Things are stagnating at Newcastle United and it's time for change - Opinion

There's no denying that there's something not quite right at Newcastle United this season.

After a tumultuous summer that saw a lot of changes behind the scenes, things have since descended into a media-led clusterbiff as the press refuses to let the likes of Eddie Howe and Paul Mitchell get on with their jobs without goading them into talking smack about the other.

Meanwhile on the pitch things are far from where they ought to be.

Whether the supposed feud, between the sporting director and manager has caused unrest within the squad or whether it's something else, it's clear that something has to give.

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Eddie Howe is starting to burn through his goodwill credits

We've been saying for a while that this is a huge season for Eddie Howe. His heroics in getting the Magpies to safety in his first half a season followed by a top four finish bought him a lot of goodwill and last season's struggles were largely explained away with a rotten run of injuries.

Without those injury issues, Howe has to get Newcastle back to how they were the season before last, and if he starts to fall behind in that goal, the PIF could make a big call and wield the axe.

Even though he wasn't fully backed in the transfer window, the fact that he was reportedly so stubborn with his choice of transfer targets means he is not absolved of blame there and therefore he's now eating into those goodwill credits he had in reserve.

A switch to another formation is desperately needed

For us, however, axing Eddie Howe isn't the change that needs to be made, it's Howe himself who needs to wield the axe and he needs to chop up his tactic book and start again.

Newcastle's 4-3-3 system has served us well but other teams are onto us now, we're predictable, and everyone we've come up against this season has exploited the fact that the gap between our defence and midfield is too big, Alexander Isak is often isolated up front and too easy to take out of the game.

It is time for something new. We don't have the new players, so we need a new system. NUFCFEED's very own Rich gave an example of a 4-2-3-1 which we think would work well with Tonali and Bruno as the bridge between the back and the midfield with Isak supported by Joe Willock, Harvey Barnes and Miguel Almiron - let's face it, Murphy has had plenty of opportunities lately and Anthony Gordon needs to ride the bench and reflect on his poor attitude.

We doubt it'll happen because Howe is so stubborn, but seriously, something has to give.