Something is wrong behind the scenes at St James’ Park this season and, albeit tacitly, Eddie Howe has admitted it.
“We have had a lot of issues this summer and we continue to have them,” Newcastle’s manager said, somewhat cryptically, on Tuesday.
“We’re not quite at our best. I’ve had several meetings with all the players to try and get them at their best levels to solve little issues we may have.”
A big part of Howe’s problem is that three of his key players – Bruno Guimarães, Alexander Isak and Anthony Gordon – have frequently underwhelmed after arguably being unsettled by close‑season rumours of interest from elsewhere. “Without talking about individuals you need your best players at their best levels,” Howe said, rather pointedly.
Isak is expected to recover from a minor hip injury in time to start against Liverpool on Wednesday night but there are suggestions that the Sweden centre-forward is distracted by Newcastle’s perceived tardiness in offering him a new contract. Unfortunately for Howe, an apparent negotiating impasse failed to disrupt Mohamed Salah’s game during an autumn in which the Egyptian’s attacking excellence helped to propel Liverpool to the top of the Premier League.
Winter’s onset has emphasised Newcastle’s travails in front of goal – something highlighted during a disappointing recent home defeat against West Ham and an underwhelming draw at Crystal Palace. Small wonder a free-scoring right-winger is top of Howe’s January shopping list. If Newcastle could do with pulling off the transfer coup of the decade and signing Salah, the reality is that profitability and sustainability rules dictate the Saudi Arabian-owned club will almost certainly be shopping in a more modest market, with their chances of European qualification and domestic cup success dependent largely on Howe’s coaching and tactical acumen. If a strong case can be made for ditching the 4-3-3 that fails to accommodate Brazil’s Guimarães and Italy’s Sandro Tonali successfully, the manager remains wary of altering too much.
“I’m constantly analysing the team to see if there are things we can tweak or change,” he said. “If anyone is thinking I’m sat there saying we are just going to do the same thing, week in week out, nothing could be further from the truth. But you have to be very careful that the changes benefit you and don’t hurt you even more. I’m living in that world. We’ve got to stick to the things that work and just try to tweak the things that aren’t.”
A recurring problem against the West Hams and Palaces is that a Newcastle XI that has beaten Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham remains at its best when counterattacking supposedly technically superior opponents. Against more cautious, deeper-sitting rivals their ball retention and manipulation is simply not good enough to avoid forfeiting points and Howe evidently feels that, after two very quiet transfer windows, stylistic evolution demands new faces.
“I think freshness is important in a squad – I won’t sit here and deny that,” he said. “There needs to be a certain element of trading in and out to keep the group dynamic new.
“A new dynamic and a new team always has to form every season. Sometimes, the same squad can produce a staleness and a negative product. So I think we’re aware of that. But it’s about what we’re able to do rather than ‘I want’. ‘I want’ is clear. We haven’t had a huge turnover of players and that’s a slight concern.”
It also dictates that, for the moment at least, Gordon will sometimes be expected to play on his less preferred right wing.
“It’s not necessarily about what Anthony wants or what I want,” Howe said. “It’s about what the team needs. Players have to play where the team needs them. Good players can play in loads of different positions.”
Perhaps, but it remains true that Tino Livramento and Kieran Trippier are best at right-back and that, with Livramento having supplanted the suddenly ageing, injury‑prone and increasingly unsettled Trippier in Howe’s XI, Newcastle have lost their finest right-sided attacking outlet. They have also missed Trippier’s on- and perhaps off-field leadership in a season when the former England full-back is said to have been hurt by his replacement as team captain by Guimarães.
The suspicion is that the sometimes overly intense Howe, without Trippier as his first lieutenant in the dressing room, is struggling to win quite as many hearts and minds as sometimes in the past. At a time when Howe’s relationship with his sporting director, Paul Mitchell, clearly remains uneasy this is not ideal.
Given that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has spent more than £400m on players since Howe’s installation three years ago, much may hinge on not merely Liverpool’s visit but league dates at Brentford and at home against Leicester and the pivotal‑looking reunion with Brentford in the Carabao Cup quarter-final that follows.
By then Newcastle’s best central defender, the immensely influential Sven Botman, could be back after the best part of a year sidelined by an anterior cruciate ligament rupture.
“The squad we have is a very good squad,” Howe said. “It’s our job to do better with it. I’m confident in the players and I’m confident in our methods of work. I’ve got no doubts we’ll re-find our touch.”
More immediately, he can only hope Salah misplaces his on Wednesday night.
