that can pass the ball non of our midfield can do that tonali running all over bailing the other to out feel sorry for the supporters that went to the capital twice our possession is poor bruno is poor joe linton is poor the managers team tactics are poor thats why we are were we are
Keith Richardson(Quote)
Luke Edwards as a trusted source? Irony is dead.
Gallowgate(Quote)
I find any talk regarding Eddie Howe loosing his job is ridiculous. We have reached great heights with Howe and played, and still playing, beautiful football. Against Bilbao we were excellent. But people are very quick to forget. Eddie Howe endured a difficult difficult time just now in the summer in dealing with the Isak saga. He lost Tino, Hall, Wissa (who hasn’t even started yet).
This is not fair on this great manager. We need to back him up with the right signings this winter and next summer. In my opinion, he is the best man for Newcastle United. He gets the best out of players. He improves players and gets the best out of them. He will turn this around.
Valdu(Quote)