Rio Ferdinand has stated that Eddie Howe ‘understands’ how to navigate Newcastle United out of the relegation zone, as he told BT Sport 1 (06/11/21 at 5:10 pm).
The former centre-back added that in England we ‘overhype’ individuals that do well and ‘overplay’ those that don’t.
He was making reference to the one and only relegation on the CV of the seemingly incoming Newcastle boss.
Howe’s last job was in Bournemouth’s colours, who were relegated just after the pandemic hit the world, and since then, he has been out-of-work.
Well, the Englishman was in the stands yesterday as Newcastle recorded a 1-1 draw at Brighton.
It hasn’t been officially announced yet, but it’s obvious that Howe will be the man to replace Steve Bruce, as Ferdinand delivered his honest verdict on his imminent arrival.
“In this country, we overhype the good times and we overplay what’s going on when things aren’t going well,” said Ferdinand.
“We have to get away from that. But Eddie Howe, in terms of knowing what needs to be done is to save this club from going down – he is somebody who has experience doing that.
“Yes, his last tenure didn’t end well. But if you look at his CV before, and leading up to that, he is somebody that understands how to navigate a team through periods of where they are looking like they could go down and they survive.”
The first task for Howe is to just get three points on the board, no matter how he does it because the players’ morale is on the floor.
The longer it takes for Howe to get a win, the more pressure that will build on his shoulders, but if he does it straight away, then it wouldn’t be a surprise if two then come at once.
The big advantage for Howe is that he will have two weeks, during the international break, to get to know his players and put a system together.
Luckily, quite a lot of them won’t go off on national duty, so that will help him in his cause.
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