The staff at Newcastle knew Eddie Howe was different from the rest when he detailed his Saturday match-day routine.
If kick-off was 3pm at home, he would need his office at St James’ Park ready by 9.30am to allow him time to undertake final preparations in peace and quiet. Given that someone as meticulous as Rafael Benítez had tended to stroll into the ground sometimes after midday on such Saturdays it was clear Howe stood apart from his predecessors.
Where past managers would sometimes linger long after the final whistle, enjoying a post-match drink before heading out to sociable dinners, Howe routinely goes straight his home in Northumberland. Once there, his wife and three sons know he will spend part of the evening rewatching the match.
That routine is so entrenched that bystanders were taken by surprise when, after Newcastle beat Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League last October, Howe, for once, remained to celebrate, arriving home too late to review the match footage.
Although Newcastle narrowly failed to progress from a Champions League group containing not just PSG but the eventual finalists Borussia Dortmund, the tactical astuteness of that deconstruction of Kylian Mbappé and co emphasises precisely why Howe could prove an excellent successor to Gareth Southgate.
He routinely drives into the training ground at 6.30am and, much more importantly, his extreme assiduity is reflected on the pitch. Just ask, among others, Fabian Schär. Howe’s predecessor, Steve Bruce, was not alone in believing the Switzerland international was unsuited to deployment in a Premier League back four.
Howe had heard the theory that the centre-half needed to be fielded in a back five operating a low block but envisaged a very different future for Benítez’s £3m signing. Schär remains an accomplished ball-playing defender but these days he shines in a 4-3-3 formation and is accustomed to being part of a very high line as Newcastle press.
Extracting hitherto latent potential from individuals is something of a Howe speciality with Miguel Almirón, Sean Longstaff, Joe Willock and Jacob Murphy also improved beyond recognition on his watch.
If the idea of Howe bringing the very best out of Phil Foden, Jude Bellingham and Harry Kane for England represents an enticing prospect, there are caveats. He has said his training sessions are “very difficult and demanding” and the England and Newcastle winger Anthony Gordon has said that, after leaving Everton, it took him six months to fully comprehend how he was supposed to play.
Such is the nuanced choreography of Newcastle’s pressing system that it provokes the question as to whether Howe may be better suited to the day-to-day life of a club coach. Moreover, something of a loner who openly admits he “cannot be friends” with fellow managers and is notoriously guarded about allowing outsiders into his inner circle may struggle with the national coach’s need to be collegiate.
Southgate’s role in changing the culture surrounding the England team for the better and publicly confronting assorted social issues including, most notably, racism was exemplary.
Howe is equally articulate but a manager who invariably chooses the right words at the right time and speaks in immaculately constructed sentences has consistently body-swerved non-footballing discussions. Admissions that he enjoys playing the piano, taking his boxer dog for country walks and listening to A-ha songs are about the sum of what is known of the private life of a man who sometimes avoids attention by disguising himself in hats, glasses and outsize coats.
The days when reporters and supporters bumped into Alan Pardew in Waitrose in Ponteland and Benítez in the South Gosforth branch of Sainsbury’s are long gone but part of the problem is Newcastle’s contentious Saudi ownership. Howe has consistently stonewalled questions on the subject and would not relish it being revisited by reporters covering England.
That said, it is not impossible to envisage the 46-year-old becoming a little more emboldened in an England tracksuit. Howe certainly does not shy away from confrontation. After exhibiting a willingness to ask his team to take breathers by sometimes adopting streetwise gamesmanship as Newcastle finished fourth in the Premier League in 2023, he willingly crossed swords with rivals including Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta and Liverpool’s Jürgen Klopp. “We’re not here to be popular, we’re here to compete,” he told Arteta.
His tactics bear a certain resemblance to the heavy metal of Klopp’s early Liverpool but the style Howe has evolved since rescuing his team from near-certain relegation in 2021-22 suggests he is enough of a chameleon coach to thrive internationally.
Granted, he always liked to attack at Bournemouth but during a sabbatical after leaving them he decided he needed to modernise his approach along with the handwritten training sessions he had just digitised.
Training ground field trips to watch Diego Simeone, Ernesto Valverde, Andoni Iraola and Maurizio Sarri at work at Atlético Madrid, Athletic Bilbao, Rayo Vallecano and Empoli respectively duly ensued. The FA can rest assured Howe remains up to date with every international tactical trend and every possible set-piece innovation.
If he can be a closed book in public, privately Newcastle’s manager likes to bond with his players. Indeed, shortly after arriving he turned emotional while telling squad members his life story. Significantly, all new signings are expected to similarly bare their souls.
“I’d never previously felt comfortable confiding in a manager,” Joe Willock told the Guardian two years ago. “But Eddie Howe’s someone I trust a lot.”
England could do an awful lot worse.
