Newcastle finally delivered a solid game on Saturday, this against the Premier League’s second-best/best club, Arsenal. However, it ended in a 1-0 defeat, their fourth defeat in a row in the Premier League. This has put Howe under immense pressure as head coach, and the Magpies are now 14th in the table with 42 points – just six points above the bottom three. Two English football legends still defend Howe, and believe Newcastle should not fire the 48-year-old.
United legend Roy Keane has earlier this year put forward Eddie Howe as the optimal choice for new Manchester United manager, Gary Neville and Paul Merson warn Newcastle against making a huge mistake by getting rid of Howe.
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“I’m a big fan of Eddie Howe, and if he leaves, they’ll be queuing around the corner. Be careful, Newcastle,” Merson told Saturday Night Football.
“Chelsea would take him directly. We talked about him being the next England manager. Everyone will be queuing up to take him. It should be his decision if he wants to go. He won a trophy for the club for the first time in 70 years,” Merson grumbled.
Neville did an analysis of Eddie Howe as a coach, nor does he understand why Newcastle should sack him.
“It’s a very disappointing season. The transfer activity at the end of the summer window was a real problem for them. They ended up with [Nick] Woltemade and [Yoane] Wissa and it just hasn’t paid off yet. I think full confidence in Eddie Howe is the way to go,” Neville begins on The Gary Neville Podcast.
“They’ve got a very good manager. Where in some clubs it’s easier to say ‘let’s change the manager and keep the players because they’re on five- or six-year contracts’, it’s the other way around at Newcastle.” “They’re going to think, ‘If we lost him [Howe], we’ve lost a manager by eight and a half out of ten points, someone who’s a really solid, reliable, consistent, someone who’s got a good attitude’,” Neville continues.
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“I hope they sit down with Eddie Howe and go through [the squad] and he says: ‘These are the players I want, he’s a change for me, these are the players I’m going to buy for next season, I’m going to get these four or five in and I want us to get our things done early while everyone is thinking about the World Cup… That’s what I would do if I was Newcastle because I think they’ve got one of the very best there and I think he’ll get them back to challenging for Champions League tickets next season.”
