The morning after the night before: The Eddie Howe situation as we see it as gaffer's Newcastle United future starts to look shaky
Last night I was a very bitter man and started to really sway towards the Howe Out crowd for the first time in his four-year tenure at Newcastle United.
I've always made excuses for Eddie Howe, and I feel that they were all valid ones - boardroom disruption, PSR, injuries, etc., etc.
At the same time, though, I've always been realistic and called out when I feel he got something wrong, which he has many times. There's no denying that, no matter how ardent a Howe supporter you are.
I said last night that when the red mist clears overnight, I may think differently about wanting Howe replaced, and I was right.
Could someone new do any better?
I was right, kind of. I'm a lot more open to the idea of a managerial change than I have been since Howe's arrival, for sure, and after speaking to people about it and talking about the potential of bringing in Xabi Alonso or Roberto De Zerbi, I'm more convinced that there are options out there.
What I'm less convinced of, though, is how much of an impact they can realistically have.
If a new manager came in today, it wouldn't change the fixture list, it wouldn't magically heal all the injured players or make the current squad less fatigued. They'd still not have any time to train because of all of the games, and they couldn't change anything until the summer.
Is is time for Eddie Howe to go?
Time may be running out, but it's not over yet
We'd probably get that new manager bounce, but even that probably wouldn't come until a few games down the line, and that may coincide with players returning from injury and Newcastle dropping out of another competition and freeing up time to work on the training pitch, and then we'd never know if Eddie Howe could have regained some control over things.
I don't want to come across as an Eddie Howe bootlicker. I've said many times that I don't think he's bulletproof, but he's had so many things holding back his progress that I don't think any other manager could really have handled it better.
His tactics at times frustrate me, sure, his interviews in which he skirts around a poor performance trying to find positives really grind my gears, but I just don't think it's quite time to wield the axe. And early signs on our poll suggest I'm not alone.
