It’s no secret that Eddie Howe lives and breathes the beautiful game, something which he has openly talked about before on the High Performance podcast.
His intense and meticulous approach to management at Newcastle United is nothing new to us, but some brilliant comments have emerged this week following Dan Burn’s recent appearance on the same show alongside Jake Humphrey.
After revealing his dedicated approach to pressing and different in-game triggers all players must learn, Burn then went on to explain just how much Howe puts into preparing for our opponents each week…
“The gaffer watches eight or nine games of every opponent,” Burn said. “When you’re playing three games a week, that’s a lot of time!”
“We’ll spend a day out of possession, work on their strengths and how we stop them doing what they want to do. And then we’ll do in possession, and then one ‘in-between’.”
“I’ll go into a game on Saturday, and I’ll know exactly my job. There’s never a bit where I’m thinking ‘Oh I don’t know if I should be going in tight here or I should be dropping off.’ I’ll know 100% what we’re meant to do.”
During his days at Brighton, Burn had the privilege of playing under Graham Potter who, prior to his Chelsea move, was considered like Howe one of the next big tactical English coaches coming through.
And with the pair being compared so often for their approach and reserved mannerisms, Burn has commented on how he sees both men as managers.
“I thought Graham (Potter) was similar, but in a different way. The way he delivered it was a lot less intense, and was more about overloads and numerical superiority. There wasn’t as much patterns, but you knew you were trying to get more bodies on the pitch.”
“I think new coaches now, that’s the mindset that they’re in, rather than when I first came through it was like coaches were more emotional after the game and they’d be shouting cos you got beat, they didn’t understand why until they looked at it a few days later.”
“Whereas the gaffer now and Graham Potter, you would rarely ever see an emotional reaction from them. It would be ‘Okay, we’ll have a look at it.’ because when it came to it, it was ‘Listen, here’s what you should have done and this is the evidence to back it up.’”
Despite being one of Howe‘s most trusted players, Burn recounts one training ground mistake that the gaffer picked up on, and the lengths the manager took to educate Burn on how to improve.
“For example, Friday night he pulled me in, and something had happened where he didn’t think I had reacted the way I should have to a decision.”
“We spoke a bit about it, had a back-and-forth, he sat me down and said ‘I’ll show you the clip, we’ll speak about it, this is why I’m talking to you about it.’ so the conflict’s done.”
Burn further comments on how he and his fellow defenders have a much higher threshold and expectation to meet compared to the midfield and attackers. Though really it emphasises just how integral Howe views the likes of Burn, Fabian Schar and Sven Botman to the squad’s success.
“The difference between say, me, and a very creative attacking player is that I’ve got to be very level-headed, which I feel is a strength for me. My standards have to be very high because if I don’t train at that high standard, I’m not keeping up with the team.”
“Then you’ve got creative players like Alex, Anthony, Jacob and Bruno: they can have little off days because their top level is top. But I need to be this level constantly to keep up with them.”
“I’m probably held to different standards than a lot of people, but I understand that because I’m not those creative players, and that’s not what I bring to the team. Just as important as what they do, but in a different way.”