'As usual': Sam Allardyce is hoping a mooted change at Newcastle does not come to pass

It's not very often we give much thought to the musings of Sam Allardyce but the man does speak sense on occasion.

Like Simon Jordan and Paul Merson, Sam Allardyce is not a popular figure amongst Newcastle United fans, but every so often they do pipe up with something that makes sense and we have to give credit where it's due.

Allardyce had a brief stint as Newcastle manager when Mike Ashley first took over the helm but it wasn't long before he was hounded out of the club with cries of "You don't know what you're doing" all too prevalent at St James' Park during his tenure.

Since then the former Bolton and Sunderland boss has been pushed to the back of Geordie minds and passed off as a bad memory.

Sam Allardyce backs Eddie Howe at Newcastle

The disgraced former England manager now hosts the No Tippy Tappy Football podcast and in his latest episode, he has made a point of talking about Newcastle United and the growing pressure surrounding Eddie Howe and the 69-year-old is standing firmly in Howe's corner.

“Eddie Howe never had the squad to cope with the Champions League, FA Cup, Carabao Cup and League. Now they are where they are because the squad wasn’t big enough.

“As usual though, there is speculation because he hasn’t had such a great season. I hope the owners aren’t thinking about, or anyone is thinking about changing him yet.”

Newcastle must stick with Howe until his position becomes untenable

We feel Allardyce is spot on here. As we've said many times, we don't blindly support Howe, we have concerns over quite a few of the decisions he has made in his two and a bit years here, but for the most part, we think he's done an excellent job.

He rescued the club from certain relegation and then got us into the Champions League and a cup final the very next season. Things this year have been wildly different, but there have been some mitigating factors that were mostly out of his control - although not entirely by any means.

There are corners of the fanbase that would like to see a change in manager, but they are the vocal minority rather than the majority. Many people know that changing now would just set the project back even further than this season already has - which, given how far it leapt forward last year is still progress from where we were pre-takeover.

Stability is going to be key to achieving the PIF's goals or at least not giving up at the first sign of adversity.