'Big Surprise': Alan Shearer shares what he was told about Eddie Howe and England job as FA appoint Thomas Tuchel

Last night the news broke that former Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel had signed a contract to become the next England manager with an official announcement expected later today (Wednesday).

It puts an end to months of speculation around the future of Eddie Howe who many had as their number one candidate to replace Gareth Southgate who stepped down after Euro 2024.

The timing for Newcastle couldn't have been worse as the club had just appointed a new sporting director in Paul Mitchell after having essentially booted out two of Howe's biggest allies at the club in Amanda Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi.

Eddie Howe gave a very cagy interview at the time which hinted at a spot of discontent which just fuelled the fires with regards to links to the England job.

Eddie Howe distanced himself from the England job several times

Howe spent a long time distancing himself from the role but that didn't seem to deter the media or the bookies, and while Lee Carsley was appointed interim boss, the stories did fade away until that woeful performance last week against Greece which kicked off the Howe rumours again.

Thankfully they didn't last long this time with The FA moving quickly to sign up Thomas Tuchel who has been out of work since leaving Bayern Munich.

Now that it has all been agreed and the dust is starting to settle we're finding out just how close, or not, Eddie Howe came to taking the job.

Alan Shearer believes Eddie Howe was not approached about the role

Alan Shearer spoke about Eddie Howe on The Rest Is Football podcast where he mentioned that he had been told that Howe wasn't even approached by The FA.

“It’s happened so quickly (Tuchel's appointment). We said the other day that there is perhaps a reason why Lee Carsley was ruling himself out. Maybe you were right in saying he knew something that we all didn’t know.

“I really hope that they have spoken to English managers.

“I’m told they didn’t speak to Eddie Howe, or they didn’t sound him out at all. I’m reliably told, which is a big surprise for me, considering he would be the outstanding English candidate.”

It seems that while the media and the bookies didn't listen to Eddie Howe's insistence that he didn't want the job, The FA did.