It has been made pretty clear in the last 48 hours that Newcastle United will stick with Eddie Howe despite a poor run of results.
That may not be welcome news to some fans who believe we’ve seen all we’re going to see from Eddie Howe as Newcastle boss and that change is necessary.
One of the big questions posed to those fans, however, is who do we get to replace Howe that could do a better job?
If, hypothetically, Newcastle were to sack Eddie Howe today and replace him immediately, the new manager would still have the same players to work with, they’d still be just as tired as they were yesterday, and the injured players wouldn’t magically heal.
You might get the bump from some new ideas, which some fans are understandably crying out for, but that’s a big risk to take when a lack of far superior options appear to be available.
The Express‘s Amos Murphy has suggested four managers Newcastle could turn to if they were to part ways with Eddie Howe, and the list, which should be taken with a pinch of salt, isn’t exactly inspiring.
Andoni Iraola is their first choice. The current Bournemouth boss has done a fantastic job with The Cherries. Given how Bournemouth just feels like Newcastle’s feeder club of late, it does make sense that Iraola would be on the list. Is he better than Eddie Howe, though? Could he do what Eddie has done with all of the strange background noise he’s had to deal with? We’re not convinced.
Next up is Oliver Glasner, who is set to depart Crystal Palace at the end of the season. Another top manager who has worked wonders in difficult circumstances. He’s managed to navigate the club systematically, selling off their best players from under his nose, but he hasn’t exactly handled it well, has he? Announcing he’s leaving the club in the middle of a season is hardly the most inspirational move, and Palace are paying the price for his ‘honesty’. It’s not a good look. He’s a talented manager, but his temperament is questionable.
Fulham’s Marco Silva takes the third spot. Again, a manager operating in the middle of the Premier League table. Silva has shown promise at times at Fulham and Everton, but has he shown enough that he could navigate the Champions League with Newcastle? Not for us.
Saving the best for last, Roberto De Zerbi. The former Brighton boss has looked extremely competent in the Premier League and is now being linked with the Spurs job. However, getting knocked out of the Champions League after a 3-0 defeat to Club Brugge when he was Marseille boss does give us pause for thought, as does the drama that’s followed his recent stints. The fact that he followed that up with a 5-0 defeat to PSG which ultimately sealed his fate at the Ligue 1 side, and he remains without a club, is a red flag.
Ultimately, the list is uninspiring. I’d say each manager listed by The Express is about the level Eddie Howe was when he was at Bournemouth, but Howe has come on leaps and bounds since then, and has just oversaw a nightmare summer that would’ve broken many managers.
They could all do a job at Newcastle, for sure, but they all feel like a sideways move rather than that step up. If we’re going to sack a manager, the idea is to replace them with someone better, and none of these options feels ‘better’.
That leaves us with the question … who would we take, realistically? For us, the answer is simple … nobody. Any manager who could turn us into serial winners won’t come here (yet). That’s the reality we’re facing, and that’s why probably why The Express hazarded a guess with these four managers.