Newcastle United journalist Liam Kennedy has provided some background surrounding claims that Eddie Howe could be about to take charge.
Following the recent takeover of the club, one of the first pieces of business that the club appear to be working on is a change of manager, with one report in the Daily Mail suggesting that a change could even have come before their game against Tottenham Hotspur this past weekend. In the end, the club announced on Wednesday morning that Steve Bruce had left ‘by mutual consent’.
According to a report in The Mirror, the former AFC Bournemouth boss Howe “has emerged as a shock name in discussions for the Newcastle job”.
However, according to Kennedy, who was speaking about potential appointments on NUFC Matters prior to Bruce’s departure, links between Howe and the job at St. James’ Park go beyond just the recent takeover and he has been on the radar of some people at the club for a while now:
“Eddie Howe’s a name that was mentioned to me before the takeover went through as a distinct possibility. And it was hard to know whether those noises were coming as a result of a Plan B in place from somebody like [Mike] Ashley, I don’t necessarily think it was, I tend to believe that he has been on some kind of shortlist [to] come in now and just fill the role and do a job.
“Would I be against it? Absolutely not.”
TIF Thoughts on Liam Kennedy’s comments about Eddie Howe and Newcastle United…
After the work that he did at Bournemouth, Howe is a name that has been linked with jobs at big teams for a while now, with claims in 2016 even going so far as to say that he could be a future England manager one day.
Would Eddie Howe be a good fit for Newcastle?
Yes
No
So making the move to a club the size of Newcastle, especially with the new wealth they are set to inherit, would be a step up in his career and one that could take him to that higher echelon within the game, but it’s hard to see what the appeal is on Newcastle United’s end.
Given his body of work so far, which was getting Bournemouth promoted and then keeping them in the Premier League, he just doesn’t come across as someone that would take Newcastle to the very top of the game and competing for honours as the owners say that they want to do. To do that, they should be looking to bring in someone with a track record of winning trophies and building winning teams.
In other news: ‘The players know it’ – Big Steve Bruce claim emerges at Newcastle