Eddie Howe faces the biggest decision of Newcastle United’s season on Saturday.
Howe desperately does not want to drop Nick Pope – it is not his style or inclination to rip up a plan on the back of a defeat – but the England goalkeeper’s alarming run of high-profile errors has put his position under scrutiny and given the Newcastle boss a headache he’d rather not have.
Pope was not solely responsible for Tuesday’s scrappy second half performance at Marseille but his fingerprints were all over a dispiriting defeat.
For the third away game in a row he bore responsibility for an opposition goal and this time there were no shades of grey. His error of judgement was inexplicable and costly, beginning the tailspin that led to a fourth successive away defeat for his team.
“It’s the life of a goalkeeper,” Howe said on Tuesday night before – predictably – reaffirming his belief in 33-year-old Pope.
His words were no surprise to anyone familiar with Howe’s methods. The reflex reaction of the Newcastle boss is always to back his players, especially the loyal lieutenants like Pope and Dan Burn who form a key part of his leadership group.
He is acutely aware that making a change now would represent the boldest of statements, undermining Pope’s position and perhaps ushering in the beginning of the end for his Newcastle career.
But the noise around his goalkeeper is undoubtedly growing and Newcastle’s decision to sign Aaron Ramsdale in the summer was an admission that Pope needed a higher level of competition to keep him on his toes.
Newcastle paid a £4million loan fee to bring Ramsdale in, telling him that it would be a fair fight to be No 1 in a World Cup year. If he doesn’t get the nod at Everton on Saturday, will Ramsdale ever play and put himself in the frame for the permanent move he craves?
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Joe Cole on the inconsistencies facing Eddie Howe and his Newcastle side…
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As with everything at Newcastle, the aftershocks of a difficult summer never feel far away. Plan A had been to retain Pope as number one while James Trafford was lined up as his long-term successor. It was a switch that both the player and Newcastle believed would happen but Manchester City’s jitters over Ederson pushed them into a move that left that plan in tatters.
Newcastle pivoted to Ramsdale but, intriguingly, The i Paper has been told the club have continued to watch younger alternatives. Sources in France have indicated that they are one of the Premier League clubs who have watched Toulouse’s France under-21 international Guillaume Restes recently.
Those are concerns for the long-term when Howe has a shorter term problem to solve: his team’s perplexing tendency to surrender winning positions away from home.
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A victory that would have generated real momentum was within their grasp in the south of France before Pope’s aberration, but he was by no means the only culprit. Bruno Guimaraes – who cut a frustrated figure in the mixed zone afterwards – was guilty of ceding possession too easily while Sandro Tonali was also underwhelming. Perhaps fatigue after a mammoth effort to beat Manchester City was a problem.
If that is the case it seems troubling that Howe is so reluctant to hand either Jacob Ramsey or Anthony Elanga a start now that the games are coming thick and fast. The pair signed for a combined £100million in the summer but were introduced as the game ran away from Newcastle and in truth, neither made much of an impact.
Everton on Saturday offers Newcastle the chance to arrest their away day woes but something has to change. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that it may be their goalkeeper.
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