Toon boss just keeps calm and carries on
EDDIE Howe’s mood after Newcastle United’s five-goal defeats at Manchester City and Spurs was no different to the day he took the Magpies to ninth place in the Premier League by beating Leicester City.
For the record, Howe never really changed his public-facing body language when the club sat bottom of the table after 14 matches and historians wrote the club off – stating no team had ever recovered from a start as bad as that.
When talking about his philosophy Howe said: “You don’t see what goes on behind the scenes. I am always very calm – that is my personality.
“If there is a problem then I will try to go away and fix it and work to find solutions, not really panicking or reacting adversely.”
For all the talk of A-list bosses from Serie A and La Liga, it is arguably Howe’s coolness which has guided Newcastle through one of the biggest tests of their Premier League history books.
Howe added: “I am very much a thinker so I was very calm and I always believed.
“I always believed in the players – and that was regardless of the transfer window – I always believed we could stay in the division.
“I said that many times and I don’t say it if I don’t believe it.
“I believe you can do special things on the training ground with players, you can improve players to a level they don’t think they are capable of.
“I still feel we have a long way to go in that respect but the trainingground work is what I love and that is what we will really be focusing on for pre-season.”
When asked about the fans’ belief in his project, Howe added: “The biggest compliment I can pay the supporters is they stuck with us through that a difficult period where we were not winning and the expectation was our Premier League survival was slipping away.
“The unity was there and that definitely helped us when we sparked our form upwards.”