Howe to win friends and influence people – the Eddie way
THIS time last summer, Eddie Howe will have surveyed the Premier League landscape and identified one or two jobs he might soon have a crack at.
He’ll have looked at Southampton and wondered if a bad start for Ralph Hasenhuttl might open up a vacancy.
And no doubt at Newcastle, believing Steve Bruce could well find himself in danger if owner Mike Ashley felt seriously threatened by relegation.
Pickings were slim, though, and it’s hard to imagine he’d have been looking at the Toon job and thinking it would still be available once Ashley managed to resurrect his deal to sell to Amanda Staveley and her Saudi backers, who would become the wealthiest owners in world football.
However, with a little good fortune – most notably Unai Emery turning Newcastle down – opportunity knocked for Howe. He took his chance and didn’t look back.
Unthinkable
Nobody else from the Geordie nation has had to, either.
And thanks to some very smart recruitment in January and an 11thplaced finish, which looked unthinkable when Howe first arrived in November, there’s the kind of summer optimism around St James’ Park which hasn’t been sensed for years.
Everyone involved in the signings of Kieran Trippier, Dan Burn, Matt Targett, Bruno Guimaeres and Chris Wood (left to right) deserves credit.
But it was the job of Howe and his assistant Jason Tindall to mould them and those already at the club into a team.
They did that very well and with some astute tactical work – most notably the reinvention of Joelinton as a midfielder – Howe quickly had Newcastle fans and casual observers alike reassessing their ideas that he was simply holding the baby until someone of greater repute showed a passing interest in the job.
It is inevitable that, at some stage, Newcastle’s owners will want to hire a manager of the kind of global stature Howe does not possess.
Brightest
But while he is moving Newcastle in the right direction, the size of the club means he will slowly regain possession of the tag which deserted him in his final season at Bournemouth – that of Britain’s brightest young manager.
Astute judges look at Howe and see a future England boss in the making.
He will do well this summer to spend plenty of time educating himself on the more complex issues which surround the Saudi ownership of the Toon.
Yes, he’s a football man first and foremost.
But so is Gareth Southgate – and it doesn’t stop him talking seemingly with the same ease about geopolitics and human rights as it does about playing three or four at the back, false No.9s and double pivots.
The most modern football men can do that.
And Howe has a chance this coming season to prove once and for all that he can handle himself on and off the field in the very biggest of jobs.