That trophy weighs heavy for Eddie Howe and Newcastle United fans

A little perspective is required when looking at Newcastle United and Eddie Howe in our current situation.

The focus, probably more than at any other time since he arrived, is now on the NUFC Head Coach.

I find the criticism at times quite astonishing.

Short-sighted, reactionary, totally lacking a view on the bigger picture, but above all, simply astonishing.

Now this isn’t going to be an out and out defence of Eddie Howe, he is big enough to do that himself and I don’t think the percentage of negative fans reaction at the manager’s door is the majority, far from it, but ask yourself this. During our wilderness years, those years where under the previous regime of total lack of ambition and self-imposed restriction of our club being any type of competitive force, could you ever foresee a situation whereby a trophy winning Newcastle United manager wouldn’t still be in his post 18 months or less after such a feat was achieved? Unfathomable.

That League Cup win just nine months ago, is now weighing heavy on Eddie Howe’s shoulders and I wonder if any fan that thinks changing the manager is the way forward, would think any different if they were transported back pre-takeover?

I’d bet the same fan’s mindset would be, just give us the trophy and we can take a mid-table finish, just get us the trophy.

Add in TWO Champions League campaigns and all that such exposure brings, it puts into perspective what such a knee-jerk response of “Let’s change the manager” looks like. Like I said, astonishingly short-sighted.

If you’d said to me five years ago that we’d qualify for the Champions League twice in the next ten years I would have laughed at you. Get to two cup finals? Highly unlikely. All we managed previously was a 5th place Europa League qualification and the ownership at the time panicked when we got that.

When we finished 7th in 2023/24 after our first Champions League jolly in 20 years, I don’t recall any outcry, despite having no Europe the following season. Mind you, we hadn’t won that trophy yet. Strange that. Like I said, that trophy weighs heavy.

Now, I would be failing in myself to say things are all hunky dory. They are not and they haven’t looked right all season. But there are valid reasons for this and they cover many areas at the club.

Injuries

The more injuries you get, the less chance you have of getting any sort of good form together. As it stands we have Tino Livramento, Kieran Trippier, Joelinton, Dan Burn, Sven Botman, Emil Krafth, Jamaal Lascelles, Will Osula out. We also have Lewis Hall and Yoane Wissa only just getting up to speed after weeks and months out respectively.

Go back to November in the 2023/24 season and at one point we lacked our two main strikers, two full-backs, two centre-backs, three central midfielders and two wingers.

That season we got to the quarter-finals of BOTH domestic cups and we were in the Champions League. Yet the situation was accepted quite rightly by the fans as a reason why we may not be doing as well as the previous season. The season before we had lost the League Cup Final. The following season (last season) we WON the League Cup final. Yet here we are.

Form

We’re in 14th place, which never looks great, yet only six points off fifth place. But we’re ten above West Ham in the relegation zone only four places lower than we are. It’s a strange table this year.

Our last six games reads WDWLDL and if you look at nearly every team in the league outside the top four and bottom three, it’s a familiar run of form for all of them and it’s this that Eddie Howe needs to turn around if any meaningful top half finish is to be achieved. Two wins in a row can get us started and that’s the hard part.

On the subject of form, individual players need to look at themselves. Anthony Gordon has been totally inconsistent, Jacob Ramsey hasn’t filled Joelinton’s absence (who wasn’t the Joelinton of old before his injury anyway) and Anthony Elanga has been a total let down. The midfield three dubbed “best three in the league” haven’t shown it collectively for a long time now.

My picks at the halfway stage of the season for most consistent performers would be Jacob Murphy and Malick Thiaw.

Eddie Howe

Since he took over we’ve been in multiple final stages of the cups, including two finals. Two Champions League qualifications (and one season where we finished above a team that got into Europe despite finishing below us with a 24 goal difference worse off).

That said, some of his decisions are baffling at times. The glaring one recently was starting Anthony Elanga ahead of Jacob Murphy in the derby defeat. But again, in his defence, I watched two players that day run balls to the byline and let them stray out of play for goal kicks. I also saw our striker score a world class header, at the wrong end, and you can hardly blame the manager for those.

Late goals

It’s been a season-long problem. Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham at home, Brighton and Bayer Leverkusen away. Away at Brentford and West Ham we were chasing both games but still conceded late on.

The recent Chelsea game was a telling moment for me. We did brilliantly to go 2-0 up against a good team, yet I remarked to someone at the time; “We need a third to win this.”

Now that shouldn’t be the case. If you sit back and try to see ANY game out at 2-0, you’re risking it, 3-0 fair enough. I don’t know what goes through both management and/or players heads during the games but something needs to change.

One other thing I have a gripe with is the lack of adaptability with our formation. It seems the tactic of 4-3-3 is Plan A and when Plan A doesn’t work, switch to . . Plan A with different personnel. THAT needs to change.

I’ve long advocated 5-3-2, or 5-3-1-1, depending on how you view it. We have excellent wing-backs (when fit) and our wingers often misfire. We now have Yoane Wissa fit, whilst Nick Woltemade ideally plays behind a striker anyway. The only trouble we have is we don’t have the numbers at present at centre-back or wing-back until players return from injury.

So back to the point in hand, where does this leave Eddie Howe?

I’ve been critical of team selections and substitutions of every manager we’ve had during my lifetime, that’s the joys of an armchair manager, sat in the ground or watching on TV etc, and Howe is not immune to such opinions. But that’s where my criticism ends really.

This season wasn’t disrupted from day one. It was derailed well before a ball was kicked and it had little or nothing to do with Eddie Howe.

Sporting Directors and Summer Recruitment

Firstly, we’ve had multiple Sporting Directors over the last few years and our summer recruitment wasn’t up to scratch. Howe himself had to cut short his summer holidays to come back and help sort the situation out. That’s not his job, his fault or his responsibility. Hopefully there’s some stability going forward, where last summer there was little to be seen.

Secondly, Eddie Howe did NOT advise/endorse Alexander Isak to go on strike to force a move away from the club. This in turn caused a panic in bringing forward a transfer windows plans and gave other clubs the best bargaining position at our expense both in financial and planning terms.

What followed was Brentford holding out for top dollar for Wissa. This led to a situation where we didn’t have a recognised striker until the fourth game of the season and three games wasted, including a defeat and two nil-nil draws.

Thirdly, the direct replacement for Alexander Isak and his agent putting us in such a mess, didn’t play his first game for us until 20+ games into the season. Yoane Wissa got injured for DR Congo soon after his transfer and that subsequently left us with Nick Woltemade (the indirect replacement for Callum Wilson) as main striker . . and he isn’t one.

Thankfully, Nick has done remarkably well (derby discretion aside). We can only hope that the remainder of the season sees both Woltemade and Wissa share the load and turn things around. I’m sure Howe will be pinning his hopes on this as well.

The recovery needs to start tonight down at Burnley.

Happy New Year to all Newcastle United fans for Thursday and here’s to a great 2026 for Newcastle United.