Eddie Howe has challenged his Newcastle United players to prove Man City boss Pep Guardiola right by being 'contenders' this season.
Newcastle are currently flying high in fourth place following a superb start to the season. The Magpies, who are unbeaten in eight, have won five of their last six games and have only suffered one defeat this season, against Liverpool, back in August.
That progress has certainly not gone unnoticed. While some Premier League managers have been unnerved by Newcastle's rise - Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp sarcastically congratulated Howe's side on having 'no ceiling' last month - Guardiola has always been complimentary.
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Just last week, unprompted, Guardiola labelled Newcastle a 'contender', particularly with Howe's side not having any European distractions this season. When speaking about Howe, himself, the Catalan simply said: "You know how good he is."
Howe and his players have been conscious of cutting out the outside noise and taking one game at a time, but do these sorts of comments push Newcastle on even further?
"I'd much rather people said nice things about us than not, but I'm not in control of that and it doesn't really change anything," Howe told reporters ahead of the trip to Southampton. "It's nice to hear people's opinions of us if they're positive and, if they're not, that's up to them.
"It doesn't change anything about what we're doing. Only we can prove whether we're contenders or not and we have to do that on a weekly basis."
Howe is approaching his first anniversary as Newcastle head coach after taking over a winless side who were in deep relegation trouble a year ago. Forget one day challenging for a place in Europe; no team had ever stayed up in the Premier League at the time after failing to win any of their opening 14 league games.
Some smart recruitment has helped transform this side after around £210m was spent on new additions in 2022. However, while outsiders have tended to focus on that spend, it is worth noting that six of the 10 outfield starters in the recent wins against Spurs and Aston Villa were all players Howe inherited. Fabian Schar, Joelinton and Miguel Almiron are just some of those individuals who have looked reborn under the 44-year-old.
"We're not necessarily looking for any validation of anything," Howe said. "We're just doing the job to the best of our ability.
"I love coaching players, working with players and trying to improve players. From day one here, I sensed a really open group that wanted that work.
"I've said many times that I don't feel we have bought the success that we are currently having. It's come from hard work and a lot of brilliant performances from the players, but time will tell on everything. At the moment, we're just doing the best we can day to day."
Newcastle may now have statistically the best defence in the Premier League, after conceding just 10 goals, but, at this stage last season, the Magpies had the worst after shipping a whopping 23 goals. The players were understandably low on confidence and it took time for results to pick up under Howe, who won just one of his first nine matches.
However, a 1-0 victory at Leeds proved a turning point of sorts and Newcastle have not looked back since. In fact, Howe's have lost just six games since that win at Elland Road back in January.
"I had that belief internally that we had some really good players," Howe added. "My first impressions were genuine: a really willing group that wanted to be coached, that wanted help, so I felt there was a really good starting point.
"The results were not matching that expectation, initially, and that leads to an element of doubt because you need the results to validate what you feel. It was really from the Leeds game onwards that things started to turn in a positive direction."
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