The Magpies head for Aston Villa in the fourth round on Saturday still dealing with the on-field fall-out of Alexander Isak’s £130million departure for Liverpool and the arrivals of Anthony Elanga, Aaron Ramsdale, Malick Thiaw, Jacob Ramsey, Nick Woltemade and Yoane Wissa which surrounded it.
Howe said: “The words ‘patience’ and ‘understanding’, they’re rarely accepted, I think, in football management when you’re talking about your team. People want clarity on where you are, they want to know whether you’re good or bad. In the middle isn’t accepted.
“Don’t get me wrong, we could have done better and there are certainly things that we could improve, but I think longer term we’ll be better for it if we can work through this season and this period.
“The biggest thing is to find a clear identify and a clear way of playing, and then we can see what the future looks like with this team. If it’s positive then that could be a great thing.”
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Tuesday night’s 2-1 Premier League win at Tottenham eased some of the pressure on Howe and his players after a disappointing run of results, although the departure of Spurs boss Thomas Frank the following day and Sean Dyche’s exit from Nottingham Forest 24 hours later highlighted the precarious nature of management.
Howe said: “The sways and the speed of opinion changing is quicker, I think, than it’s ever been due to various different factors and forces that you have to compete against. I have sympathies for any manager that loses their job.
“For me, I don’t think too deeply about it. My immediate focus then goes back to myself and what I can do to help the team that I have, and that’s all that I can do every day.”
Howe and Newcastle are still waiting to discover the full extent of Bruno Guimaraes' hamstring injury after the captain was forced off late on in the win over Tottenham.
The Magpies will again be without Lewis Miley and Joelinton at Villa Park, though the pair are making good progress in their recovery from injuries.
Howe said: "With Lewie, we're waiting day by day. He has a dead leg. He got a bad knock to his thigh, there's a bit of muscle damage so he's having scans every few days to see how that is.
"We don't think it will be long term, he should be back pretty quickly.
"With Bruno, we're waiting to discover the full extent of the hamstring injury.
"He got the injury when he got the injury [against Tottenham]. I don't think there was pre-injury.
"He was getting fatigued and maybe in a normal situation with a full bench we'd have taken him off. But we'd run out of midfielders, he stayed on the pitch and he got injured.
"Joelinton is doing really well. I don't think he'll make this game but he's not too far away.
"He's desperate to be back involved. He's very positive."
Howe also provided an update on Tino Livramento.
He said: "Tino is on track. Early March was the diagnosis. He's back on the grass, running and building his fitness back up. We're happy with how he's doing."