If success is measured by silverware, Eddie Howe is definitely the best manager that has graced St James’ Park since Joe Harvey won the Fairs Cup back in the summer of 1969.
Eddie Howe, ‘the fella that got Bournemouth relegated’, the fella that saved Newcastle United from a fate possibly as bad as the one that the already much missed King Kev saved us from.
That win at Filbert Street back in 1992 prevented relegation to the third tier.
Dropping to the Championship some thirty years later might well have precipitated Newcastle’s freefall down the leagues depending on how the Saudi majority ownership would have reacted to it.
Then Eddie Howe achieved something in March 2025 that no Newcastle United manager had managed since the 1960s
To make it all the better, it happened in the same location that since the 1950s had become a nightmare for so many United sides.
Eddie Howe learning from his own painful experience just two years earlier and exorcising the ghost of 1974 against this opposition, with a more comprehensive victory against the team that would go on to lift the Premier League title than the 2-1 scoreline suggests.
You can also add to the mix two Champions League qualifications.
Then what about how Eddie Howe improved so many players, big Dan Burn being the embodiment of that, a journeyman who lived the dream, a Wembley goal for his boyhood club, and an England call up in the same week, returning from the 2026 World Cup with a bronze medal, that could have been gold.
Eddie Howe arrived on Tyneside at a time when most of us didn’t know much about PSR and FFP. The lack of ambition during the Mike Ashley era meant those two acronyms barely registered. We learned very quickly that no amount of owners’ wealth can truly overcome those obstacles, but what cash was available was spent wisely and for a while, NUFC seemed back in business.
Off the park, whilst the hierarchy at St James’ Park was replaced, the personnel that were installed didn’t quite match the huge improvement seen on the pitch.
Although commercial income has seen phenomenal growth, that growth has come from a very low base. However, not even Champions League qualification could prevent the PSR forced departure of two promising youngsters in June 2024, one of whom has gone on to attract a £116m transfer fee in a subsequent move, if only the accounting wizardry that saw the club sell its lease to the cathedral on the hill had come a year earlier?
That revolving door of top executives hasn’t helped the cause, with botched transfers and a PR vacuum filled by mush.
This time last year, Eddie Howe was left alone to struggle with Alexander Isak’s histrionics, whilst the manager saw the club fail to sign a succession of his high profile targets.
By the standards Howe had set, the 2025/26 season that ensued was a disappointment and yet there was another semi final, the last sixteen of the Champions League, with European qualification still a distinct possibility as the season neared its end.
This summer then seeing Anthony Gordon and Sandro Tonali departing, two high profile stars with replacements unlikely to have been Eddie’s doing. This before the heartbeat of the team, our number 39, seemingly on the move as well.
For me, Eddie Howe has been let down by the club. Despite being a huge fan, I ventured to vote in The Mag poll that his departure isn’t such a bad thing, if staying on wasn’t really an option.
In Matthias Jaissle we now trust.