'Tread lightly': Jamie Carragher weighs in on the Paul Mitchell and Eddie Howe debate - timely

Just as the narrative is starting to die down regarding the Newcastle United civil war of 2024 Jamie Carragher has chimed in with his two pence worth.

Earlier this week iNews reported that Mitchell and Howe have held clear-the-air talks and the duo are now on the same page after a rocky start to their working relationship.

The thing is, for us, there was absolutely no way things were just going to run smoothly straight away. Mitchell came into the club days after Howe's biggest allies, Amanda Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi left the club and it also happened to be right in the middle of a transfer window. The timing was awful and that likely played a huge part in how things began.

Then the media saw their chance and opted to push a narrative that would disrupt the club for months and it's only just now starting to die down.

Jamie Carragher was clearly Team Howe in the great Civil War

Enter Jamie Carragher who has decided to wait until peacetime to speak his part, although in fairness, what he said is a lot less contentious than what you may be expecting.

Speaking on the Stick To Football podcast, Carragher heaped praise on the job Eddie Howe was doing and says he had a right to feel aggrieved by someone coming in and changing things.

"I understand when a manager comes in and the director of football is already there and you are answering to them. But when you are Eddie Howe and you have been there two years already and you came in when that club was bottom of the league, you saved them and you were then involved in transfers, propelled that club to a Champions League position which was pretty unbelievable, then a sporting director comes in.

"If he's come in and is throwing his weight about and he's only been there two minutes and you've been there when the club was down there and now you have got it to a stable position, and he's now dictating to you. There is something going on there."

It's easy to see what went wrong with hindsight

Carragher went on to say he feels that Mitchell should have approached things differently.

"If you speak to Eddie Howe there was a lot of talk of a joint thing bringing players in. All the signings, Bruno [Guimaraes], [Alexander] Isak and [Sven] Botman at the back, whatever they were doing was working.

"I always think if you are a manager or director of football and you are the last to come in, you almost have to tread lightly.

"From what I’m hearing, you hear about the rumours, you hear little things within the game; we speak to people. It sounds to me like the sporting director has come in as if like ‘I’m in charge’, and it’s a bit like ‘Hang on, slow down’. The deal they wanted to get done - which is the sporting director's job - they didn't get done."

It's easy to sit there with hindsight and point out what should have been done differently, but it's happened now, the time for that has gone.

Eddie Howe and Paul Mitchell now know how each other works and what their plans are and we've got no doubt that the partnership will ultimately be successful despite the bumpy start.