Football Daily | Thought leader Eddie Howe runs out of time and ideas at Newcastle

FAREWELL, FAST EDDIE

That a vote of confidence isn’t worth the paper it’s written on has long been a footballing cliché. But not until this day did we know that this even applies to a vote of confidence that comes from Jonjo Shelvey – a man so devoted to the righteously upstanding that he once accused Alex Ferguson of grassing, following a high tackle committed in front of 45,000 fans, a worldwide television audience of millions and in full view of the referee.

“The games are on so late out here,” said the Arabian Falcons boss in April, when explaining why Eddie Howe should keep the Newcastle job. “It is hard to sit down and watch them constantly, but when there is a game on I will try my hardest to watch.” To his immense credit, though, Shelvey was undeterred by the daunting three-hour time difference that had the Magpies playing at all sorts of crazy hours, ranging from 3pm through to 11pm, mining the breadth and depth of his accumulated wisdom before surmising with characteristic erudition that “For me, they should stick with Eddie because he is a top, top manager.”

Despite so emphatic an endorsement, Newcastle’s honourable custodians were less certain. In September, David Hopkinson, the CEO, referred to Howe as the club’s very own Bruce Springsteen – which, at the time, seemed to characterise him as the treasured thought leader of integrity, personality and magnetism we all know him to be. But perhaps the absence of corpsing told us that Hopkinson was taking a Trumpian line – most recently, the US president said the Boss “looks like hell” – because by April, Hopkinson was equivocating on Howe’s position, advising that “we’ll talk about the future when it’s time”, the latent menace a trick of our collective mind. Well, it appears that time is now – even if, by Shelvey’s calculations, it’s the middle of an eternal night – and Howe is a goner, finally ushered through the door marked Do One.

“Every day as Newcastle manager is a great day for me,” he mused with typical candour, er … last night. “I believe great things are possible every season with a real buzz of what’s ahead. I see no reason for it to be any different this year.” Those with long memories could be forgiven for recalling 11 January 2011, when Howe announced he was staying at Bournemouth before, on 14 January 2011, he became the new Burnley manager. Which is to say that, though he may occasionally act to the contrary to avoid distracting questions about bone saws, Fast Eddie actually has a fairly good idea of how football works and may just have had an inkling that his employers – though renowned for their love of jigsaw puzzles and kindness to small animals – are occasionally capable of shedding their ruth for purely altruistic purposes. Rumours that the parting of ways was prompted by the new laws on goalkeeper “tactical time-outs” are understood to be wide of the mark.

Replacing Howe and taking responsibility for preserving the tradition of Wor Jackie, George Robledo and John Carver, best captured by that famous green-and-white away kit, will be Matthias Jaissle. After protracted, complex negotiations between the majority owners of Newcastle – Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund – and the owners of Al-Ahli – Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund – he will soon be released from his contract, many thousands of seconds after talks began. Though Jaissle is highly regarded by those in the know, the rest of us now have a problem: given the intimidating hour-long time difference between Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, when will Jonjo Shelvey be available to break down the essentials?