When Newcastle’s players arrived at Dubai’s Nad Al Sheba sports complex last week sharp-eyed onlookers were astonished to spot a couple of unexpected faces. Although Isaac Hayden and Ciaran Clark had been omitted from Eddie Howe’s 25-man Premier League squad in January, they were still offered seats on the plane to a warm-weather break in the Middle East and participated fully in a week’s bonding beneath a series of scorching Emirati suns.
“It’s very important we treat everyone with love and care,” explained Howe as he justified the pair’s inclusion. Football managers can never keep everybody happy all the time but Newcastle’s head coach has worked hard to create harmony at St James’ Park and the benefits are already translating into wins on the pitch.
There were no victories before Howe took charge of the team in November but he has since presided over seven from 19 games, lifting Newcastle to the verge of mid-table security.
Each time three points have been collected, Howe routinely asks all non-playing substitutes and squad members to join off-field staff and injured players in posing for a landmark smiling group photograph alongside those who actually played in the match. It may seem a bit cheesy to some but Howe believes such unifying exercises are every bit as integral to Newcastle’s renaissance as his reinvention of Joelinton.
“It’s part of the culture we’re trying to create, a culture in which everyone’s in it together,” says Steve Bruce’s successor. “It’s not just about the first XI on the pitch; everyone at the club plays a huge part in any success.”
This communitarian philosophy has proved persuasive. Perhaps most notably, Jamaal Lascelles accepts that, since Dan Burn’s £13m arrival from Brighton, his place in Howe’s starting team is no longer guaranteed. Such good grace on the captain’s part was not always a given; it is not so long ago that Lascelles expressed his displeasure in training when Newcastle’s former manager Rafael Benítez shifted him from the middle to the right of a back three.
Lascelles also used to have a preference for operating alongside Clark but that failed to spare the Irishman from Howe’s January squad pruning. Not that the latter who, albeit inadvertently revealed Joelinton’s potential as a midfielder, has neglected to do his bit for the cause.
In late November, Newcastle remained winless and bottom of the Premier League when fellow strugglers Norwich visited St James’ Park. To Howe’s dismay, Clark self destructed in the ninth minute, collecting an idiotic red card which left the manager forced to order Joelinton to drop back from an attacking role alongside Callum Wilson into central midfield.
It initially looked a desperate measure but Newcastle’s hitherto infamously underachieving £40m Brazilian centre-forward swiftly began channelling his inner Patrick Vieira and proceeded to prove pivotal in securing a draw.
A player quickly dubbed N’Jolo (after Kanté) has remained there, proving an integral element of Howe’s reshaped 4-3-3 formation, with Joelinton and either Bruno Guimarães or Joe Willock flanking the similarly reborn playmaker Jonjo Shelvey.
Eyebrows lifted when shortly after his installation Howe announced he intended to rebuild the team around Shelvey’s undeniable if sometimes erratic passing talent. At different times Benítez and Bruce made the playmaker the focal point but both managers eventually lost trust in Shelvey, demoting him to the bench for lengthy periods.
So far at least there is no indication of Howe following suit and it is perhaps not entirely coincidental that Newcastle’s last two games since Shelvey’s sidelining with a hamstring injury ended in 1-0 defeats at Chelsea and Everton.
Benítez always said the key to engaging Shelvey’s gifts was making him feel an essential part of things and Howe appears to have done precisely that. With the Switzerland defender Fabian Schär and the Scotland winger Ryan Fraser having also improved beyond recognition since the change of management it would be unfair to say Newcastle’s revival is purely down to their having spent £90m on importing fresh legs in January.
Granted Guimarães, Burn, Kieran Trippier, Chris Wood and Matt Targett have strengthened a squad missing the injured Wilson’s attacking talents but, particularly given a broken foot has deprived them of Trippier’s capacity to shape games from right back, Howe deserves considerable credit.
As Allan Saint-Maximin limbered up for next Sunday’s trip to Tottenham by scoring twice in a 5-0 friendly win against Dubai’s Gulf United, managed by the former Newcastle defender Steven Taylor, on Thursday, Howe’s thoughts turned to returning home.
If there are justifiable reservations about Newcastle’s Saudi ownership, there is no doubt that St James’ Park has become a happier place since a Saudi Arabian-led consortium bought out Mike Ashley.
With minority shareholder Amanda Staveley now responsible for day-to-day operations on Tyneside, employees have welcomed decisions to, among several other things, pay everyone working for the club at least the living wage and turn the promotion-chasing fourth-tier women’s team professional. Tellingly, Newcastle women will play at St James’ Park for the first time when they face Barnsley on 1 May.
By then Howe’s team intend to have banished any lingering relegation fears while a brand new multi-million pound community hub housing Newcastle’s charity foundation will have opened its doors to the vulnerable.
Outsiders may legitimately talk of Saudi sportwashing and some fans feel ethically conflicted, but such mixed emotions should not detract from the transformative “love and care” Howe and Staveley are pouring into a club the wider city is once again starting to take pride in.
