Eddie Howe has been the target of a lot of criticism this season.
Some of it justified, some of it not.
When results aren’t meeting the hopes and expectations, then any manager can expect to be put under the spotlight.
However, some of the things people come out with have been laughable where Eddie Howe is concerned.
Though we may now have a new stand out winner.
The latest massive blunder I have seen some Newcastle United fans putting forward, is how Eddie Howe has supposedly held the club back by refusing to sell star players.
So the argument goes, if Eddie Howe hadn’t been so stubborn and had allowed the sale of some of the club’s best players in past transfer windows, then Newcastle United would be in a far better position now. The theory being that by allowing some of United’s best players to go, that would then have generated far more investment to bring other players in.
Sometimes selling one or more players to help you then buy others, can prove a success. However, I do think that when this is a case of selling your best players, that rarely is the case. The media and fans tend to be very selective in the examples they come out with to ‘prove’ their point. Liverpool selling Coutinho and then buying Van Dijk and Alisson is often pushed as ‘proof’ of the argument. The fact is that Coutinho was determined to leave and forced his way out, rather than Liverpool choosing to sell him. Indeed, they did everything they could to keep him and actually refused to sell the Brazilian, only relenting when it came to the following transfer window and accepting it was best all round to let him get his wish.
My understanding is that Eddie Howe has never insisted that a Newcastle United player be kept at the club when desperate to leave. Across summer 2025 it was made very clear that it was the Newcastle United owners who were refusing to sell Alexander Isak, only to then at the very last minute sell him on deadline day to Liverpool.
Indeed, whoever was and wasn’t making decisions on Alexander Isak, it is ironic for any Newcastle United fan to be now saying the failure to sell the club’s best players is what has been holding NUFC back, when we have seen how things have worked out this season.
As for choosing to use this against Eddie Howe, I find it crazy.
I think it is the exact opposite. The ability of Eddie Howe to recruit Newcastle United’s best players AND retain them, has been central to the relative success enjoyed in recent seasons.
The prime exhibit is the 2024/25 season.
A lot of players contributed to what most of us see as the most successful season they have ever lived through, winning a trophy AND qualifying for the Champions League via a top five league finish. However, I would say for sure, if any one of Alexander Isak, Bruno Guimaraes, Anthony Gordon, or Sandro Tonali had been sold in summer 2024, then there would have been no second Champions League qualification in three seasons and certainly no trophy.
If you recall, the incompetence of the Newcastle United owners and the senior staff they employed to run the club at the time (CEO Darren Eales, plus Amanda Staveley who had a management contract) allowed a PSR crisis to develop. As well as no first team player able to be bought across that summer 2024, it became public in June 2024 that by the end of the month (the end of the financial year) they had to generate in excess of £50m profit from player sales. This wasn’t a case of just selling £50m+ worth of players, it was making £50m+ profit on the current book value of one or more current players.
So the Newcastle United owners were looking at all options, potentially Bruno Guimaraes or one of the other key star players leaving. It was widely reported that talks were held with Chelsea about Alexander Isak potentially going there, the same with Liverpool and Anthony Gordon.
My reading of the situation is that Eddie Howe was left in an impossible position and I think he will have made clear that considering how few top quality players there were in the Newcastle United squad at that point, plus an inability to bring in any new first team contenders that summer of 2024, then to lose one of Gordon, Bruno or Isak (Tonali was yet to complete his gambling ban and after almost a year without playing, any sale of him at the time would have produced minimal profit on his then current book value) would have been a disaster.
The lesser of two evils then saw Elliot Anderson (who had made only 13 Premier League starts for NUFC) and Yankuka Minteh (hadn’t played a minute for NUFC) sacrificed to generate the £50m+ profit to ward off a PSR points deduction and other potential punishments.
I have no doubt that Eddie Howe played a key part in that decision making process, certainly would have said what he considered the lesser of two evils, selling future potential talents as opposed to a key proven current star.
The rest as they say is history.
Newcastle United fans enjoying their best ever season.
The tragedy of course is that Eddie Howe and the club had to make this choice at all, that the rules supposedly promoting fairness and stability, instead presented a Hobson’s choice. Having to sell one of your best current key players, or sell one or more of those you hope to be the key player(s) of the future.
As for the idea of choosing to sell your very best players in order to then be able to buy other players, I am still haunted by the events of summer 1988. Paul Gascoigne was sold and a handful of players recruited using what was then a record English transfer fee from Tottenham, Newcastle United ended up relegated that 1988/89 season and the club set back any number of years.