Eddie Howe's tactics against Sunderland came under fire
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For an accurate reading of Newcastle United’s tactical conundrum we don’t need to explore the intricate details of his five-year tenure.
Everything you need to know is contained here in March. A month that has played out as the Eddie Howe era in microcosm.
Fireworks in victory over Manchester United and a withering defeat to Everton; a pulsating night under the floodlights against Barcelona and an exhausted collapse in the second leg; an expert counter-attacking win at Chelsea and a sunken mess against Sunderland: this is Howe’s rollercoaster tenure with all its highs and lows.
Within these matches is the secret to Howe’s success but also his fatal flaw, and although tiredness most definitely plays a part, the issue is fundamentally tactical.
It is common knowledge that Newcastle fly without midweek football and falter when juggling multiple competitions, and well-documented that Howe’s preference for demanding high-tempo pressing is to blame.
But what is less often discussed is why Howe’s football is so tiring compared to, say, Aston Villa’s under Unai Emery, or what can be done about it.
Newcastle’s direct and high-energy football is simply too tiring
It’s worth going over the basics.
Howe wants to play in straight lines, prioritising an aggressive man-to-man press all over the pitch to hassle the opponent, win the ball in dangerous areas, and then burst forward in explosions of activity.
The typical Newcastle goal involves Anthony Gordon or Anthony Elanga galloping down the wings, while the typical Newcastle midfield display sees all-action players launching into challenges and dribbling clean through the centre.
In the Premier League in 2025/26, Newcastle rank:
Second for direct speed in games
Third for passes into the final third (1790 total)
Third bottom for percentage of passes that go backwards (14.8%)
It can work brilliantly. As we see for the opener against Man City in the FA Cup earlier this month, Sandro Tonali ignores the easy pass and hits the runners:
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Urgency is central to Howe’s vision, so it’s hardly surprising Newcastle are so often tired out by a congested fixture list.
The signs of are everywhere:
22 points dropped from winning positions, the most in the Premier League this season;
21 errors leading to shots or goals, the second-most in the division
and a considerably higher xG conceded in the second halves of games (0.75) compared to the first (0.54).
Exhaustion triggers a need to play on the back foot
But going deeper, the equation isn’t quite as simple as tiredness equals poor performance. For Howe, it’s more a case of what tiredness does to a tactical shape too easily pulled into disarray.
There is a common thread in these March matches. Superb performances against Man Utd, Chelsea, and at home to Barcelona were backs-to-the-wall displays that required sitting deeper and waiting for chances to counter-attack (or at least focus on a disruptive team press over expansive work in possession).
Whereas the defeats to Everton and Sunderland demanded Newcastle hold more of the ball.
This is because the sheer explosiveness of Newcastle’s play inevitably elongates the pitch. Whether by pressing urgently or by passing/carrying the ball rapidly forward (as opposed to more considered sideways possession), the shape of the 11 is stretched lengthways, meaning when the ball changes hands the opponent has all sorts of space between the lines to counter into.
Exacerbated by fatigue, this explains why Newcastle are always at their best when forced to hunker down - to compress space in their own half, not stretch it out - against possession-dominant opposition. It explains why Newcastle have conceded 44 ‘fast breaks’ in the Premier League this season, more than any other club.
For a classic example of the ‘urgency’ problem that arises when Newcastle are expected to be on the front foot, take Brian Brobbey’s 90th-minute winner last weekend. Here, when a Sunderland attack breaks down we see Newcastle begin the counter-attack in earnest, desperate for their own winner:
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That’s fine in theory, but the problem is that despite having no pass on, and despite surely seeing Tino Livramento’s forward run is beginning to make Newcastle’s shape ultra-stretched, Willock embraces the Howe mentality by trying an audacious long diagonal:
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Once cut out, Sunderland now have all kinds of space between the lines to slice through and score the winner:
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What Willock could have done is survey the options, turn back, recycle the ball, and allow Newcastle to shuffle up the pitch as one compact unit. That he didn’t do so speaks volumes about the Howe philosophy – and why it has stopped working.
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Newcastle need to sign different types of midfielders – and Howe must change approach
Turning back just isn’t in Willock’s character. The same goes for Jacob Ramsey, Joelinton, Sandro Tonali, and Bruno Guimaraes, because Howe has stocked his squad with forward-thinking number eights most comfortable splitting lines or at least attempting to; they are terriers, all of them, symbolising perfectly the problem that Howe faces when juggling multiple competitions.
The most similar club to Newcastle in terms of stature, resources, and schedule is Aston Villa, who notably don’t seem to be afflicted by fatigue in the same way. That’s because Unai Emery packs his midfield with patient footballers steadily building possession – Douglas Luiz, Youri Tielemans, Amadou Onana – and, more generally, looks to slow things down all the time.
Their centre-backs spend a long time resting on the ball and Villa spend hundreds of hours learning intricate passing moves to work slowly out from the back as one. By contrast Newcastle often kick long from goal kicks - and want to get the ball forward as quickly as possible.
It’s part of a pulsating, explosive, and thrilling style of football that has caught many opponents off guard. But sadly its success depends on long recoveries through the week.
Howe’s survival as Newcastle manager depends upon finding a way to play a more structured and possession-centric games when required to. That will no doubt mean a change in transfer strategy, prioritising central midfielders better at calming things down rather than speeding them up, and wingers who aren’t quite so single-minded in wishing to dribble straight at the full-back.
Of course, Newcastle have been struggling to land their first-choice transfer targets and Howe will point to difficulties with PSR restrictions, but first and foremost his issues are not technical or financial. What Newcastle require most of all is a change of approach from the manager.
Howe has a three-week break in which to tweak things; in which to lessen some of the intensity, to work on calmer build-up play that brings Lewis Hall and Tino Livramento into advanced positions in a more measured way, and to maximise the qualities Yoan Wissa and Nick Woltemade bring to the setup, namely traditional forward play that does not require the incessant pressing neither can provide.
It’s a big ask. But for Howe to survive beyond the summer he needs a significant tactical rethink, because the all-out football - the fire and the fury – is simply unsustainable.