Jamie Carragher is unwavering in his defence of Eddie Howe as the next England manager. He salutes Howe’s remarkable turnaround act as steersman of Premier League club Newcastle United. The truth is, Newcastle are going through one of their most difficult spells during Howe’s tenure. Carragher insisted that Howe had been a managerial talent and should be in the conversation to take the national team job if Thomas Tuchel departs this summer.
As of this writing, Eddie Howe has been manager of Newcastle United for three years and nine months. During this entire period, the team has gone through some extreme highs and lows. When he joined the team was left to languish at the bottom of the Premier League table. In his first season, Howe managed to stabilize the team and steer them away from relegation, demonstrating his capacity to manage under pressure.
In his second season, Howe guided Newcastle to a remarkable seventh-place finish, playing a fun, dynamic, attacking style of soccer. That performance was enough to earn the club its first ever place in the Champions League. Nonetheless, it’s an unusual major victory — and perhaps the biggest in their recent history. Howe had already led Newcastle to one League Cup final, against Manchester United. This accomplishment only helped to cement his legacy as one of the greatest ever managers of the club.
The current season has proven challenging. As Carragher finished, Newcastle has been a real failure. They now sit on a nightmare run of ten in the top flight on the road without victory. It’s been one of the most challenging periods in Howe’s era at the club under the present circumstances.
“In almost four years at the club, we are going through perhaps one of the toughest moments. Just like in life, we can’t always be at the top.” – Bruno Guimaraes
Even through this adversity, Carragher is still one of Howe’s biggest supporters. He stated that Howe is “going to go down whenever he moves on from the club as one of the greatest Newcastle managers.” The ex-Liverpool rearguard opines that Howe is perhaps the best English coach by some distance, at this moment in time.
Carragher has previously blasted Newcastle’s huge Saudi takeover as it has failed to deliver the results you would expect with that kind of investment on the pitch. He spotlighted Howe’s pivotal leadership in building the team. Following such a disappointing campaign, this year’s lack of progress has left many wondering about the club’s overall direction.
Howe’s top-down, righthand-man-to-Sauron management style has recently faced a reckoning amid recent player transactions and communication difficulties. The Alexander Isak saga set a difficult tone on the summer transfer window. Howe managed to lure that talent in, including Yoane Wissa. How well he’s done so is hard to say, but his handling of all these layers has added to his legacy as an effective manager.
With talk of Tuchel going to manage the England national team, Carragher thinks that Howe should be ready to take his chance if it comes. Take a moment to appreciate what he’s done at Newcastle. After all, many fans and experts consider him to be the strongest option for the national team.
And the resulting call for Howe to at least ponder a switch to England tells you everything you should know about how his stock is soaring. His success at Newcastle, along with a clear awareness of the English football landscape would make him ideally suited in so many ways to such a role.
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