Eddie Howe

[Ben]

Are we worried about Howe then ? 

[Zero]

9 minutes ago, The Prophet said:

 

Don't quire a few clubs have performance directors?

yea but I don’t think I ever see one director being hired for “injury management”. 
 

re injury management, you can only blame either the medical department, or the manager. And if it’s the former, you don’t need a new director right? Just change the medical staff. You need a new director only because you need him to assert influence on the manager. Hierarchy issue.

 

 

Edited July 21 by Zero

[Fezzle]

6 minutes ago, Ben said:

Are we worried about Howe then ? 

Just the usual ones who revel in misery apparently 

[aussiemag]

1 minute ago, Zero said:

yea but I don’t think I ever see one director being hired for “injury management”. 
 

re injury management, you can only blame either the medical department, or the manager. And if it’s the former, you don’t need a new director right? Just change the medical staff. You need a new director only because you need him to assert influence on the manager. Hierarchy issue.

 

 

 

 

I think it was more about splitting Ashworths role into two. Expertise in recruitment and in medical/health/fitness. It was obvious the medical/health/fitness side of the club didn't have the required leadership and underperformed last season for whatever reason. 

[80]

7 minutes ago, aussiemag said:

 

I think it was more about splitting Ashworths role into two. Expertise in recruitment and in medical/health/fitness. It was obvious the medical/health/fitness side of the club didn't have the required leadership and underperformed last season for whatever reason. 

Yeah, I don't think it has to be that strange for a performance director to be responsible for injuries. There's a wide array of things that I wouldn't expect a manager to be intimately involved with e.g. nutrition, training facilities, post match recovery plans, which all feed in to injury records. Dictating the number of minutes a manager can use a first team player for would be a different order of magnitude, of course, and definitely something Eddie would want reassurances on.

 

 

Edited July 21 by 80

[Yorkie]

Agree that Bunce seems like the less orthodox and slightly more triggering appointment, from Howe's point of view. If he's been hired with the remit of preventing another injury crisis then it means Howe's methods are going to be scrutinised. You can see why he might recoil at that. 

 

Reflecting on it over the past couple of days, it's a bit of a concern that he's aired this stuff publicly rather than in-house because that indicates a communication issue. If there's any reason to be concerned - it's that. 

 

But unless everyone is lying, everyone wants Howe to be the Newcastle manager (most of all the man himself) so I can't feel overly concerned, but it definitely seems like there's some stuff to iron out. 

[The Prophet]

I don't think Bunce will have much direct influence on team selection. He'll oversee stuff like the medical department, sports science and data. 

 

I wonder if we'll appoint a technical director or if Mitchell will oversee the lot.

[Myleftboot]

If Eddie does leave for the England job (hope he doesn’t) I wonder if Mitchell would bring in Pochettino. I’m sure he took him to Southampton.

[Holmesy]

19 minutes ago, The Prophet said:

I don't think Bunce will have much direct influence on team selection. He'll oversee stuff like the medical department, sports science and data. 

 

I wonder if we'll appoint a technical director or if Mitchell will oversee the lot.

But if the sports science says he needs to reduce the intensity of his training (which is almost certainly the case in seasons where we have European fixtures), and that’s very much part of his make-up, you can see where there might be issues.

Going from having the autonomy to make those decisions yourself to being told it has to happen, is a very different dynamic. 

[FloydianMag]

28 minutes ago, Myleftboot said:

If Eddie does leave for the England job (hope he doesn’t) I wonder if Mitchell would bring in Pochettino. I’m sure he took him to Southampton.

Should that happen I’d go for Tommy Tuchel, proven winner 🤷‍♂️

[500bhp]

Once a team is full of elite players the manager is less important. Real Madrid, PSG and Chelsea until recently regularly changed managers and continued to be very successful. For a few years Real Madrid seemed to win the CL every year under a different manager!

 

At NUFC Howe has turned average players into good players and good ones into very good. We still need Howe as we do not have a squad of quality players. But as the squad improves the manager is less important. Hence putting in place the executive level management structure we are seeing now. We still need Howe to do his magic for a while yet though. 

[80]

31 minutes ago, Holmesy said:

But if the sports science says he needs to reduce the intensity of his training (which is almost certainly the case in seasons where we have European fixtures), and that’s very much part of his make-up, you can see where there might be issues.

Going from having the autonomy to make those decisions yourself to being told it has to happen, is a very different dynamic. 

Yes, although I'm hoping Eddie has worked that out himself, to be honest.

[The Prophet]

29 minutes ago, Holmesy said:

But if the sports science says he needs to reduce the intensity of his training (which is almost certainly the case in seasons where we have European fixtures), and that’s very much part of his make-up, you can see where there might be issues.

Going from having the autonomy to make those decisions yourself to being told it has to happen, is a very different dynamic. 

 

By all accounts there was a lot of input from sports science last season, with Howe stripping back training during the injury crisis. 

 

That's probably why Howe is seeking to clarify working relationships within the new structure.

 

Again, seems perfectly reasonable and not much to worry about, unless he's still talking about it down the road.

 

[TRon]

1 hour ago, Ben said:

Are we worried about Howe then ? 

 

Not really. If he wants to stay he will, no one above has been anything but enthusiastic about the job he's doing. I see this as just Howe trying to assert his own voice, he clearly wants to have some input when it comes to decisions taken which might affect the squad.

 

If he decides to leave then fair enough, we'll have to reluctantly bring someone else in. I don't see him doing that though, unless he really does want that England job.

[Peder75]

I believe all worried fans are just making a mountain out of a molehill. Nothing has changed in Eddies approach. He iterates several times that Newcastle is his only priority. It has always been the case that he wants a certain amount of control and freedom in his work, it's nothing new. With all changes happening within the club it's not strange at all that he is bringing it up again that he wants to keep that. It's not like he has thought about leaving the club now. It's more that he might start to think about it if he loses the control he wants to have, but that has always been the case. As long as he still has some control of incoming players he has no problem working with a DoF.

 

I don't think there is any reason to be worried now. Wait and see how the it works out between him and Mitchell before you start worrying about him leaving. 

[Miggys First Goal]

Do I want him to go? No. I think he can win a trophy with us and will become a club legend. 
 

But if he does leave, at least we have competent people in place. We know they’ll go for the best available option. 
 

Do I think he will leave? No. 

[junkhead]

2 hours ago, aussiemag said:

 

Eddie is as calculated as they come and every response to a media question is answered in a way that will bring out the response he desires. He will tell lies and manipulate the media when necessary. He obviously has concerns around the new structure and how his influence will change. I would say he was gob smacked that AS and MG left so suddenly and he feels insecure in his position. He has probably already raised his concerns behind closed doors around what having a sporting director and performance director mean for him and didnt like the response he got. Conveniently for him he is wanted for the England job at the same time, so its is a good negotiating tactic to ensure he still has the control he desires with the new setup. I dont see why he needed these comments to go public, other than he didnt like the answers he was getting from Darren Eales behind closed doors. 

 

Spot on imo.. Still I wouldn't read TOO much in Eddie's political offensive. He's not leaving, he doesn't care about int management. Eddie probably won't like some of the changes but he's professional enough to carry on with his job with slightly reduced responsibilities. He was appointed as a 'head coach' after all.. unless his secret contract renewal states otherwise.

 

If I'm not mistaken, until last week Dan Hodges was the head of performance. He's been with Eddie and JT since the start at Bournemouth, so they're probably very close. Hodges will probably carry on with his work but he might need to follow Bunce's methodology/decisions now. Not very clued up on this but fitness, workload and recovery should be his domain.

He has overseen a high number of injuries each season at B'mouth and Newcastle, so maybe it's time we try something else.

 

Other conflict point might be recruitment, where Eddie might feel that they've done a lot of hard preparation for the summer for it to be halted.. or Andy Howe's involvement might be lessened, as Mitchell specialises in that stuff and will probably change the structure / hire somebody to his taste..

 

Personally, I love Eddie and I would stick with him, even if we're say 10th next season. His success has won him a lot of control at the club but imo he must give up some of it for the sake of growing as a club. I'm confident they'll make it work, everything else would be childish and unprofessional and we're not that club anymore.

[Ghandis Flip-Flop]

1 hour ago, Holmesy said:

But if the sports science says he needs to reduce the intensity of his training (which is almost certainly the case in seasons where we have European fixtures), and that’s very much part of his make-up, you can see where there might be issues.

Going from having the autonomy to make those decisions yourself to being told it has to happen, is a very different dynamic. 

If Eddie isn’t having a bit of soul searching into how the likes of Botman, Murphy, Willock and Joelinton's fitness was managed last season I’d personally be more concerned

[OverThere]

Injuries were a huge concern last season and yet fully fit younger players barely played. You would think the fitness guru will be looking at training and how many minutes players are playing and have some influence or else what is the point.

[JLC]

46 minutes ago, Miggys First Goal said:

Do I want him to go? No. I think he can win a trophy with us and will become a club legend. 
 

But if he does leave, at least we have competent people in place. We know they’ll go for the best available option. 
 

Do I think he will leave? No. 

What MFG says ✔️

[The Prophet]

He almost certainly won't leave. He was just doing a bit of politicking.

[Fezzle]

17 minutes ago, The Prophet said:

He almost certainly won't leave. He was just doing a bit of politicking.

That's exactly it. Struggling to see peoples issue with any of what he said 

[TRon]

2 minutes ago, Fezzle said:

That's exactly it. Struggling to see peoples issue with any of what he said 

 

I don't think anyone has issues, but it has introduced a tiny element of doubt, so I can totally understand why people might express that.

[Fezzle]

56 minutes ago, TRon said:

 

I don't think anyone has issues, but it has introduced a tiny element of doubt, so I can totally understand why people might express that.

Am assuming the many overreactions have passed you by. Some are comical and would be rightly mocked if they appeared on rtg

[Dr Jinx]

The whole political games we can do without to be honest. Are you staying? Should be an immediate yes answer, not.. "as long as I'm happy and supported I don't see why not"

 

 

I'm guessing the club did a review of the season and one of the decisions made was that a performance director should be brought in because the existing setup wasn't up to scratch. EH taken it on as a rap on the knuckles perhaps.

 

I can't imagine they were happy with the response to his interviews either as it's done nothing to make things settled in the camp.

 

It's a long way off the Rafa quotes before he left but it ain't nothing either.