Joe Thomlinson has admitted on the Football Daily YouTube channel that he got it wrong about Eddie Howe as Newcastle United manager.
Howe was appointed as Newcastle United boss as PIF kick-started a new dawn on Tyneside, however, he certainly wasn’t the first choice with Unai Emery turning them down and many may have turned their noses up at Howe given his last action as manager was to take Bournemouth down into the Championship.
Should Howe win Manager of the season?
Yes!
No!
However, the new boss has certainly proven a lot of doubters wrong having guided Newcastle away from the bottom three and on a nine-game unbeaten run, which could have been extended on the weekend had VAR awarded his side an obvious penalty.
Thomlinson was seemingly one of those people that doubted the appointment of Eddie Howe at the time, but now realises he may have been wrong.
(18:12) “I thought they were actually the better team for the majority of the game and I thought Chelsea were okay, but I thought that Newcastle played really well up to that point. Eddie Howe, I’m going to eat my words, had done a really brilliant job organising that side.”
TIF Thoughts on Howe…
The Newcastle boss was voted as the Premier League’s Manager of the Month for February as the Magpies picked up three wins and one draw while dragging his side up to 14th in the league and now sit nine points clear of the bottom three.
Howe will be hoping that if Newcastle managed to avoid the drop then PIF will hand him a considerable transfer budget that will surpass the £90 million he splashed out in January as he’s proven what he can do with money by bringing in star performers in the form of Dan Burn, Matt Targett and Bruno Guimaraes.
In other news: ‘If I’m going to be totally honest’ – BBC man reacts to big Newcastle incident