As Sandro Tonali trudged towards the touchline Eddie Howe looked momentarily puzzled. Then comprehension dawned. As boos, albeit a gentle smattering, greeted his decision to withdraw the Italy midfielder, Newcastle’s manager received a reminder that the widespread adoration he commands on Tyneside is no longer unconditional.
It was last Saturday at St James’ Park and, with 65 minutes gone, Newcastle were heading towards a 1-0 defeat against Brighton. If the outward show of dissent was muted, plenty of home supporters disagreed with the decision to replace the influential, if tiring, Tonali. Significantly, a manager who prides himself on an ability to read the room conceded his introduction of Joe Willock had failed to exert the desired effect.
Two weeks, November 8, marks the third anniversary of Howe’s installation at Newcastle but with a largely long-serving squad turning stale and, worryingly, struggling to regain its previous harmony, his once near irrepressible tactical templates are starting to look chipped around the edges.
Just over a year ago, Newcastle produced a breathtaking 4-1 Champions League home win over Paris Saint-Germain. Today, though, the fanbase are debating whether the impending three matches — Chelsea away on Sunday today in the Premier League, Wednesday’s Carabao Cup date with Chelsea at St James’ and Arsenal’s league visit on Saturday — should be regarded as sink or swim fixtures for Howe.
While he remains an outstanding coach and no one is really suggesting he should be sacked any time soon, his hopes of leading Newcastle back to Europe and lifting a trophy are being undermined by capricious tailwinds partly outside his control.
The high-intensity pressing game that blew PSG, and others, away arguably prompted the series of injuries responsible for last season’s disappointing seventh-placed finish and the appointment of James Bunce as Newcastle’s new performance director. In the hope of minimising soft tissue injuries, Bunce has modified Howe’s demanding training regimen but such tweaks possibly explain the slow start to the campaign.
It has left Newcastle mid-table and having scored eight goals in eight league games. The season is far from over, but with Newcastle desperate to secure their first major silverware since 1969, Wednesday’s cup tie seems pivotal.
Given that Newcastle’s Saudi Arabian owners certainly do not lack cash, things would surely have been very different had the board not needed to expand the club’s commercial income to comply with the Premier League profit and sustainability rules. Instead, the past two transfer windows have been quiet, leaving Howe short of the new right-winger, centre-half and central striker he craves.
The need to meet PSR requirements allied to the departure of minority co-owners Amanda Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi in July have created a sense that behind the scenes, Newcastle have become a bit corporate, slightly soulless even.
Meanwhile, a summer involving key performers Alexander Isak, Bruno Guimarães and Anthony Gordon becoming the subject of transfer speculation and the manager being linked with the England job disrupted once watertight unity. The contentious decision to replace Kieran Trippier as captain with the more emotional Guimarães only exacerbated any fault lines.
For some time the 34-year-old Trippier served as the lodestar of Newcastle’s metamorphosis but the team miss the full-back’s leadership qualities and his stellar crossing and dead-ball deliveries. Tino Livramento is a sufficiently talented right-back to be part of the England squad but he is not as transformational an attacking outlet as Trippier at his best.
“It was a difficult summer, for lots of different reasons, for a catalogue of things,” says Howe. “When you have multiple players affected by different things, it becomes harder. The general feel of the squad at the start of the season was different to previous years.
“My job is to get the focus and harmony back where it should be, but it’s taking longer than we initially hoped. We’ve come through some really rocky spells in the past but underpinning the strength of the group was always a sense of duty, professionalism, love for the club and positive momentum. It meant we could ride through some difficult patches.
“Now we’ve just got to make sure all those qualities are underpinning the squad again because our ability is unquestionable. But for every player to be at their best, there needs to be that unity, that ambition.”
Dressing rooms are fragile ecosystems and, as Newcastle enter a potentially season-defining seven days, Howe accepts a watershed moment beckons. “I’ve seen things, very quickly, go the wrong way in football,” he says. “So everyone connected with Newcastle has a big job to try to keep that momentum positive and the dreams really big. That’s absolutely crucial.”