Newcastle are in trouble.
Six defeats in seven – and eight losses in their previous 12 games – is bad enough but their January fixture list – with three of the top four and an FA Cup trip to Sunderland – offers little margin for error. After a fantastic 2023, Newcastle need to improve quickly to ensure their season doesn’t derail.
Here’s how the club has to act to navigate a New Year fraught with danger.
Keep faith with Eddie Howe
Howe has made a point of emphasising how January’s games will finally gives him some uninterrupted time on the training ground with his players.
It is an argument rooted in logic: they have played 28 times across all competitions so far this season. In late December last year, thanks in part to the World Cup break, that number was just 19.
For a team with such a clearly defined identity and way of playing, preparation is important and there has been no time for it this season.
Howe is a training ground technician who has found himself with little time to tweak. Barring international breaks – when half of his squad are with their national teams – Newcastle have not had a free midweek since the end of August.
These are things that elite managers are used to but it is all new to Howe and a team of players who have been unable to cope with competing on four fronts.
He deserves time, patience and backing and will get it at Newcastle.
The club’s hierarchy are sensible and any call to him in the next few days will be to offer him support and ask what he needs, not to remove him from his position.
i understands there is no appetite to even entertain questions about Howe’s future – and it will remain that way whatever happens in January’s tough run of fixtures.
But still, the more excitable voices in the fanbase need to follow suit. Howe’s first bad run does not need to be a disaster and sometimes the answer is simply riding out a sequence of bad results, especially when there is adequate mitigation in the form of fatigue, injuries and loss of confidence among his players.
It is not as if things are going catastrophically wrong. There are issues to address: Newcastle are conceding too many chances, their away form hints at the need for an alternative tactical plan and some selections have betrayed undue loyalty to the players that served him so well last season.
Yet none are anything close to terminal.
They were seconds from a Carabao Cup semi-final, 15 minutes from the last 16 of the Champions League and even against Nottingham Forest, would have been two up if Miguel Almiron hadn’t opted for the wrong pass.
Those criticising should not lose sight of Howe’s wider impact. He inherited a club where standards had slipped. Players did not get better at Newcastle, signings did not improve. He has changed that, making the club’s training ground a crucible of improvement and imposing a level of professionalism that hadn’t been there for decades.
“He is special,” one training ground insider told i earlier this month. No-one at Newcastle should lose sight of that.
Sign a ‘keeper and right winger
Transfers can be transformative. Two years ago Newcastle got this, bursting out of the January transfer window blocks to sign Kieran Trippier and inject fresh hope and impetus into their relegation battle.
Financial Fair Play remains a consideration at St James’ Park but there is scope – and apparent willingness – to invest in January. It feels non-negotiable, even if Howe spoke of finding the solutions internally in Tuesday’s downbeat press conference. He also said the club needed to find a balance between signing players who are right and players who are for right now.
The first target is likely to be a goalkeeper. It may sound brutal but Martin Dubravka’s return has coincided with a collapse in defensive authority at Newcastle.
They have conceded 14 goals from seven games since Nick Pope’s injury – it was just six in the seven before that.
He is slower off his line and does not offer the presence of Pope. Former Manchester United goalkeeper David de Gea is understood to be keen. Aaron Ramsdale needs games and is not getting them at Arsenal.
A right winger who can play across the forward line, and offer competition for struggling Almiron and the over-used Anthony Gordon, is also essential. They need more firepower.
Boxing Day felt like the beginning of the end for the team that had gone from relegation fodder to top four contenders. Now is the time for transformation.
Howe hinted at that afterwards when he said that credit alone would not save them from the drop and now he must be ruthless.
Resist Man Utd’s Ashworth advances
For all the conviction from Howe that director of football Dan Ashworth will not leave, there is a sense of uncertainty around him.
Manchester United remain a big draw, Sir Jim Ratcliffe has carte blanche and Sir Dave Brailsford is a close friend and ally. There is concern in some quarters that he will be tempted.
No individual is bigger than the club but it feels important to Newcastle to make sure Ashworth stays. Sky high compensation might prove prohibitive but it feels as if Newcastle as a whole need to recalibrate what their project is about.
One insider believes the summer will represent “phase two” of Newcastle’s growth, with Howe having to be ruthless.
But Boxing Day defeat might just have fast-forwarded some decisions: they cannot afford to write off this season.
Just don’t lose to Sunderland
As much as Howe has credit and time in the bank, the upcoming Tyne-Wear derby looms large.
It is seven years since the fixture was last played – Newcastle escaping with a fortuitous draw courtesy of Aleksander Mitrovic’s late equaliser – and the diverging fortunes of the rivals heaps the pressure on the Magpies.
Defeat would be unthinkable.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/bc72HQO
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