A Newcastle United head coach under pressure heading into a home match against Bournemouth? We've seen this script before
Steve McClaren's final game in charge of Newcastle United was against Eddie Howe's Bournemouth in 2016
Steve McClaren's final game in charge of Newcastle United was against Eddie Howe's Bournemouth in 2016
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Football has a funny way of going full circle. As Eddie Howe prepares his Newcastle United side to welcome his former club Bournemouth to St James' Park on Saturday, it has echoes of the same meeting between those two sides back in 2016.
That day Steve McClaren was under immense pressure as manager of Newcastle and his bizarre decision to call in Emmanuel Riviere from the cold to start up front proved to be the last desperate throw of a dice of a manager who was drowning under the scrutiny of the St James' Park hot-seat.
The Bournemouth manager that day was Eddie Howe, fresh from guiding Bournemouth to two promotions from League One to the Premier League, and gaining more fans by the week with his swashbuckling style of football he had the Cherries playing.
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Bournemouth were on course to comfortably avoid relegation in their first season in the Premier League. By contrast, Newcastle were hurtling towards it.
A Steven Taylor own goal, followed by strikes from Josh King and Charlie Daniels condemned the Magpies to a 3-1 loss and the boos that rung around St James' Park throughout that game were deafening.
McClaren lost his job, Rafa Benitez was brought in as his replacement, but the damage had been done. The Spaniard could not stave off relegation and it remains one of the most sorry days in recent memory at the home of Newcastle United.
Fast forward 10 years, and although the circumstances are vastly different, it is Howe who will lead Newcastle against Bournemouth with pressure over his position reaching the peak of his four-and-a-half years in charge.
Unlike McClaren, Howe has two Champions League qualifications, two cup finals and a first domestic trophy win for 70 years credited in the bank on Tyneside.
There is also no chance this Newcastle side can be relegated and that is perhaps why it has taken until six games until the end of the season for the Magpies' desperate Premier League form to really ramp up the scrutiny over his position.
This season, of course, has yielded another run to a League Cup semi-final and a record-equalling run to the last 16 of the Champions League, too, but the league form simply hasn't been good enough. Newcastle are 14th in the division when they set out to finish inside the top seven.
Sunday's 2-1 defeat at Crystal Palace meant Newcastle have now dropped 25 points and lost seven league matches from winning positions this season.
Those are trends Newcastle need to stop and while internally Howe retains the support of the club's decision makers for now, there is no doubt this weekend's visit of the Cherries is the first time he has went into a home game at St James' Park with supporter feeling on a knife edge.
The last thing Howe will want is for the crowd to turn in the same way they did on McClaren 10 years ago. Newcastle simply have to be better to avoid the manager suffering the same indignity on Saturday, particularly with all he has achieved at the club.
The players owe it to Howe to do that.