Report: Newcastle in 'pole position' to land Europa League winner over Premier League rivals

Reports from Italy are now suggesting that Newcastle United are frontrunners to land former Chelsea boss Maurizio Sarri this summer.

Okay, If you're done laughing, we'll continue.

Tuttomercatoweb are now claiming that Newcastle are in pole position ahead of West Ham to land the ex-Lazio boss ahead of the new season.

They even say that the PIF have already offered terms to Sarri who is seriously considering accepting.

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There has been no suggestion that the board are unhappy with Eddie Howe

We've been in touch with Saxa and they said even they don't have enough salt to take with this one. There is absolutely no indication that the Newcastle United board are dissatisfied with the job that Eddie Howe has done at Newcastle, and therefore it makes no sense that they'd be off handing out job offers to potential replacements.

Howe has guided Newcastle through an extremely turbulent season which has seen one of our most important players suspended for 10 months, seen almost every squad member injured at one point or another with many long-term absences making life very difficult. Then to cap it all off, we've had some of the toughest cup draws we've ever seen in one season, whether it be the string of away draws in the FA Cup, nothing but "big six" sides in the Carabao Cup, or being placed in the Champions League group which produced two semi-finalists.

And yet, despite all of this, Newcastle are still odds on favourites to nab a place in Europe for next season. Why, oh why, would we change manager now?

Knock yourselves out, West Ham

Take the Sandro Tonali suspension and all of the injuries out of the equation and keep all the results the same, then maybe we'd be thinking about a change, but with so many external factors affecting our season, it would be so unfair to sack Eddie Howe based on this season, especially after what he did in his first season and a half.

That's why we believe the board will give him next season to show where we truly are before making any such decisions. At the very least he'll get until Christmas, but we back Howe to keep us moving forward and sticking around for a good while yet.

So we'll let West Ham take Maurizio Sarri, and good luck to them, although why they want to bin off David Moyes after what he's done for them, we'll never know.