Newcastle were well beaten in the EFL Cup final, while their league form has been shaky for a couple of months. So how safe is Eddie Howe, and for how long?
It was a long way to travel for a 2-0 defeat, and supporters who made the 300-mile journey from Newcastle to London by train couldn’t even drown their sorrows on the way home.
It was a tough weekend for Newcastle United supporters. Since winning a place in the EFL Cup final against Manchester United – their first cup final in 24 years – the hope had grown that a trophy drought stretching back either 54 or 68 years (depending on whether you count the Inter Cities Fairs Cup as a major trophy) might finally be coming to a close.
Newcastle have taken part in cup finals since 1969, but their three FA Cup final appearances were all – against Liverpool in 1974, Arsenal in 1998 and Manchester United in 1999 – against teams appreciably stronger than them, while losing the League Cup final in 1976 required a rather special winning goal from Dennis Tueart to win the match for Manchester City. On this occasion, they considered themselves on something approaching an equal footing, with just two places separating the two sides in the Premier League.
Perhaps this is the issue with treating a cup final as a barometer of how far you’ve travelled. To do so might be a game too soon. Manchester United had this game effectively won by half-time thanks to goals from Casemiro and Marcus Rashford, and as red-shirted players celebrated their win at the end of 90 minutes, the tens of thousands who’d travelled down to the capital had only the perhaps-now-quite-lengthy-looking journey back to the north-east to contemplate.
On that journey there was a lot to chew over, because 2023 hasn’t exactly been as successful for Newcastle United as 2022. In the league, form has stuttered, with the team having won just one of its last seven games while failing to score more than a single goal in any of them.
They were dumped out of the FA Cup at the first time of asking by Sheffield Wednesday, and their last match before the EFL Cup final against Liverpool began with a chaotic opening 20 minutes during which they conceded two goals and had their goalkeeper sent off, all of which resulted in a first league defeat since the end of August.
All this starts to raise questions about the manager. Eddie Howe had been out of the game for a while since leaving Bournemouth following their relegation from the Premier League in…
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