Is becoming Newcastle’s first new-era manager the right job for Eddie Howe’s long-awaited return?
Howe is set to join Newcastle and is a fine manager, but this feels the wrong fit for him The celebrated basketball coach John Wooden would say “failure isn’t fatal” but if he worked in modern football, he’d concede that it is the portrait shot most choose of you. Eddie Howe took charge of Bournemouth when they sat 91st of 92 clubs in England and couldn’t afford to pay players, the rent, or for electricity. He lifted them from the “edge of the abyss” to the Premier League, staying for five years against convention before suffering relegation. Annoyingly and undeservedly, it is those last two words that stick. You probably also know that in-between his miracle-making at Bournemouth, Howe “failed” at Burnley. Perhaps you weren’t aware that during his spell at Turf Moor, 260 miles away from home and living in Manchester at the time, his mum Anne suddenly passed away in March 2012 after a short illness. “I found that period just after my mum died so difficult. It was tough on me personall