Liverpool is no longer the underdog, according to Oliver Hatt. There is danger awaiting Eddie Howe after they gave their soul to the Saudis and are currently ranked ninth.
Eddie Howe stated in March 2022 that he was studying Saudi Arabia, the oppressive nation that owns Newcastle United, to be better equipped to discuss the extraordinarily rich, totalitarian state that provides him with a salary.
We are expecting news that Howe is going to present his doctoral thesis on the subject for his Ph.D., rather than a press conference comment, as nearly two years have gone by since the Newcastle boss said nothing on the matter.
Perhaps it will even provide some insight into the Saudis’ perception of the manager of a team that has the world’s wealthiest owners, has made extravagant transfers, has lost six of its past seven games, finished bottom of its Champions League group, was eliminated from the Carabao Cup, and has quickly dropped to ninth place in the Premier League.
Nor does it seem that things on Tyneside are going to get much better any time soon. On New Year’s Day, Newcastle will play away at league leaders Liverpool. At the end of January, they will host Manchester City and travel to Aston Villa. By the time that run ends, Howe and his club might be nearer the relegation zone than the top four.
Newcastle has an uncomfortable FA Cup Third Round trip to Sunderland in the middle of that run of league games. They haven’t faced their fierce neighborhood competitors since 2016 and haven’t triumphed over them since 2011. With the present wealth gap between the two clubs, a loss for Newcastle would be an embarrassing experience that would take a long time to recover from.
We are aware of the Newcastle owners’ recent performance history in the following areas: For example, Salma al-Shehab, a young mother, can face 34 years in prison for retweeting, while Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist, faces a meeting with a bone saw and a body bag for more organized opposition to the regime.
However, because sportswashing is a relatively new endeavor for the Kingdom and Newcastle is the first team they have owned, under the guise of their Public Investment Fund, in any of Europe’s major leagues, there is no precedent for Saudi Arabia’s treatment of the struggling manager of their flagship football club.
Howe and Newcastle’s new owners had performed admirably at St. James’ Park before the latest decline. Contrary to popular belief, the Saudis made smart and strategic purchases, resisting the need to overspend on superstars in favor of quality players who would help them advance.
The finest example of that is Kieran Trippier, a player who has excelled both on and off the field and contributed significantly to Newcastle’s fourth-place result from the previous campaign. Trippier has served as an ambassador for the team and provided the professionalism and character that the team needed to emerge from its gloom.
Additionally, excellent additions that have fueled Newcastle’s ascent and revitalized a fan base that had, understandably, been utterly disillusioned with the previous ownership of Mike Ashley include Bruno Guimaraes, Dan Burn, Sven Botman, Nick Pope, and Anthony Gordon.
And Howe has been at the center of it all. The players he inherited have progressed, and he has blended them in well with the newcomers. He is an excellent coach whose inherent modesty and the outcomes he produced earned him the respect and allegiance of the Toon Army, who returned the favor with a fervor that few teams can match.
Despite the club’s disastrous recent results, this allegiance has scarcely wavered. The supporters, especially those who attend games, are still firmly in favor of Howe. They are aware of the amazing work he has done and can still vividly recall the circumstances leading up to his arrival.
What troubles Howe and his supporters, though, is that Newcastle has evolved. It is no longer an underdog team. Many of its followers boasted that the club was suddenly the richest in the world after the takeover. The bar has been raised.
Therefore, it does not present a positive image for the “richest club in the world” to be relegated to the ninth spot in its league. Finishing last in its Champions League group and missing out on the Europa League is not a good look. It does not look good to be looking at another trophy-less year.
The manager’s constant whining about injuries, as though Newcastle is the only team having to deal with absences, does not look good. Howe has frequently chosen to start two goalkeepers on the bench, which is an awkward method of highlighting those ailments and a sign that he is under pressure.
Additionally, it would have been a good idea for someone at Newcastle to conduct further research on Sandro Tonali, the midfield player they acquired for £55 million from AC Milan in the summer, before his 10-month suspension from sport owing to allegations of betting violations in Italy.
Many players are injured for Brighton, Tottenham, Manchester United, Liverpool, and Manchester City. You could discover that whining about absent players won’t get you very far when your owners are the wealthiest in the world of sports. Additionally, it could disgrace those owners, who have already invested a large sum of money in Newcastle.
Of course, the Saudis continue to brag about how much ahead of schedule Newcastle is and how much support they have for Howe. Hopefully, that is the case. It will be interesting to watch how patient they are if the challenging month ahead does not turn out the way they had hoped. Again, there’s no template to predict their response.
For this phase of the English football revolution in Saudi Arabia, Howe has been the ideal frontman. He is a self-evidently moral man who is also accomplished, intelligent, sympathetic, soft-spoken, modest, and talented. Unknowingly, he has served as a human shield for a government that is well-known for persecuting its critics and minorities.
Even though the club’s soul has been sold to the Saudis, he has given Newcastle character and individuality. Because of Howe’s success, everyone has been able to disregard the unpleasant aspects of the takeover and act as though Newcastle is still the same team they have always been rather than the vassal state of a country whose values the people of the North East find so offensive. Now, Newcastle’s supporters run the risk of the Saudis concluding Howe is beyond his prime. The risk is that, in an attempt to boost their profile even further, they will decide to veer from the strategy that has propelled them so far and begin looking for a celebrity manager like Jose Mourinho.
Hopefully, the Saudis are too intelligent for that. We can only hope that they extend Howe’s stay. Howe undoubtedly has an idea regarding that, but we shouldn’t hold our breath to discover what it is.