TalkSPORT’s Adrian Durham has had some hot takes around Newcastle United over the years, and he’s showing no signs of slowing down.
Recently, Durham described Nick Woltemade as “the worst signing in Premier League history”. As I wrote at the time, he’s not even the worst signing this season. He’s not even Newcastle’s worst signing this season.
Durham was always a big supporter of Steve Bruce during his time as Newcastle boss, and Durham even criticised Newcastle fans for wanting Bruce out.
So, it’s rather ironic that Adrian Durham was on TalkSPORT last night saying Eddie Howe should resign as Newcastle boss on a night that saw our deepest run in the UEFA Champions League end in tears despite us competing for 75% of the tie.
After Newcastle’s 7-2 defeat, Durham said that Eddie Howe should offer his resignation. Yes…really.
“I think all talkSPORT listeners know by now, my policy is when you get absolutely hammered, the manager has to at least offer his resignation.
“Now whether that’s accepted by the Newcastle board or not, that’s what Eddie Howe has to do in my opinion.”
He then doubled down on Thursday morning, questioning what Howe must have said at half-time to spark such a catastrophic collapse in that second 45.
“That half-time team talk, I’d love to know whatEddie Howe said, because it clearly didn’t work. They conceded three goals in 10 minutes at the start of the second half. He didn’t change anything. It’s a humiliating defeat.
“You lose 7-2 in any game at that level, that late in the tournament, round of 16, it’s a humiliating defeat that needs looking at. Newcastle’s season is effectively over.”
We can’t argue with what Durham says about Howe’s half-time team talk, as we’ve questioned that plenty of times this season. But the idea that a manager has to resign because of one game is absolute insanity.
That’s the kind of statement we’d expect from fans in the heat of the moment, but Adrian Durham is a veteran sports broadcaster and should know better, surely.
Was last night’s result ideal? Of course not. Do questions need to be asked? Absolutely. Will changing the manager fix it? I think it’s short sighted to suggest that’s the answer when you see how good we were just days ago at Chelsea, to make it back-to-back wins in the league.
There are those saying that if Newcastle gets beaten on Sunday, then Howe has to go. But what will it achieve? Who will we get in? Look at Chelsea. They had to bring in Liam “Writes a novel on the sidelines” Rosenior. I don’t know who we’d bring in to better us right now.
Let’s take a minute, take some deep breaths, come together and push on. The season is not over at all, with local pride, 7th place and potential Europe League qualification still up for grabs.