IAN LADYMAN: Can Eddie Howe afford to miss out on the top four?
IAN LADYMAN: It’s dramatic, premature and unfair but it feels like Eddie Howe NEEDS to get Newcastle over the line in the top four race… PLUS, why I’m tipping Arsenal to fall short in their title push
- Eddie Howe has done a superb job at Newcastle over the course of the season
- The Magpies are close to a potential Champions League qualification spot
- The competition will only get stronger next year, they cannot miss this chance
Mark Hughes is doing a fine job in League Two with Bradford City but was once in Eddie Howe’s position as manager of one of the richest football clubs in the world.
Back in 2008, when Sheikh Mansour of Abu Dhabi bought Manchester City, Hughes was in charge and when we met last summer he looked back fondly but also with educated eyes.
‘I should have spent even more on players,’ he laughed. ‘And I should have realised how quickly the club wanted to move.’
The second point was the serious one. Hughes was trying to put foundations in place but City’s owners wanted progress in return for their money and at the first sign of regression, in the winter of 2009, they sacked him. The Welshman had been in charge for 18 months.
At Newcastle, Howe is doing good work and will get longer and possibly a new contract. He has been at St James’ Park since November 2021 and has the club in fifth position with two games in hand on Tottenham, the team above them.
Eddie Howe has done a great job but must ensure he secures Champions League qualification
Howe will be aware that his side may not have a better opportunity to finish in the top four
Newcastle’s co-owners Mehrdad Ghodoussi (L) and Amanda Staveley (R) will be expecting to challenge with England’s elite in the future
Howe’s efforts could not have been more impressive. Newcastle were in danger of relegation when he arrived. Nevertheless, the opportunity that presents itself now is not one he would wish to miss.
Champions League qualification was not a priority this season. It was not expected. But now that it’s a possibility, it feels as though Howe needs to get his team over the line.
Consider the likely Premier League landscape next season. Manchester City and Arsenal are unlikely to regress. Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea can be expected to improve. Tottenham? Well, they could go either way.
The picture of a stronger, more competitive, top four is clear. So if Newcastle do not manage it this season, there is no reason to suspect it will be any easier next time. They have been terrific.
Their current points tally of 47 after 26 games would have had them in or around the top four last season too. Nevertheless, this year’s table has been undeniably warped by issues at Liverpool and Chelsea and by the early days of a new era at Old Trafford.
So Newcastle need to be amongst it this time round. The club — Saudi-owned — is fabulously wealthy but under the same Financial Fair Play restrictions as anybody else.
So the tens of millions of pounds available to Champions League clubs — drawn from prize money, ticket sales and TV income — will form part of Newcastle’s summer spending if they can qualify.
And that’s before we even start to talk about the magnet that Champions League football represents for European players looking to move club.
The Magpies are currently fifth in the table but can go third with a win on the weekend
Howe will be reminded of the similar situation that Mark Hughes found himself in at Man City
Newcastle is a superb city but not fashionable in terms of elite footballers. It falls a good way behind London and a distance behind Manchester. That makes it harder to sell to players. Money helps. But so does Europe.
The challenge to Howe now, therefore, is clear. Take Newcastle into the Champions League this season and he can bed himself in. If he doesn’t then the start of next season begins to look very important.
Any sign of a stall or a change in the trajectory of what he has already started on Tyneside and he automatically begins to appear marginally less secure.
This sounds dramatic and premature and unfair and it is indeed all of those things. If Newcastle beat United at St James’ Park on Sunday evening they will be third. It sounds extraordinary even to say that.
They have been to Wembley in the Carabao Cup final already. Whichever way you look at it, that represents success. However with that success comes a change in perception — which is good — and a change in expectation — which often is not.
Newcastle’s owners have been sensible in a way that City’s were not always at the start. Their recruitment has been solid and strategic. There has not been a ‘statement’ signing, only clever ones.
Newcastle’s new owners selected Howe initially, but that doesn’t mean they won’t get rid of him in order to bring success
All that bodes well, as does the fact Howe was the owners’ choice of manager. Hughes was not. Abu Dhabi inherited him.
Having said all that, the Saudis did not buy Newcastle United to hang around in eighth over the long-term. They bought it to win the league and become major European players.
Sports washing does not tend to accept a good effort. That doesn’t get you heard around the world.
Howe has taken Newcastle further than anyone would have expected this season. Along with Mikel Arteta, Erik ten Hag and Thomas Frank, he is in the shake up for manager of the year.
But the ground can shift quickly in football. Between now and the end of May, opportunity knocks for Howe and his players. It feels rather important they take it.
The 45-year-old has managed to take Newcastle beyond everybody’s expectations this year
WHY I’M TIPPING ARSENAL TO FALL SHORT
Manchester City’s February win at Arsenal felt like a pivotal moment in the title race but it has not turned out that way.
Arsenal won the next six league games and scored 19 goals. That is champion form. However, the commonly held view that Mikel Arteta’s team need to collapse if they are not to win the league is untrue.
They could actually play reasonably well and still fall short. The last two times City have had to push hard to take the Premier League, they won all their remaining 11 games in 2019 and eight of them — drawing three — in 2022. If they do similar this time they will accumulate between 88 and 94 points.
That means Arsenal, at a conservative estimate, will need another 21 or 22 from their remaining 10 fixtures to prevail. Three of those games are away at Liverpool, City and Newcastle — so for Arsenal the challenge is real.
They could win six, draw three, lose one and easily end up second. The champions are eight points behind but if they win their game in hand and then beat Arsenal at home, the gap is two. This is why my money remains on the team in blue.
I’m banking on Arsenal stumbling in their next few games and slipping up in the title race
DAY WE HAD OUR CHIPS AGAINST FRANCE
Mike Keegan’s mournful report on Manchester United’s old training ground, The Cliff, brought to mind an episode from two decades ago.
In France with United before a Champions League game against Nantes, the English media played against our counterparts. Our ringer was the former United midfielder Mickey Thomas but he had been out the night before and was quite ‘unwell’ by the corner flag.
Afterwards we were taken for a lavish lunch at the town hall. We met the mayor. Two weeks later, ahead of the return game, we asked United to reciprocate but the best they could do was fish and chips at Harry Ramsden’s, at the bottom of the East Lancs Road.
If the French were unimpressed (and they were) they took it out on us when we met the next day at The Cliff. They beat us 5-0 and I pulled a hamstring after three minutes. Even when I was young I was old.
Former Man United winger Mickey Thomas helped officiate a match I played in between English and French media
Picked off the bookshelf this week was the Picador Book of Sports Writing, from 1996. Inside is a beautifully written essay by the late Hugh McIlvanney about George Best and other things.
Written soon after the formation of the Premier League, McIlvanney is scornful of our big clubs. ‘Nothing obscures the truth that their overwhelming priority is profit,’ he observed.
Then comes a sweeping generalisation about playing standards. ‘The domestic game is technically impoverished,’ he said.
Since then, some things have remained the same but happily others have not. Premier League football is far from bankrupt and we are lucky to have it.
Attendances in the EFL speak to the strength of our football pyramid and it is heartening.
A proposal by the broadcaster DAZN to show every game live on TV — including those on Saturday at 3pm — threatens that.
Clubs will be tempted by the TV cash on offer up-front, but a word of warning: once we start to lose our paying customers at the turnstiles on a Saturday, we may never get them back.
Streaming platform DAZN submitted a £200m offer that would see them air all 1,656 games
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