Stan Collymore admits he’s happy to eat humble pie over the job Eddie Howe is doing at Newcastle.
The former Liverpool and Aston Villa striker turned pundit was critical of the job Howe did at Bournemouth in the end. He didn’t think the manager was able to learn from the mistakes he and his side kept making at the back and feared a lack of pragmatism would ultimately cost him his chance with a bigger club.
However, the job Howe has done at St James’ Park has convinced Mirror Sport columnist Collymore otherwise and, ahead of Sunday’s clash with Tottenham, he is happy to have been proven wrong. “Hands up, I was wrong about Eddie Howe,” said Collymore.
“I wasn’t sure he’d be able to make the step up to a bigger football club — particularly in a one-club city — after his last season at Bournemouth. I questioned the fact that, despite playing beautiful football under Howe, the Cherries shipped so many goals and why he never worked out how to stop it.
“He wasn’t pragmatic enough, and both he and his old club paid the price for that with relegation. But — and it’s a big but — he has taken to managing Newcastle like a duck to water. And while I’m still not fully on board with what Mikel Arteta and Arsenal are doing, I have to say I am with everything Howe and the Geordies are up to.
“Look, I haven’t changed my mind about the geo-politics of it all. But there’s an earthiness and authenticity about the team under Howe and, I have to say, he himself is really looking the part.
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“Given Newcastle’s wealth, it would have been very easy for Howe to go in thinking, ‘I’ve the budget to get players who can ape what Manchester City and, currently, Arsenal are doing’. But instead he and the recruitment team went after proper pros such as Dan Burn and Kieran Trippier.
“And you only have to look at what he has done with Joelinton, in turning him from a forward to a midfielder, to realise he is showing the pragmatism I once thought he didn’t have. I always say the best managers make average players good, and good players very good, and I’m seeing that with Howe at Newcastle.
“So I’m happy to eat humble pie and I guess the only fear is that, while he will want to stay for a long time, Newcastle will outgrow him before he outgrows them. Time will tell whether or not he can turn them from a top-10 club to a Europa League club and then into a Champions League club.
“And, if he can’t, then you can see the Toon turning to Jose Mourinho, Antonio Conte, Mauricio Pochettino or one of those guys down the line. If Howe were to leave in the next couple of years, he’d be real candidate now for the England job, should it be available, such is the impact he has had.
“Let’s not forget he wasn’t even first choice for Amanda Staveley and the Saudis — that was Unai Emery. But as fantastic a job as Emery did at Sevilla in particular, I’m not sure he’d have been anything like the fit Howe looks at Newcastle. He looks like he understands the club and its expectations.
“Would Emery have gone for Trippier and Burn? Probably not, and that authenticity that Newcastle have brought in, the supporters seem to like, they can identify with it.
“My club, Aston Villa, seem to have lost their soul at the minute, their Brumminess — not the fans or the stadium, but the club and team — and on the flip side Howe seems to have given Newcastle a real north-east identity, which shouldn’t be underestimated.
“The gaudiness I feared with all the cash will probably still come at some point, it’s impossible that it won’t given the money the Geordies have. But for now they have grown on me, they’ve pulled me in, and we should enjoy while we can an English coach doing it his way and proving people like me wrong by moving one of our biggest clubs forward.”
