ST JAMES’ PARK — It was just a few words, a sentence buried in a nondescript Eddie Howe press conference a week or so ago when he was asked what he was seeing from his Newcastle United players on the training ground.
Hard work, he replied, followed by focus and a few other pleasantries. But then he got onto the subject of quality and demurred. His squad is spread so thin these days that he is regularly promoting callow teenagers from the academy to make up the numbers – and perhaps, for the Premier League’s ultimate training ground technician, it is now starting to show.
Sometimes when seasons start to fray you begin to look for big answers. Is the constant transfer speculation starting to turn heads at the club? Does Howe need to formulate a more radical Plan B now that energy and certainty is draining from the legs of his players?
Or – and this is one you see when the red mist descends after defeats on social media – is another man entirely required in the dugout?
Ask those familiar with what happens on a daily basis at Newcastle’s Little Benton training base and they will quietly point you to another pertinent fact: it is three transfer windows now since the Magpies added a player of significant quality to improve the team’s level.
In that time they have lost Yankuba Minteh, Elliot Anderson, Miguel Almiron and Lloyd Kelly – a signing admittedly deemed not good enough after a few months in black and white. Plan B? They simply do not have the bodies to come up with one.
No matter the troubling nature of Newcastle’s recent form – results declining alongside performances as the Magpies revert to their early season inconsistency – Howe remains an exceptional coaching all-rounder and the best thing happening at the club right now.
There have been plenty of points in the last 12 months that he could have kicked up a fuss, not least after a third window that left him perilously short while his higher-ups demand a European finish. It says a lot about Howe that he keeps his counsel, putting unity ahead of politicking.
That should insulate him against too much criticism after a bruising week that has undermined Newcastle’s challenge to return to the Champions League and etch their names into history in the Carabao Cup in a couple of weeks.
Losing so routinely at Anfield was the first alarm bell, a sign that Newcastle’s form is – in Howe’s own words – “stuttering” just as Wembley is appearing on the horizon. But Sunday’s sapping defeat, complete with Anthony Gordon’s mindless red card, set off a crescendo of clanging that should really worry Howe.
Newcastle will inevitably appeal Gordon’s sending off, presumably figuring they have nothing to lose by mounting a challenge to Anthony Taylor’s decision to dismiss him. Howe argued on Sunday that there was nothing malicious about the winger’s conduct in shoving – with both hands – Jan Paul van Hecke in the closing stages of the Brighton defeat.
But that is not the basis for overturning the red card and in his heart of hearts he will know that he must plan to take on one of Europe’s most unforgiving forward lines without one of his best players and the fulcrum of a front three that he has come to rely on.
The red card felt like a desperate repeat of Nick Pope’s inexplicable dismissal two years ago, which plunged plans for 2023’s final against Manchester United into crisis. Back then Newcastle had no established goalkeepers to pick from, another distraction in a run-up to Wembley that had seen the team lose focus and discipline.
This time around they have wingers in reserve but Harvey Barnes has been inconsistent – an iffy signing for a club that can ill afford to waste money in the market – and Joelinton, another option, is far from his best. No wonder Howe finds himself answering questions about whether the club as a whole is cursed. He denied it, raising the merest hint of a smile for the first and only time in a downbeat Sunday press conference, but that is the feeling spreading among the fanbase.
They aren’t, of course. The reasons for their flatlining form are dull and rooted in the cold, hard economics of a club hemmed in by Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR) and its own caution in squad-building.
They have chosen to stick since 2024 and that means that they have a back four and goalkeeper with two players signed in the Rafael Benitez era, when Mike Ashley economics were in full force. Newcastle have gambled in a way – opting to store up PSR credit rather than signing players – but they have needed to be more dynamic and decisive than just kicking the can down the road for another few months.
None of that can be changed right now and Howe’s job is as much psychological as it is technical, to lift a group that look mentally and physically jaded after a bruising run of results that has dented confidence. Since a 3-0 home win against Wolves on 15 January that lifted them into fourth they have lost three times at St James’ Park, to Bournemouth, Fulham and Brighton. Successive away day undressings by Manchester City and Liverpool suggest deeper issues might have taken root but Newcastle do not have time on their side to address them – or the options in reserve.
Howe has done very well to haul Newcastle to the point where they have a chance to create history and return to European football. If it blows up from here the club have only themselves to blame and a set of lessons that they have to learn from. If they are really serious about competing, they can not leave themselves this stretched again.
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