What’s the worst that could happen? Spurs and Manchester United? | OneFootball

Eddie Howe and his Newcastle United players are now two thirds of the way through this current season.

Roughly, six months behind us, another three months in front of us.

There are 33 Newcastle United matches played so far this 2024/25 season, with 20 wins, 5 draws and 8 defeats.

Potentially, up to 18 NUFC games still to play before the campaign ends.

We all have a tendency in our lives to take things for granted.

To think that the base level is that the current situation is the minimum we can expect, just a case of looking for ways to improve on the status quo.

Not accepting that by making changes, sometimes the status quo isn’t the worst that can possibly happen. Falling into a trap of thinking there will be only two possibilities if making changes – either the situation is improved, or at the very worst you will be no worse off.

Which brings me back to Eddie Howe and Newcastle United.

I can’t get my head around why any Newcastle United fan would think he is doing anything but a brilliant job.

Yes, he doesn’t get everything right all of the time. Nobody does. Eddie Howe himself is brutally honest when things don’t go Newcastle’s way, rather than trying to deflect blame and throwing players under the bus as certain previous NUFC managers did on a regular basis, we see Eddie Howe very introspective and taking the responsibility on himself for setbacks and how to bounce back from them.

If you honestly think that Newcastle United are underachieving under Eddie Howe, just look at Manchester United and Spurs.

With the huge advantages those two clubs hold in terms of ability to spend money on transfer fees and wages, imagine where they would be now if they’d had Eddie Howe these past 39 months coaching the team and selecting the new signings.

Those two clubs should be a serious warning to those Newcastle United fans who lose all logic and perspective when the team lose games.

As I said earlier, this season in the Premier League and domestic cups, Newcastle United have won 20 matches and lost 8.

For Spurs it is won 13 and lost 15, whilst Manchester United have won 12 and lost 12.

All of that despite the massive financial advantages they have over Eddie Howe and Newcastle United.

I have heard some Newcastle United fans making out that last season (2023/24) was some kind of failure.

Missing new star signing Sandro Tonali for almost the entire campaign and the worst season in Newcastle United’s entire history for injuries, yet Eddie Howe somehow managed to guide NUFC to only six points adrift of fifth place and eight points off fourth.

Just consider this when you look at how the likes of Spurs and Manchester United are doing this season:

As you can see, Tottenham and Manchester United floundering towards the bottom end.

Yes, Spurs have had a bad season with injuries but certainly no worse than Newcastle United last season. Whilst Spurs can afford to have a far bigger more expensive and well paid squad than NUFC, so more squad options to deal with injuries. Some people point to Man U now having injury issues but you have to laugh, they have massive financial resources and a huge squad compared to Newcastle’s, whilst they have ended up loaning out this season £160m+ of signings (Antony and Sancho), as well as Rashford.

Costing nowhere near as much as those Man U players, imagine if say Eddie Howe had got Newcastle United into a position of wasting so much money and mismanaging players, that say we had Isak, Tonali and Gordon out on loan,, then expecting sympathy for ending up 15th in the table???

Without Eddie Howe, there is absolutely no way that Newcastle United would be doing so well this season (and the seasons that preceded that since the takeover) AND every chance (certainty) that NUFC would be doing a whole lot worse.