I was reading an article on The Mag on Saturday morning (‘Does Eddie Howe even want to stay at Newcastle United?’) by Michael Heslop.
I don’t think the author has fairly characterised Eddie’s finest qualities, especially compared to other Premier League managers, at all.
He would clearly be fine with selling star players if it was deemed necessary to avoid onerous penalties, or to finance even better signings. Other managers have reacted with far less class and humility after being forced to part with players for non-sporting (or delayed sporting) reasons.
He has clearly shaped a Newcastle United team this season that is capable of creating chances and has even dominated on several occasions.
The issues have been in conversion, defence and concentration. Consistency. He’s shouldered all of the responsibility for the lack of results, despite it being clear much of the issues were outside of his control.
It must infuriate Eddie Howe to hear people saying he has to consider playing this player or this formation to mitigate this temporary problem, like he’s some kind of moron who just got his first job in management. Like he’s never even literally done that even with NUFC many times season after season. Yet he takes this all with his usual class.
Eddie doesn’t speak with excitement. He’s not a Head Cheerleader. But he does speak with class, knowledge and authority.
It remains the case, there will surely come a time when Eddie Howe, as class a man as he is, loyal as he is, will decide that he doesn’t need this nonsense. On top of all the other issues he has to deal with, he doesn’t need executives (such as current Newcastle United CEO David Hopkinson…) who can’t engage their brain before making public comments (this being hardly the first time he’s had to deal with such things at NUFC).
He doesn’t need fans who think players are more important than the club, telling him which of his trophy winning players have to be “moved on”, or that transfer fees have anything useful to tell him once the transfer has been concluded.
Quite how Eddie Howe doesn’t get much credit at all for achieving the impossible, especially this season, in ensuring that there’s either no discontent with him and his methods in the squad at all, or if there is, it stays within the club, is a mystery to me.
Eddie is no fool. He knows that all of these qualities and more, would be in high demand from clubs that Eddie is allegedly expected to beat, with fewer advantages than they have. He has too much class to say it. But he will act on it eventually. A man with his ambition and commitment to football over even family cannot fail to do so.
That’s when we might well end up with the sort of classless egotist that a CEO who sees those qualities as a positive, as a manager. So thank Christ at least Pep Guardiola allegedly sees NUFC as beneath him.