· November 30 2024, 20:30
**Eddie Howe is starting to be questioned by the Newcastle United fanbase who have let the former Bournemouth man have pretty much a free ride.**
Granted, there has always been that vocal minority who have wanted Eddie Howe out, but that has always felt more like some kind of weird sense of entitlement from fans who hopped on the Newcastle bandwagon post-takeover.
After Howe's first 18 months in charge, saving the side from certain relegation to getting them into the Champions League and a cup final the very next year, Howe banked a lot of credit with fans and indeed the Newcastle board.
Last season was written off as an anomaly after a horrendous run of injuries, and even then, Howe had us within a whisker of qualifying for Europe yet again.
Eddie Howe enjoying the good performance against Crystal Palace this afternoon
The brownie points Eddie Howe amassed in his first 18 months are running out
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It was, therefore, tacitly agreed that this would be Howe's make-or-break season, and so far, it's not looking good for the 47-year-old.
Seemingly devoid of fresh ideas, Newcastle have become predictable and easy for opposition teams to snuff out, which ends up with poor results, followed by Eddie Howe trying to gaslight everyone into thinking we played well.
It's not flying any more, even amongst his most ardent supporters, of which I count myself as one. There appears to be no 'Plan B', which has long been a criticism, to be fair. We have top-quality players who seemingly cannot play together, an over-abundance of left-sided players and nothing down the right.
Eddie Howe was let down massively in the summer by those above him
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This brings us on to where Howe could successfully deflect blame. Recruitment. This summer was an absolute shambles - bringing in a new sporting director in the middle of a transfer window was never going to work.
Both Eddie Howe and Paul Mitchell clearly had opposing ideas and no time to sit and work things out with their time to get transfer business done rapidly running out.
Combine that with the departure from the boardroom of Howe's strongest allies and a storm of rumours around his position at Newcastle with the England job being available, and it was a perfect storm of rubbish that was out of Howe's control.
Expect another meltdown on Wednesday night
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Ultimately the club sold two big players that they didn't want to and failed to recruit any meaningful first-team stars. Howe wasn't backed by the people above him.
We're not saying that Howe's teflon coating is as strong as ever, crap has to start sticking to him at some point, but as angry as we are at the recent performances, results and odd denial, we do still have some sympathy with Howe.
He's turned things around before, and we're sure he can do it again, but it needs to happen sooner rather than later or we could be seeing the end of his reign sooner than we expected. Wednesday is going to be a huge test of fans' resolve. If we somehow get a result against Liverpool we'll all be ecstatic, but history suggests that won't be the case, so we have to remember that before we have our inevitable meltdown.