Howe wasn’t good enough during Ashley’s reign...but now he’s the man?
EDDIE HoWE? What, the bloke from Bournemouth? How is that going to play with some of the inflated egos around Tyneside these days? How does that buy into the narrative of the massive club?
A massive club in massive trouble, looking not just at the league table but the mess being made of the search for a new manager.
No amount of PR soft soap can disguise the chaotic loss of Unai Emery. Newcastle as good as announced his arrival in time for Brighton on Saturday, much as they had signposted Steve Bruce’s departure before the first game. Brief first, ask questions later seems to be the new owners’ policy. Emery, a serious man, saw through that straight away.
It doesn’t matter how many meetings they had, how good the offer, how enthusiastic the pursuit. The proposal leaked from the Newcastle end on an important Villarreal match day, which was embarrassing for Emery and spooked him about the club he was joining.
They looked random and unprofessional and, because Newcastle had made no formal approach to Villarreal, placed him in a difficult position. This then raised other doubts about the way the club was going to be run.
Bottom line, Newcastle blew it. They could almost certainly have got Emery with a more skilled approach. And they needed Emery, because expectations are so high.
They always are, at Newcastle. Long before the Saudi takeover, Rafa Benitez was loved because his status flattered. Champions League winner, La Liga winner, Europa League winner, former manager of Valencia, Liverpool, Inter Milan, Napoli — here was a man big enough for Newcastle. Steve Bruce — late of Wigan, Birmingham, Hull, Sheffield Wednesday and a beaten FA Cup finalist — not so much. How long would Howe’s honeymoon period last at a club that has raised previously exaggerated ideals? Reaction to news of the Emery-Howe switch already displays rumblings of discontent. Howe (left) is a good manager. There have been times in the past five years when he has been discussed as a potential successor to Gareth Southgate. He has been linked with a number of elite jobs, not least opportunities at Tottenham and Arsenal, and his four seasons keeping Bournemouth in the Premier League far outweigh their relegation. Howe is exactly the sort of manager Newcastle should have courted years ago.
Yet that is also the problem. He was courted, or at least considered, by a previous regime. Howe was among the candidates weighed up during Mike Ashley’s reign.
And those who have bought most heavily into the Saudi takeover now think Newcastle are so much bigger than that. They don’t want someone Ashley could have got. They want what was previously out of reach.
Despite his failings at Arsenal, four-time Europa League winner and Ligue 1 champion Emery played into that presumption. He was Rafa II. He was the first marquee signing. He’d even worked with Kylian Mbappe, Neymar and Marco Verratti — the level of player the most fevered imaginations believe might one day be heading Newcastle’s way.
This is a further complication for Howe. Yes, he was at Bournemouth with Callum Wilson, Ryan Fraser and Matt Ritchie, but players of that calibre are no longer seen as Newcastle’s future.
Wilson is the best of it right now, but wasn’t snapped up by the Premier League elite when Bournemouth went down. He was bought by Newcastle, at the insistence of Bruce. And we all know what the locals think of Bruce’s judgment. Howe has been out of work since stepping down