Eddie Howe is starting his fourth full season in charge after being appointed in November 2021.
He has overseen three successive top seven finishes and led the club to their first domestic trophy in 70 years. It has been an impressive period of success and you could be forgiven for expecting a decline in the near future. Many in the mainstream media will have been predicting one for 2025/26.
That isn’t a slight on Howe. It is just modern football. The time for tenured managers like Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger is in the past. Attention spans have shortened and the need for instant gratification grows. People are less patient in general, whether that be in the stands or in the boardroom.
In 2012, the average length of a Premier League manager’s reign was close to four years. In [October 2022](https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/63341798#:~:text=The%20average%20tenure%20for%20a%20top%20flight%20manager%20currently%20stands,nine%20days%20at%20Villa%20Park.), this had dropped to around two years. The most recent study completed by Issuu in February 2025 stated that the average had dropped even further to 1.42 years.
In November, Howe will be ready to celebrate his fourth anniversary at St James’ Park. That will have been around the average in 2012. Now, he is proving to be a huge anomaly.
Only Pep Guardiola, Mikel Arteta and Marco Silva have been in charge for longer from the current Premier League clubs. It wouldn’t be a surprise if Howe tops this list one day. He shows no sign of wanting to leave and the club are clearly delighted with him.
That brings me nicely onto Monday night. It was a defeat in name, but anybody who watched will have seen a performance full of commitment, aggression and quality. It was the embodiment of an Eddie Howe team and despite now being in his fourth full season, there isn’t a sign of staleness.
Liverpool are the current champions. They are the predator trying to take our best player. However, on Monday night, they were outplayed. We had ten shots to their five. They only had two shots after the break, which bookended the second half. Unfortunately for us, they both went in.
Oh, and we played with only ten men for the majority of the match. It was a display that underlined the close-knit group that Howe has built. Some he has signed. Others he inherited. It shows how good the manager is to maintain that after a turbulent summer.
We only have one point from a possible six available, but that isn’t the story. It is rather one of hard luck and misfortune.
Howe is a special manager and he is ours. In the modern game, he’s a unicorn. We need to give him the tools that he needs. If we do, the sky is the limit.
Managers don’t last this long in the modern game. Howe isn’t done yet though, far from it.