Eddie Howe

[The Prophet]

6 hours ago, Dr Jinx said:

I'm just not convinced EH wants to work under a DoF. He has to if he stays but then he does have this other potential amazing opportunity if he chooses not to.. one where he wouldn't have to work under anyone.

 

That's the crux of it. Total freedom or stay and try and manoeuvre several layers of executive dick swinging to try and achieve your goals.

 

He worked under Richard Hughes at Bournemouth, this idea that he wants complete free reign isn't true. 

 

He even said as much interview, it's a collaborative effort.  

 

He obviously wants a certain amount of freedom, but there's nothing there suggesting he wants to be given carte blanche.

[duo]

38 minutes ago, gbandit said:

Howay man, people need to calm the fuck down. He’s negotiating whilst also being honest. If he goes, it won’t be because of what’s happening at the club, it’ll be because of the England offer. That’s it 

I don't see how you have come to that conclusion? He clearly wants to retain some control with regards recruitment.  If PIF refuse to give him that then that'll be the main reason he'll be off.  England job just gives him a great opportunity should he leave.

[gbandit]

1 minute ago, duo said:

I don't see how you have come to that conclusion? He clearly wants to retain some control with regards recruitment.  If PIF refuse to give him that then that'll be the main reason he'll be off.  England job just gives him a great opportunity should he leave.

Of course he does, he’s not going to have no control over recruitment. He’s just asserting his stance 

[The Prophet]

You'll find very few managers about who want no input on recruitment, most will want final say.

[Zero]

I think It’s the appointment of Bunce that looked strange to me, and it might be why Howe acts like that (suspected public media threatening)
 

Mitchell is the sporting director and, most likely, what affects Howe most is the final say on transfer. Just like many has said, all other major clubs would have similar structure. I think Howe knows if he wants to manage top teams in Europe, he has to accept this.
 

Bunce’s position, however, is not something common in other clubs. Although it’s claimed to be solely related to injury management, it is obvious that Bunce has direct influence on the selection of the team. Say like Bruno has played 2 games in 5 days, and from injury prevention point of view, Bunce might suggest Howe NOT to play Bruno in the next game. This won’t be something Howe like to have. And, I don’t know who got the final say on team selection I.E. it’s suggestion, or order?

 

I don’t want the injury crisis to happen again, but Howe might be right to voice out his concerns. The inclusion of Bunce into the structure looks weird to me. 

 

 

Edited 4 hours ago by Zero

[80]

7 minutes ago, The Prophet said:

 

He worked under Richard Hughes at Bournemouth, this idea that he wants complete free reign isn't true. 

 

He even said as much interview, it's a collaborative effort.  

 

He obviously wants a certain amount of freedom, but there's nothing there suggesting he wants to be given carte blanche.

Regarding Hughes, Howe had already had his feet under the table at Bournemouth for most of a decade, including as Hughes' manager, before he got that job, mind. So I think we can assume Eddie had pretty much designed that job as he wanted it to be.

 

I definitely think he's up for collaboration and 'give and take', which to me is the right approach. There's so much talk about PIF's 'process-driven' approach though that it makes me fear they want a hard delineation of duties, with responsibility for recruitment being taken away from the 'coach'.

[The Prophet]

1 minute ago, Zero said:

I think It’s the appointment of Bunce that looked strange to me, and it might be why Howe acts like that (suspected public media threatening)
 

Mitchell is the sporting director and, most likely, what affects Howe most is the final say on transfer. Just like many has said, all other major clubs would have similar structure. I think Howe knows if he wants to manage top teams in Europe, he has to accept this.
 

Bunce’s position, however, is not something common in other clubs. Although it’s claimed to be solely related to injury management, it is obvious that Bunce has direct influence on the selection of the team. Say like Bruno has played 2 games in 5 days, and from injury prevention point of view, Bunce might suggest Howe NOT to play Bruno in the next game. This won’t be something Howe like to have. And, I don’t know who got the final say on team selection I.E. it’s suggestion, or order?

 

I don’t want the injury crisis to happen again, but Howe might be right to voice out his concerns. The inclusion of Bunce into the structure looks weirded to me. 

 

Don't quire a few clubs have performance directors?

[Ghandis Flip-Flop]

Well I’m as a big a fan of what Eddie has achieved here s anyone, but if having a DOF is a problem for him I wonder where he fancies getting a job? Are there any other clubs challenging for European places in the PL without a DOF? Are there many attractive European clubs that don’t operate with a DOF?

 

Basically he needs to learn to work within this kind of system or reappraise the size of club he want to work at.

 

By all means negotiate to have a say, but the days of one guy calling all the shots have been dead at the top level of football for well over a decade now

[Coffee_Johnny]

56 minutes ago, Cronky said:

We gotta problem. And just when things were going so well.

 

However you may dress it up, this is a public threat to resign. Eddie is normally very discreet when it comes to keeping things behind closed doors, so this is right out of character. Presumably he's already made the powers that be aware of his concerns privately - if not, they have a right to feel annoyed. 

 

It all seems a bit pointless. It's not going to encourage any prospective players to join us if they get the impression that the Head Coach is liable to change. It also means that Eales and Mitchell will be either walking on eggshells or keen to assert themselves, neither of which will help. Those two have come across as sound people with a genuine regard for Eddie's abilities, so I imagine they'll be a bit taken aback.

 

I think Eddie is used to working within an intimate working environment where he has some considerable influence and access to the decision-makers above him. He joined a bigger club in us, but his close contact with Amanda and Mehrdad, who were running the club from somewhat ill-defined roles, allowed him to exercise the power that he felt he needed. Our structure is now more typical of a major club, and he's feeling very insecure. But it's difficult to know why he hasn't decided to keep quiet and just see how things pan out.

 

Looking at his career, I think he likes to feel that he's on familiar ground, with familiar people. He was very anxious to keep his coaching team with him, when he came here. Excuse the amateur psychology, but there may be insecurities from his early years that have been exposed. People of exceptional ability can be vulnerable like this. It's what drives them.

 

I'm worried, because going public like this is unfair on the people he's working for. 

Did he ask for the interview? Or was he just answering questions in a standard requested interview/PR piece? If latter then there is nothing to see here. 

[80]

Just now, The Prophet said:

 

Don't quire a few clubs have performance directors?

I think so, but as with sporting directors and such, job titles can be quite misleading in terms of the breadth and strength of their responsibilities. So you have to look at each one individually.

[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 4 hours ago 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 4 hours ago 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.