David Ornstein has been speaking about what he’s heard behind the scenes at Newcastle United about the impact Eddie Howe’s made on Tyneside.
It was a rather bold move almost 12 months ago when PIF appointed Howe as their new boss, having not long bought the club for £350m and sacked Steve Bruce with the Magpies in the bottom three.
The last job Howe had was at Bournemouth in 2020 after he failed to keep the club in the Premier League and subsequently walked away, but the risk in bringing him to St James’ Park has certainly paid off for Newcastle and PIF, as Howe kept them up comfortably last term and now has the Magpies sitting inside the top six.
Ornstein has now revealed what people’s thoughts are on Howe and the way he’s building the club behind the scenes on The Five Insider on YouTube.
He said: “I think he made an immediate impact, Eddie Howe, even if it wasn’t necessarily in front of our eyes with results on the pitch; the atmosphere around the club was just transformed.
“Of course, that was partly because Mike Ashley had been replaced as owner, who wasn’t popular there with the majority of the fans, but also, they believed in Eddie Howe, he seemed a good fit in terms of his character, his acumen, his skills, his standing in the game and where the Newcastle fans felt that he could take them.
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“Then you hear behind the scenes as well, you speak to people at that club around the game, people linked to Newcastle United, and they talk very highly of him in the way he set about it on the training field, in the dressing room, one-to-one and collectively with the players; starting to bring in members of staff, sports science, coaching, recruitment and so on.”
TIF Thoughts on Howe’s tenure at Newcastle…
Even the most positive of Newcastle fans surely couldn’t have predicted this turnaround from Howe after less than 12 months in charge, as when he took over, the Magpies hadn’t won a league game in the 2021/22 campaign, while since the turn of the calendar year, they’ve lost just twice at home.
It’s very evident how well-liked Howe is, especially by his players, with star midfielder Bruno Guimaraes tipping his hat to the boss last weekend as he revealed that the Toon boss has done a lot of work with him since joining from Lyon in January.
If Howe can somehow manage to take Newcastle from a side fighting against relegation to European contention in one season, he deserves all the praise he receives, as that would be an impressive achievement.