Expectation on Howe and Co is ridiculous... Easy to forget they’re now dining at Europe’s top table, so everyone should just enjoy it
I’M GENUINELY not sure Newcastle are suffering second season syndrome... more from the pressure of actually producing at the very top level.
It’s so strange isn’t it, this whole expectation thing in football.
Fans are desperate to see their side get any sort of success, and are pretty patient generally in waiting for it to happen.
But deliver even a bit of a taste of it, and everyone is greedy for more and more.
The demands go off the scale, and I think dealing with that is the hardest part of being a pro at the top level.
I had it from the age of 18 at Liverpool, who were so used to success when I was a kid.
When it dried up it became a massive, heavy burden on all the players following those greats who delivered the procession of trophies.
I won quite a few honours – more than people realise – and for most professional footballers it would have been quite a haul from what would be deemed a successful career.
But we were Liverpool and not winning the league or European Cup was basically a failure. I was really the first
generation after the golden period, and it was natural we were judged by the standards that had come directly before us.
And I think that is a tiny bit of what Eddie Howe is now experiencing at Newcastle.
He delivered so quickly, got the Toon to where everyone wanted to be so effortlessly – or so it seems, because it’s not Championship Manager as most fans seem to believe – that everything gets turned up to 11.
So, to your first away game in the Champions League after an absence of 20 years.
It’s in the home of AC Milan, the San Siro, one of the great football cathedrals, and you come away with a draw.
And what is the reaction? just like challenging They got mullered, basically. Manchester City last season. Yeah, I know the performance No one expected – or wasn’t great. demanded – they’d win the
But honestly, they got what title in their first year any manager will tell you was challenging. a good draw – one they would So why suddenly are they have taken before kick-off. expected to outperform Milan
It is a new competition on their home ground in their against a respected team who first taste at football’s high got to the semi-final of the table? competition only Newcastle have last season, in spent money and front of the Italian reality is there fans who were will be pressure magnificent and created a proper hostile atmosphere.
Few of the Newcastle players had appeared in the Champions League before.
Howe had never been to a Champions League game, never mind managed in one. It’s a totally new experience,
Saying all this, though, doesn’t reduce the pressure on Newcastle. It’s a reality now. You spend money, there’s massive expectation. So there is pressure today back in the bread and butter, at Sheffield United, after just a couple of indifferent performances this season. And there is pressure from a run of seven games, I think
it is, in 23 days. Again, that’s something that is so hard to get used to when you first play at that level.
A game every three days, usually against top opponents.
The trip to Bramall Lane is a ‘no-win’ game – even if Newcastle win – because they’re expected to thrash the Blades. Then they face City, Paris Saint-germain, West Ham away and Dortmund among others in the next month.
That’s relentless. But it’s what you’re in it for.
I would say this, though, the players, the club and their supporters should at least try not to get too wrapped up in the expectation of success... and just try to enjoy it.
Because these things should always be savoured.