The Monday Night Club panel discussed Eddie Howe’s future after one listener wrote in to explain he felt he was watching “the beginning of the end” of the head coach’s time in charge at Newcastle.
The Observer’s Rory Smith said: “I don’t think it’ll be the case that supporters will force Howe out. From the outside, fans are the people who watch most religiously, but my sense is the way Eddie Howe’s Newcastle play at their best is not a thing you can do when you’re also in the Champions League.
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“When they are in the Champions League they run out of the intensity that makes them special. When you throw in those extra eight to 10 games a season, it’s really hard.
“They seem to have hit that wall they hit two years ago again. I think it’s a shortcoming of Howe’s that he hasn’t been able to find a way around that, to make them a bit more sustainable.
“But I think the frustration fans are directing towards Howe is partly results, partly recruitment that wasn’t great in the summer and partly the general stagnation around the club, which is not to do with him but the ownership.
“If you look at Saudi investments more broadly, they are starting to remove themselves from certain sporting commitments. It’s hard to look at what they have done in Newcastle and think the promise they arrived with has been lived up to.
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“The plan for the stadium is still a plan, there’s no new training ground, they went into last summer with no sporting director. It looks like an uncertainty and absence of vision at Newcastle and I think Howe is suffering from that.
“That’s not to say he hasn’t made mistakes – he has – but until you solve that I am not sure there’s any point changing the manager.”
Former Newcastle goalkeeper Shay Given said: “It’s a long way from fourth or fifth. Sitting here now, you would think it’s a major struggle to get back to Champions League football. To attract payers, with the PSR constraints and stuff, they need to get into the Champions League every season.
“But after some 70 or so years of domestic hurt, he brought a trophy to the North East. During my time at the club, we felt we were jinxed as we couldn’t get over the line. And he has Champions League football this season for the second time in three years – so there’s lots of positives.”
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